Fat Angie by e. E. Charlton-Trujillo Page B

head back and stared at a breath of white clouds. Fall leaves falling, raining with a burst of wind. Spinning orange, yellow, and red . . . dancing. She felt the moment was poetic — metaphorical — no, poetic. At least pretty.
    “KC,” said Fat Angie.
    Romance stopped for Fat Angie. “Yeah.”
    Fat Angie hustled over to KC. Convinced her move would be smooth and dramatic, she froze.
    “Um . . .” said Fat Angie. “Thank you.”
    “For?”
    “For?” Fat Angie said, a sense of panic in her voice.
    The
for
was clear. Crystal. But Fat Angie stood there in the pretty, poetic-falling-leaves moment, saturated in her typical awkwardness.
    “Um . . . for being the new girl who stood up for me,” said Fat Angie, channeling Coach Laden. “And . . . what . . . what is
that
? I mean, why . . . did you hide? Your arm?”
    Fat Angie eyed KC’s arm.
    “It’s nothing, Angie.”
    “That doesn’t make . . . that doesn’t make sense. You have too many nothings,” said Fat Angie. “The girl in the picture frame in your room. No one frames a nothing. Unless their grandmother gave it to them. And that was way not a grandmother-type picture.”
    “Just leave it,” said KC.
    “I care,” said Fat Angie.
    “You don’t know me.”
    “So?” said Fat Angie. “It’s only a technicality. People get married in Las Vegas all the time and they don’t know each other. Not that I think we should —”
    “I’m a cutter, OK?” said KC. “But on the record, the slice and dice is about me. And I don’t even do it anymore. I mean, I had a slipup, obviously, but it was super micro.”
    “KC, I don’t really know what that means,” Fat Angie said.
    KC stretched her neck and clung to her messenger bag strap. “It means you shouldn’t always judge the package. It’s what’s inside that really sucks sometimes. I dunno. It’s hard to explain. It’s just how I deal . . .
did
deal a lot in the past. But it’s over.”
    KC, speaking in KC speak, had revealed a hint of her ouch, pain — vulnerability. As with many things about KC Romance, this reached right into the chest of Angie. Not Fat Angie but Angie. This perplexed her. Intensely.
    The moment was ripe for some brilliant reply. The thought spun around and around Angie’s fatty-acid mind: WWMSD (what would my sister do)?
    Follow through. She would follow through.
    Angie undid her Casio calculator watch and revealed three deep, erratic scars.
    Beat.
    KC’s long fingers, nails finished with black polish, slid over the scars. To be seen — to be touched — Angie could not remember such a time since her sister had disappeared. After the scars — and the headlines and the camera footage of Angie’s pep rally meltdown — her couldn’t-be-bothered mother had moved into rare avoidance form. Not that she had ever been a very demonstrative person — not even with Angie’s sister, and she had seemed to want it more than any of them. Well, maybe her dad wanted it too.
    The fall leaves fell.
    A car drove by.
    A dog barked. Then again. Then again.
    “All better,” said KC, taking her hands away from Fat Angie’s wrist.
    And for a moment, it was.
    “Can I see?” Angie asked, holding on to KC’s wrist. “Under your sleeve?”
    “It’s not required. Ever. OK?” said KC.
    Angie gulped, feeling more like Fat Angie all over. Holding KC’s wrist, she said, “I still think you rock.”
    KC’s eyes softened. “I think you rock, too.”
    The moment was combustible. Their eyes were in an I-can’t-stop-looking-at-you-or-I’ll-die lock. KC leaned forward, head tilting, lips parting, when —
    “Fucking dykes!” blared from Gary Klein’s mouth out the passenger window of an SUV. The driver laid into the horn.
    Fat Angie’s hand fell away.
    KC adjusted her posture. Crossing her arms, she established an invisible wall as she shook her head at the bitter irony.
    “It’s always the same school,” said KC. “Whether you have an IHOP or not.”
    Fat Angie was not accustomed