Swell Read Free

except ignore my existence.
    I had given up my crush on Christian by Christmas, when I finished the tooth mural and Dr. Rusch had paid me right in front of him. He sat in a chair by the walnut desk, drinking a Coke and looking at me out of the corner of his eye. Maybe he had thought about me then, but it sure didn’t seem like it. Mr. Perfect would never want to give Ms. Artsy-Fartsy the time of day.
    Even though it was more than I wanted in the whole wide world, Christian dancing with me burst my bubble. All the shields I’d put up to protect me from the hurt of being ignored were knocked down. Even though I was confused, the days following the toga dance left me with a serious case of boy on the brain.
    I refused to eat much of what my mom tried to force-feed me, preferring to hide in my room and write in my journal. I wasn’t sure about how I really felt, except that my body buzzed with electricity whenever thoughts of Christian entered my mind. I was practically glowing with lightning bolts all weekend.
    “Do you think he’ll remember me?” I asked Jenna, who sat on the end of my bed painting her toenails lime green.
    “It was pretty dark in the gym.”
    She kicked a pile of laundry onto the floor to give herself more room. I had a habit of not putting clean clothes away because I hated folding them. Besides, laundry on the bed kept me warmer in the winter than an extra blanket.
    “Does it look like I’ve got fungus feet?” she asked, delaying a response to my concerns about Christian. Jenna liked playing with my mind.
    “If you’re concerned about fungus feet, you should have picked another color. Now, can we get back to this very important problem I have?”
    She put down the bottle of polish and politely folded her hands in her lap. “Beck, I’m sure he’ll remember you, kay?”
    “But what about Monday?”
    “He hangs out at Jock Wall. Just go up and talk to him.”
    Jock Wall was a block of stucco bricks lined with benches where the popular kids hung out. I usually avoided walking by it, because the guys would hang over the wall and spit on the serfs like me below. I would have to walk by the wall on Monday to see if Christian was there. If he was, I would approach him.
    “You might try asking Olivia Baskin. She ran track with him last year.” Jenna picked up the polish again and started on her left foot.
    “Wasn’t she his girlfriend?” I recalled Olivia following Christian whenever, wherever possible around school. It was clear that she was in love with him. Then she was out for a week and after that she never followed him again.
    “Naw. She wishes she was. But they were pretty close.”
    I sighed and leaned back, plans for Monday swirling around my head like ghosts in a haunted mansion. There was so much to do besides figure out how I was going to approach Christian. Things like what the hell I would wear, how to do my hair, and if I really had any basis for thinking about any of this to begin with.
    Monday came too quick. As I walked toward Jock Wall, I knew that I’d worn the wrong thing — I was encased in a yellow sweater dress that kept falling off my shoulders. Jenna said the color brought out my luscious dark highlights and enhanced my brown eyes. Instead, I felt like Tweedy Bird.
    The wall was in my line of sight, its peach-colored stucco plastered with posters about the annual Senior Trip to Disneyland and last-minute yearbook orders. Several of the popular kids were already there.
    It was easy to spot Jeff Hillman, a friend of Christian’s. A tuft of bright red hair had marked Hillman for life, topping-off a body that rippled in muscle and lean flesh. In spite of his manly attributes, he wasn’t my type and never would be. It wasn’t the freckles and pale skin, or the unnatural hair color. It was that he gave me the creeps whenever I saw him, like something was wrong but I couldn’t say exactly what.
    A few of the rah-rah crowd stood nearby, including Devin Stewart, the head