Curvy Girls Can't Date Cowboys - Kelsie Stelting Page 0,71

and then ruined in such a short amount of time?

"But why are you at Heywood Regional? I would have thought your parents would want you in Emerson or Brentwood?"

I shook my head and hit the button on my bed so I'd be sitting all the way up. "Can we wait for the girls?"

"Of course. Anything. Do you need me to get you something? How can I help?"

My throat tightened at her kindness. All I'd gotten from my parents were terror and fury. I knew they cared about me, but that wasn't what I needed right now. Couldn't they see I was doing my best? I wasn't perfect, but I was learning. "Can you distract me? Please?"

"Hmm." She got out her phone. "Carson asked Callie to Spring Fling, ‘as a friend,’ and it was totally adorable." She paused as her thumbs moved over the screen. "I'm guessing you didn't see it because you didn't reply to the group text."

"My phone is at Ray's."

Her mouth dropped open. "What? Did you have your asthma attack at his house?"

I nodded solemnly. "Part of the story."

Wordlessly, she handed me her phone, and I stared at the picture of Callie and Carson on the screen. She had a pizza box open with pepperonis spelling the word DANCE? atop the melting cheese."

My stomach growled. After eating so well at Ray's house, the low-sodium hospital diet my mom had me on left plenty to be desired. "It looks so good."

"I guess he had it delivered to her house, and the whole family was there when she opened it, and then he came out of the kitchen to ask. Her parents were totally in on it."

I tried not to be jealous, really, but it was hard. "That's awesome. They are such a cute couple."

Jordan rolled her eyes. “They’re just friends, remember?”

“Oh. Right.” I laughed halfheartedly.

Zara's voice echoed down the hallway. "This one?"

"Yes," a nurse hissed. "And keep it down."

Soon, Zara, Rory, and Callie were in my room with Jordan, checking me over, asking if I was alright.

"I'm fine," I said. "Just an asthma attack."

Jordan rolled her eyes. "Do you hear her? 'Just an asthma attack.'" She snorted.

Callie's eyes were filled with concern. "It was bad enough to put you in the hospital! Are you sure you're okay?"

"From the asthma attack? I'm fine. But this weekend?" I fiddled with the remote and let out a sigh. "Not so hot, ladies."

"What happened this weekend?" Rory asked. “How did the date go?”

I nodded toward the open door, knowing my mom could walk in at any second. "Shut that?"

Callie stood to shut it, but the others’ eyes lit up.

"Juicy," Zara said.

Despite myself, I smiled. “God, you guys are the worst.”

Giggles erupted in the room, but when they subsided, the question was still there. How had I ended up in a Heywood hospital with an asthma attack and a broken heart?

I launched into the story of going to Ray’s for the date and finding more instead. “I didn’t plan it or expect it or even believe he might want a real relationship with me when I got there, but now he’s all I can think about.” My throat got tight again, and I blinked quickly. “I’m worried it’s over before it even really started.”

Rory, who was sitting closest to me, patted my shoulder, and I reached up and squeezed her hand.

“You’ll still see each other at school,” she said. “It won’t be the same, but it’s better than nothing, right?”

I nodded. “But I didn’t see him when I woke up. Whatever my parents said to him had to have been awful.”

Jordan took my free hand. “If he’s not willing to fight for you, he’s not worth it.”

I let out a half-sob, half-laugh, remembering what he’d said about fighting for beautiful things. But right now, the last thing I felt was beautiful. “Tell my heart that.”

“You’ll make it through this,” Zara said.

Callie nodded. “And we’ll be here for you, no matter what.”

Forty-Nine

They released me from the hospital into the passenger seat of my mom’s minivan. We weren’t speaking, not because we were giving each other the silent treatment, but because there was nothing to say. Of course, that suited me just fine. They had taken parental guidance to the extreme and ensured I would live under their thumb for another four years if I wanted help paying for college. And film school wasn’t cheap.

The van pulled out of the hospital’s circular driveway, and we started toward the blacktop highway. I stared at the hay bales