Izzy came over and enveloped her in a hug that smelled like sweet fruit, Izzy’s signature perfume. Then, sitting back, she grinned, her braces glinting in the sunlight. “This is amazing. Like … whoa. How do you feel? I mean, he’s your first-ever boyfriend.”
Sweetie laughed. “I really don’t know how to feel. I mean, on the one hand, it’s great that he’s so cool and we just instantly clicked. On the other hand, his parents and the list of dates, oh my gosh. On the other, other hand, his experience.”
“So you have three hands now?” Suki said, snorting, but Sweetie ignored her.
“Eh?” Kayla asked. “You lost me. What experience?”
“You know!” Sweetie waved her hands around in a vague gesture. Her friends continued to stare blankly. “His experience?” she said more quietly. “Like, with girls?”
“Oh, you mean sex!” Suki said in a completely normal, completely loud tone of voice.
Sweetie looked around. “Shh! I don’t want the whole world to know, okay?” Kayla, Suki, and Izzy looked unperturbed. “Guys! I’ve never even kissed a boy.”
“Now, that’s not true,” Izzy said, laughing. “What about Toby Stinton?”
Sweetie glared at her, and her smile faded. “That is not helping.”
“This is the kind of thing you figure out together,” Kayla said, putting her arm around Sweetie. “Ashish and you.”
“Yeah, except he’s already kissed, like, a billion girls,” Sweetie mumbled. “He’s probably going to think I’m a total freak.”
“He is not,” Suki said. “I promise he’s not going to be thinking of his experience or your lack of it or anything else when you’re together. Trust me. He’s just going to be totally focused on you and how he gets to kiss you.”
Sweetie sighed. She wished she could be half as confident as the other girls that things were not going to go humiliatingly wrong and blow up in her face. “Okay, thanks. But I kinda just want to change the subject now. So, how was the concert?”
After a pause, during which they apparently decided she really did want to stop talking about it, Suki said, “It was fabulous. But we really missed you.”
“I missed you guys too. I saw your pictures on Insta, and oh my gosh. So jelly.”
Izzy grinned. “Also, Kayla had an amazing idea.”
“Oh yeah?” Sweetie looked at her. “What?”
Kayla straddled the bench so she could face Sweetie, the zippers on her gold shirt clinking together. “Okay, so you know how we’re always saying we wish we could get better track jerseys for the girls’ team, and the school’s always saying they don’t have any money?”
“Pfft. More like the money they have is going toward the guys’ football team,” Suki grumbled.
Sweetie rolled her eyes. “Yeah. We all know that’s true.”
Kayla nodded. “Exactly. Well, I thought maybe we could take matters into our own hands. It just came to me, watching Piggy’s Death Rattle on the stage and how many people came out to just spend a night doing something different, you know? Like, how many people did we meet who had never even listened to their music but just wanted something fun to do on a Saturday night?” she asked Izzy and Suki.
“About ten,” Izzy said.
“At least ten,” Suki added.
“Right.” Kayla turned back to Sweetie, who still didn’t get what the big idea was. “So my plan was this: What if the four of us host a band night at Roast Me, that coffeehouse on Eighth Street? We could get the local high school bands to come out and play for exposure. If we charge, like, five dollars a head, we’d easily get the money we need for our jerseys.”
“But would Roast Me really agree to it? A bunch of high school bands playing there?”
Kayla grinned. “They already have.”
Sweetie stared at her. “What?”
“Yeah, I know someone who knows someone whose dad owns the place. And he was totally on board to let us have the place. More food and drink sales for him, plus his daughter’s in a band too, so we just had to agree to let her band play.”
Sweetie shook her head, completely in awe. “Kayla, how the heck do you do it?”
Kayla laughed. “Black-girl magic.”
“Not gonna argue with that,” Sweetie said. “So when should we do this band night thingy?”
“We were thinking a few weeks from now,” Kayla said.
“That should give us enough time to get everything together and let people know about it.” Suki popped her grape in her mouth and looked at Izzy. “So should we tell her now?”
“Tell me what?” Sweetie asked, cocking her head. She didn’t like the look on her friends’ faces.
“Um, so we’re not just getting other bands to play at Roast Me …,” Izzy said, gnawing on her thumbnail.
“We want to play a set too.” Suki took a breath. “Andwewantyoutobetheleadsinger,” she added in a rush.
Sweetie stared at her. We want you to be the lead singer. “Guys … no. I … no. I can’t sing in front of a bunch of people.” Just thinking about it made her hands damp and her armpits itch.
“Why not?” Izzy whined, turning the word “not” into stretchy, elongated taffy. “Come on, Sweetie, you have a beautiful voice!”
“We’re all going to be up there with you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Kayla said. “I’ll be on the guitar, Suki’s gonna play the drums, and Izzy’s going to be backup vocals.”
“It’s not that.” Sweetie took a bite of her dosha and chewed morosely. She hated feeling this way. But it just … She couldn’t help it. “I can’t go in front of all those people onstage.”
“You’re not shy when you’re running in front of all those people,” Suki said, frowning. “And newspaper sports reporters.”
Sweetie looked around at her friends’ kind, loving faces. No matter how much they loved her, no matter how much they tried, they just couldn’t understand. They were all extremely thin, conventionally attractive people. Everyone always told them how gorgeous they were, how fit, how toned.
Whereas Sweetie … Sweetie had been the butt of more fat jokes than she cared to remember. Her own mother had told her, from when she was in elementary school, that her number one aim in life was for Sweetie to lose weight. Everywhere she looked, Sweetie saw the markers of success as thinness, youth, and wealth. In that order. Movies never had fat heroines. Catalogs didn’t regularly stock clothes for people her size.
Izzy, Suki, and Kayla never had to answer questions about how they could run so fast, because they were thin. No one ever assumed Sweetie could run. Quite the opposite, in fact. She had to prove herself worthy every single second of every single day, over and over and over again. It was exhausting. Why the heck would she want to spend her weeknight, her own time off, up onstage so people could make fun of her? So they could judge her and ridicule her, just because she was fat?
“Running’s different,” she said finally. She didn’t say running was her lifeline. That she needed it more than she needed to not be judged. It was who she was. “I’ve been doing it so long that I can tune everyone out. But I couldn’t do the same thing with singing.” After a pause she pushed on. “You guys can’t understand what it feels like to be …” She sighed. “To be fat and have to put yourself out there. There are a million things I’m always worried about, even just agreeing to go out on a few dates with Ashish. Will he be repulsed when he puts his arms around me and feels back rolls? What’s he going to think when I order food in the restaurant? And then being up onstage? What if someone sneaks alcohol into Roast Me? Do you know how mean drunk people can be to girls who look like me? They won’t be listening to me. They’ll be looking at me, indignant that I felt I had any right to go up onstage in front of them all. I’m going to be like a target up there, just waiting to be hit.”
Izzy shook her head. “I have those feelings too, Sweetie. I’m not fat, but I constantly feel self-conscious of my body. My hips are too big and my arms aren’t toned enough. A lot of peopl
e—especially women—have those feelings.”
“Damn patriarchy,” Suki said darkly. “Holding women up to higher standards.”
Sweetie smiled a little. “I appreciate you guys saying that. And I know you feel the pain of having to live up to beauty standards. But …” She looked around at them, not sure how to put it.
“But it’s not the same,” Kayla said quietly.
“No. It’s not. When I walk down the road, people immediately make judgments about me based on my body size. That doesn’t happen to you guys, no matter how self-conscious you might be about your bodies. You’re still thin, and you get to exist in spaces without constantly being found wanting.”
Her friends were all quiet for a moment, and Sweetie wondered if she’d offended them. She’d never quite put it like that before. She’d never had the courage to.
“I’m sorry it’s so hard for you,” Izzy said finally. “Because you’re one of the coolest people I know.”
“And the most kick-ass,” Suki agreed.
“When you go out on your dates or up onstage,” Kayla said, holding Sweetie’s eye, “just know that you have three people in your corner. No matter what else happens, we will always accept you as you are.”
Sweetie blinked and looked away. “Thanks, guys. I know,” she said, her voice hoarse. “But I’m not sure if I can do the whole song thing. I’m sorry.”
“I’m gonna give you time to think about it,” Kayla said, holding up her hand when Sweetie tried to argue. “I know, I know, you won’t change your mind. But do you really want those people to dictate what you do, Sweetie? I know what it’s like to be prejudged based on physical appearance, okay? Believe me, I’m a black girl. And I also know you have what it takes to tell those people to shut the hell up.” She smiled. “Just think about it. We don’t start practice until next Monday, anyway. So you have some time.”
Sweetie ripped off another piece of dosha. “You’re so stubborn.”
Kayla leaned over and kissed Sweetie on the cheek. “That’s why you love me.”
“That’s her?” Pinky asked, looking at Sweetie’s picture on Ashish’s phone. He’d been a total creeper and pulled a picture from her Insta profile (they followed each other now, a fact that made Ashish unreasonably happy).
He glared at her. “Yeah. Why?” He looked at Oliver and Elijah across the cafeteria table. They were both uncharacteristically silent. “You got something to say?”
Elijah just shook his head, but Oliver ventured timidly, “Um … she’s just a little different from the other girls you’ve dated.”
Pinky snorted. “Different? More like she’s another species entirely from Supermodelicus conceitedum.”
“Celia wasn’t conceited,” Ashish replied, purposely missing the point. He scrolled through Sweetie’s posts to see if she’d posted anything else since yesterday. He wanted to hang out with her again, he realized. Which was weird because they’d barely spent any time together. It was like some dormant part of him began to blink to life in her presence or something.
“No, she just stomped on your heart and used the pieces for confetti at her I-have-a-new-boyfriend party,” Elijah retorted. “Whereas this girl looks like she’s never even had a boyfriend.”
Ashish looked up from his phone, his temper flaring. “What, because she isn’t thin?” he asked, his voice dangerously low.
Elijah shrugged, rolling those annoyingly gigantic traps Ash would’ve killed for, and Oliver didn’t meet his eye. “You can’t blame us for saying it,” Elijah said finally. “Not with your track record.”
“So maybe I haven’t ever dated someone like Sweetie before,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t—or can’t—find her attractive. Or that other dudes haven’t found her pretty and cool enough to go out with her. Come on, guys. Let’s not make judgments about who we can or can’t date. Do I really need to be telling you that?”
Elijah bristled, but before he could say anything, Oliver spoke up. “He has a point,” he said to Elijah. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you shouldn’t date Sweetie. I was just … surprised.”
“Do you really find her attractive?” Elijah said in a disbelieving tone that Ashish really didn’t like.
“Yes, Elijah. I find her hair, her curves, the powerful way she runs around the track and the fact that she can totally kick my ass very attractive. She’s gentle and insightful and kind, and I fight that hella hot too. Got a problem with any of that?”
“Whoa,” Elijah said, raising his eyebrows. “You’re not playing.”
“No, I’m not. And I’d like to propose something: From now on, none of us ever judges someone else based on their physical appearance. Deal?”
Elijah held his gaze and, after a moment, nodded. “Deal. Sorry, man. I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”
“I’m sorry too,” Oliver said, wrapping his skinny arms around himself.
“Thanks,” Ashish said to the two of them, relaxing a little.
“But look,” Pinky said from beside him. “I definitely don’t think you should judge a person by their size, you know that. For me, it’s more just … she looks so innocent and … and sweet, Ash. Like she thinks the world literally runs on rainbows and unicorn farts.”
“Mm,” Elijah said, licking orange Cheetos dust off his fingers. “I’m pretty sure you’re going to get bored and break the poor girl’s heart. Besides, you have to admit … you’ve been sort of shallow about choosing girls. And from what you just said, personality-wise, Sweetie isn’t at all the type of girl you’d have dated before Celia.”
Oliver nibbled on his thumb and nodded. He seemed the most nervous about this conversation, his gray eyes big and guileless. If Ashish knew him at all, and he did, he probably just didn’t want to hurt his feelings. “What’s this about, Ash? Why are you agreeing to do your parents’ whole four-date thing? I thought their idea of the perfect girl and your idea were diametrically opposed.”
Ashish sighed and put his phone away. Trust Oliver to get to the crux of the matter. The boy would make a kick-ass shrink someday. “I don’t know. I guess … I’ve tried my way for a long time. And what has it gotten me? Some conventionally hot girls, sure, but life should be about more than just who you’re gonna do on Saturday night, right? It was different with Celia, but we all know what a spectacular success that turned out to be.. So I just figured, you know, I’m gonna see what my parents have to say. Samir gave me the idea, to be honest. It seemed totally idiotic at first, but then they went on and on about how they could find me a good girl when the time was right, and they just seemed so confident. …” He trailed off and took a swig of his milk. He felt three pairs of eyes on him, waiting. “And then I met her. She’s sweet—you guys are right—but she’s also a killer athlete and intelligent and, I don’t know, just seems like such a good person at the core. Like there won’t be drama and angst and all that stuff there was with Celia. And I think right now …” He took a breath and ran a hand along his jaw. “Right now I think I need that.”
Pinky scooted closer to him on the bench and put her arm around his waist. “Then we’ll support you.”
“Absolutely,” Elijah said.
“We only want what’s best for you, Ash,” Oliver said, smiling a little. “We love you.”
“Love you guys too,” Ashish mumbled, feeling just a tiny bit stupid for saying it out loud. Especially to Elijah and Pinky, the least demonstrative people in the world. But when he looked around at their faces, all he saw was understanding and affection, the kind that came from a decade-long friendship mulled in secrets that had been shared in tree houses and late-night high jinks never to be repeated to parental units. The kind that felt like home. Ashish felt his shoulders relax for the first time in months.
Samir was waiting for him on the basketball court when he got home with Pinky, Oliver, and Elijah in tow. He saw him as he got out of the Jeep, so he tossed his backpack back in and they all walked over. “Yo.”
Samir turned arou
nd and spun the ball on his finger. “Hey, man. Hey, Oliver, Elijah.” He paused. “Um, hey, Pinky.”
Pinky grunted something in response. There was no love lost between those two—Pinky called Samir “that spoiled homeschooled infant,” and Samir called her “that pretentious, parrot-haired freak” (rubbing Pinky’s face in the infamous lime-green-hair phase she’d gone through). After their earsplitting argument at the formal holiday party Ma and Pappa had thrown last year, Ashish had made a huge effort to keep them apart.
“Man, I wish you’d texted me. We’re headed over to Roast Me in a minute.”
Samir slapped his forehead. “Oh, right, it’s Monday. I totally forgot it’s your study night.”
“Yeah, but if you come by tomorrow, we can shoot some—”
“Why don’t you come?” Oliver cut in. “I mean, it’s not like we actually study anyway.” He laughed and looked at Ashish, totally missing the death glare he was giving him. Had Oliver forgotten what had happened just a few months ago at the party? If Pinky and Samir had both been dudes on the basketball team instead of the people they were, he was sure they’d have ended up in a fistfight, smashing the punch bowl and making kindling of furniture, like in the movies.
“Really?” Samir said, tossing the ball to the side. “You don’t mind?”
“Not at all,” Oliver said, smiling. He looked around at everyone else when they were silent. “Right, guys?”
“Fine by me,” Elijah said, just as oblivious as Oliver.
“Right,” Ashish said after a pause. He smiled at Samir. “I just need to pick up my calculus textbook and then we can go.”
“Why do you need to do that if you don’t actually study?” Samir asked as they began to walk to the house.
“Um, because it’s all about impressions?” Pinky said in a way that suggested any moron should know that. “If the parents think we’re actually getting work done, they won’t care if we’re out late on a school night. Duh.”
“Sorry I asked,” Samir mumbled, sounding genuinely chided.
Ashish tossed him a look. Huh. He would’ve expected a much more spirited response.
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