I held back a sigh as Margo groaned and flopped back in her seat. We’d all been over this so many times, it was getting super old.
“I’m not changing who I am just to get a guy,” I said for the millionth time.
“She’s being herself, just in a way you’re not used to,” Margo chimed in.
I pointed back to her—Margo got it. “Exactly. I’m being me, just… a new me. I want to be all of me.”
Trent looked unconvinced.
“I’m fun, right?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yeah, of course.”
“And I can flirt…I think.” I’d never really tried because there were no guys in my old high school who wanted to flirt with me.
“I’m sure you can,” my ever-supportive Margo said.
Trent rolled his eyes. I think it icked him out to think of me flirting just like I didn’t particularly like to think about what he and Margo got up to during their sexytime.
I’m serious when I say that Trent was the brother I’d never had. And I guess Margo was kind of like the sister I’d never had. So together? Ew. I couldn’t go there.
I shook off the horrid thought and focused on the conversation at hand. “And I am a girl, right? So why shouldn’t I have fun and flirt with boys?” I grasped Trent’s hand, outright pleading with him to understand. “Just once I want a guy to look at me like I’m a girl. I want to be invited to parties that aren’t a bunch of dudes playing video games.”
“You like video games,” he pointed out.
I rolled my eyes. “Of course I like video games, but every once in a while I’d like to go to a party where there are girls there and dancing and spiked punch and—”
“And you have watched too many movies,” Margo said with a laugh. “No one has spiked punch at house parties.”
I waved her off. “Fine. Beer. Whatever. I just want to experience what it’s like to be popular and…” Wanted. Noticed. Seen. “And liked for something other than my skills on the field or as a gamer.”
Trent looked like he might relent, but he still had concern in his eyes. “But you’re not going to stop playing soccer, right?”
I shook my head. “Of course not. I love soccer, and volleyball, and softball—I’m not giving them up. I just don’t want that to be all that defines me.”
At this point, my monologue was on automatic. We’d gone through this before. So. Many. Times. I loved the fact that he loved me just as I was, but in a way Trent’s view of me was part of the problem. He’d never see me as anything other than his old pal Ronnie, and I couldn’t wait to be surrounded by people who didn’t know me at all.
I glanced up at the school and watched as a stream of students filed out of cars and into the big double doors. An entire school full of people who didn’t know me.
This was my dream come true.
“Fine,” Trent relented, reaching into the backseat to grab my book bag. “Let me know how it goes today.”
“I will.”
“And tell Drew I say hello.”
His words stopped me as I was reaching for the door handle, a sick feeling started to well up in my gut. “Drew?” I turned around to face him. “Who’s Drew?”
I could only think of one Drew. As far as I knew, Trent and I both only knew one Drew.
Relax, Ronnie. Maybe this Drew was a musician who Trent knew from seeing local bands or something. Maybe he was a friend of the family or—
“Drew Remi,” he said.
The name made my stomach heave. Drew Remi. As in the same Drew who’d gone to school with us up until first semester last year, when he’d moved away.
“Drew moved to California,” I said. From what I’d heard, his mom had gotten a job in Los Angeles and Drew had moved there with her. My friends and I had been jealous when we’d heard that he was leaving cold Pennsylvania behind for sunny California. Most of the girls in our class had gone into mourning, but no one had whined and wailed more than his girlfriend, April. Or ex-girlfriend, I guess. After he’d left, she’d stopped moaning and started dating another one of the popular guys in our class.
But no one had been more popular than Drew Remi. He’d been an A-lister, if such a thing exists outside of Hollywood. He’d been athletic, hot, and charming…or so I heard. I hadn’t had much to do with him since junior high. Before that point, we’d all been friends. But once puberty hit, it was a whole other story. Everyone separated. Drew had become super popular and I… had not.
“He and his sister didn’t stay in California long. They moved back to town last spring and started at Briarwood,” Trent was saying this as though it was no big deal. Like he was just mentioning that it looked overcast outside. Hey, it might rain today. Also, your whole plan at reinventing yourself is doomed to fail. Have a great day!
“I didn’t know that.” Margo was looking at Trent with the same look of horrified outrage I wore, though why Margo was upset was not nearly as obvious to me.
For me, this could ruin everything.
She swatted his shoulder. “You should have told me.”
Ah. It was a couple thing, apparently. I shook my head, I couldn’t worry about their squabbles at a time like this.
“It’s not a secret,” he said. “But it doesn’t have anything to do with us or our friends. Sounds like he has a new crew these days. New school, new team, new girls.” Trent shrugged as if this was obvious.
“Why didn’t he come back to Atwater?” Margo asked.
He shrugged again. “I don’t know. Probably because Briarwood has the better baseball team.”
Ugh. I’d forgotten that he’d been an up-and-coming baseball star when he’d left our school.
“So he doesn’t see his old friends anymore?” Margo asked. “What happened?” She was clearly in info gathering mode whereas I was just trying to quell the burgeoning panic attack. I was here. I was all decked out in new clothes, with new makeup and a freakin’ blowout that took forever to perfect.
This could not be all in vain just because Drew freakin’ Remi decided he didn’t like California.
“Maybe he hangs with some of his old friends,” Trent hedged. He clearly had no idea. Drew’s ‘old friends’ meant that elite little clique that ruled my former public school with their trendy clothes and effortless confidence. Trent didn’t hang out with that crowd, and while Margo was friendly with some of the A-list girls, she didn’t party enough to be in their inner circle and apparently that satellite status meant that she’d missed a key bit of gossip.
A totally relevant bit of gossip that could change everything.
“You guys, focus,” I said.
Both heads swiveled so they were facing me. Trent still looked confused, but Margo had that look of determination I loved so much.
It meant she had a plan.
“He won’t recognize you,” she said.
Trent and I stared at her. I finally broke the silence. “Margo, I went to school with Drew from kindergarten through freshman year. I think he knows who I am.”
“She peed her pants at his birthday party,” Trent helpfully added.
Margo turned to me and I threw my hands up. “I was five! And this is not the time to rehash old embarrassing stories, Trent.” I gave his shoulder a shove that made him grunt.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. Turning to Margo, he added, “But the point is. He’s going to know who she is.” Then to me, “I just don’t see what the big deal is. So Drew knows, that’s a good thing, right? You’ll have a ready-made friend.”
Margo and I shared a look of exasperation. She was the only one who understood what I was trying to achieve here. A new me. A clean slate. Bye, bye Ronnie the tomboy. Hello, Veronica the dateable. Veronica who did normal girl things with normal girls. Veronica who got attention from boys for something other than her ability to dribble and hold her own in Fallout 4.
“She doesn’t want a ready-made friend,” Margo said.
“Also,” I piped up. “He and I were never friends. At least, not since
fifth grade. Why would he suddenly want to be my friend?”
“Because you’re hot.” Trent’s face split in a grin I’d never seen before. The way he was looking at me was gross. “Seriously, what did Margo do to you? You look like a… like a…”
“Like a girl?” I finished.
He nodded. “Yeah.” Then his gaze met mine and he scowled. “It’s weird.”
I shrugged. “Get used to it.”
Margo leaned forward so her head was jutting between us, effectively cutting off this new bickering match before we could rehash the same argument for the millionth time. “Trent just made my point for me.”
He frowned at me. “I did?”
I frowned at him. “He did?”
Margo nodded confidently. “He did. My dufus of a boyfriend here is right.” Grasping me by the shoulders, I was forced to turn awkwardly to face her in the back seat. “You. Are. Hot. Trust me when I say that he won’t recognize you.”
She looked so sure of herself and her makeover abilities, I didn’t have the heart to argue. But I caught Trent’s look over her shoulder. He wasn’t convinced, and neither was I. Drew and I might not have been friends but we’d known each other forever. Makeup and hair wouldn’t erase that.
I forced a smile for Margo’s sake. “Maybe you’re right.” And even if she wasn’t, it was fine. I would just steer clear of him. He’d managed to ignore me for years before he left our school, surely he’d do the same now.
And I’d do the same. Ignore, ignore, ignore.
I flipped down the overhead mirror on the car’s sun visor and gave my new and improved face one last look.
I looked good. I looked like a girl. I looked… nothing like me.
But this was the new me, I reminded myself just like I’d reminded Trent.
Get used to it.
To continue reading, check out Out of His League
About the Author
MAGGIE DALLEN IS a big city girl living in Montana. She writes romantic comedies in a range of genres including young adult, historical, contemporary, and fantasy. An unapologetic addict of all things romance, she loves to connect with fellow avid readers. Subscribe to her newsletter at http://eepurl.com/bFEVsL
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