wanted to come home.”
“You didn’t feel like it?” Mom repeats in a scathing tone. “You have to start advocating for yourself, Breanna. You’ll never get anywhere in life if you stay a doormat.”
“Wow, thanks for the pep talk, Mom,” I say, feeling a lump rise in my throat. “You always know just what to say to make me feel better.”
And I hang up on her.
Picking up the nail polish and turning my music back up to loud, I finish painting my nails bright red and start adding glitter stripes.
“Hey, can you turn that down or use headphones?” Liam says, sticking his head into my room. “I’m trying to do homework.”
“Can you do it? I don’t want to ruin my nails.”
My brother rolls his eyes and grunts but stomps into my room to reduce the volume on my Jambox. And just before he does, I hear the chorus of the song that was playing:
You said you loved me, but it was all a liiiie.
Now I’m so lonely, all I do is crrrry.
That’s when I get the idea. The genius idea of how I’m going to get my revenge on Lara for laughing at me.
The first step is to set up a new Gmail account. That takes all of, like, two minutes. Then I use the new Gmail account to open a new Facebook account. I search Google images for a really hot guy, the kind of guy I know that Lara would think is gorgeous. The kind she’d totally flip out over if he showed the faintest bit of interest in her.
This is where I have an advantage from being her former best friend. I know her taste in guys. We used to sit in the food court at the mall, rating guys on a scale of one to ten. She’d sigh every time we went into Abercrombie, because the models were so hot. Not that it did her any good. The salespeople in that store looked down their noses at her because she was overweight. She usually ended up more depressed after we went in there, and then I’d have to hear about it. It got to the point that if I wanted anything from Abercrombie, I’d make sure to go there with ABL — Anyone But Lara.
I end up picking an Abercrombie model, but just his face, because he’s got to look like he’s still in high school and there aren’t that many guys at our high school who have washboard abs like this dude. His name’s Adam Bernard, but I create a new identity for him. I search for some other pictures of him and upload them so it looks like he has a reasonable profile. On his new fake Facebook profile, I call him Christian. Christian DeWitt. He goes to East River High, which is about an hour away from here — far enough that Lara wouldn’t know him and close enough that she’d think they might have a chance of meeting someday. I give him some of the same musical and TV likes as she has and then have him friend me. I send a bunch of friend requests from him to other kids I know at our school, and then a whole bunch to freshmen and sophomores at East River High. East River is a big school and he’s supposed to be a senior there, so they might not know him, and since he’s good-looking I figure they’ll probably just friend him.
Sure enough, by the time I finish my homework, Christian already has 150 friends. That’s when I figure it’s safe for him to send the friend request to Lara.
K ELLEY, L ARA.
It’s there. My name. On the list of girls who’ve made the cheerleading squad.
I’m on the team. I’m part of the group. It’s official. I’m not Lardo anymore.
I read it again to make sure I’m not seeing things and then let out a shriek of excitement.
“I can’t believe it! I made it!”
“Awesome! I had a feeling you would,” says Ashley.
I can’t believe she’s talking to me. Smiling at me.
“Welcome to the team,” she says.
Being friendly to me. This wouldn’t have happened two years ago. Maybe not even one year ago. But it’s happening now, and I almost have to pinch myself to believe it’s real. That it’s happening to me, Lara Kelley.
“I’m so excited ,” I tell her. “But also kind of nervous,
“You didn’t feel like it?” Mom repeats in a scathing tone. “You have to start advocating for yourself, Breanna. You’ll never get anywhere in life if you stay a doormat.”
“Wow, thanks for the pep talk, Mom,” I say, feeling a lump rise in my throat. “You always know just what to say to make me feel better.”
And I hang up on her.
Picking up the nail polish and turning my music back up to loud, I finish painting my nails bright red and start adding glitter stripes.
“Hey, can you turn that down or use headphones?” Liam says, sticking his head into my room. “I’m trying to do homework.”
“Can you do it? I don’t want to ruin my nails.”
My brother rolls his eyes and grunts but stomps into my room to reduce the volume on my Jambox. And just before he does, I hear the chorus of the song that was playing:
You said you loved me, but it was all a liiiie.
Now I’m so lonely, all I do is crrrry.
That’s when I get the idea. The genius idea of how I’m going to get my revenge on Lara for laughing at me.
The first step is to set up a new Gmail account. That takes all of, like, two minutes. Then I use the new Gmail account to open a new Facebook account. I search Google images for a really hot guy, the kind of guy I know that Lara would think is gorgeous. The kind she’d totally flip out over if he showed the faintest bit of interest in her.
This is where I have an advantage from being her former best friend. I know her taste in guys. We used to sit in the food court at the mall, rating guys on a scale of one to ten. She’d sigh every time we went into Abercrombie, because the models were so hot. Not that it did her any good. The salespeople in that store looked down their noses at her because she was overweight. She usually ended up more depressed after we went in there, and then I’d have to hear about it. It got to the point that if I wanted anything from Abercrombie, I’d make sure to go there with ABL — Anyone But Lara.
I end up picking an Abercrombie model, but just his face, because he’s got to look like he’s still in high school and there aren’t that many guys at our high school who have washboard abs like this dude. His name’s Adam Bernard, but I create a new identity for him. I search for some other pictures of him and upload them so it looks like he has a reasonable profile. On his new fake Facebook profile, I call him Christian. Christian DeWitt. He goes to East River High, which is about an hour away from here — far enough that Lara wouldn’t know him and close enough that she’d think they might have a chance of meeting someday. I give him some of the same musical and TV likes as she has and then have him friend me. I send a bunch of friend requests from him to other kids I know at our school, and then a whole bunch to freshmen and sophomores at East River High. East River is a big school and he’s supposed to be a senior there, so they might not know him, and since he’s good-looking I figure they’ll probably just friend him.
Sure enough, by the time I finish my homework, Christian already has 150 friends. That’s when I figure it’s safe for him to send the friend request to Lara.
K ELLEY, L ARA.
It’s there. My name. On the list of girls who’ve made the cheerleading squad.
I’m on the team. I’m part of the group. It’s official. I’m not Lardo anymore.
I read it again to make sure I’m not seeing things and then let out a shriek of excitement.
“I can’t believe it! I made it!”
“Awesome! I had a feeling you would,” says Ashley.
I can’t believe she’s talking to me. Smiling at me.
“Welcome to the team,” she says.
Being friendly to me. This wouldn’t have happened two years ago. Maybe not even one year ago. But it’s happening now, and I almost have to pinch myself to believe it’s real. That it’s happening to me, Lara Kelley.
“I’m so excited ,” I tell her. “But also kind of nervous,
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