look beyond the extra layer of tissue to see what was really going on.
“I’m assuming she doesn’t know about that.” He sent a pointed look to my takeout bag, and I scooted it behind my backpack.
I refused to respond. That was his only solution? Try to do something my mom and I had been working at for months? You’d think years in med school would have given him some advanced thinking skills, but apparently not.
“Maybe you should take her advice,” Dr. Edmonson said. “In the meantime, I’m prescribing you birth control to help balance out your hormones and jump-start your cycles. You’ll be feeling better in no time.”
I wanted to tell him I felt just fine. That aside from my weight, I led a perfectly average existence no one could shake a stick at. Whatever that phrase meant. Plus, not having the bloody devil staining my underwear and stomping on my uterus every month wasn’t the worst thing ever.
“Now, I promised your mother I’d have you done in time for class.” He looked at me over his spectacles. “Don’t make me break her promise.”
I turned and grabbed my bag. “We wouldn’t want that, now would we?”
My lips quickly fell as I walked out of the office. Any dreams I’d had of Beckett knowing my name and holding a secret torch for me shattered as I processed the news. How could I be worrying about infertility before I’d even hit second base? And this disease meant I would have a harder time losing weight, but that was my only chance at being healthy? It didn’t make any sense.
I got into my car and slammed the gearshift into reverse. What kind of cruel joke was this? What had I done to deserve this? I had straight As. I volunteered. I tutored every now and then. Heck, I even ate my mom’s stupid grapefruit. None of it mattered. None of it made a difference.
I was still fuming when I parked next to Merritt Alexander’s stupid hot-pink Hummer and walked into Emerson Academy. The school’s motto over the entranceway mocked me. Ad Meliora. Toward better things.
Or more tortuous things. Like an hour-long lecture presented by my very own mother on menstrual cycles and condoms and STIs.
I rolled my eyes before opening the classroom door. If only Mom didn’t have Dr. Edmonson in her back pocket, I could have stalled and gotten out of there in time for lunch. Doctors were notoriously slow.
Most of the girls in health class already lounged in their seats, but we had a few minutes before the hour started. Mom rose from her desk and came to me.
“Any news?” she asked quietly.
“It’s...” I looked away from her, toward the board where the projector had the first lesson slide on the pull-down screen. My mouth hung open at the four letters on the title slide.
“What?” She followed my eyes. “Oh, yeah, should be a good discussion for you girls.”
“No, I—"
The bell shrilled, and she rubbed a hand on my shoulder. “Catch me at lunch so you can tell me what Dr. Edmonson said?”
Deftly, I nodded and went to the open seat in the front row where I sat in Mom’s class. Every class except math, to be fair. Mom would know before I did if I’d been goofing off or not paying attention. Perks of having a parent for a teacher.
Mom began the lecture, reading from the slides and covering all the information I’d just learned from Dr. Edmonson.
“Some common symptoms are hair growth on the upper lip, weight gain, especially around your middle, and irregular cycles...” Her mouth went slack, and she turned her eyes on me.
I nodded.
She swallowed.
I felt the entire class’s eyes on me.
“Excuse me,” she said to the class. “I have to make a call. Work on...something until I get back.”
She left to a chorus of murmurs, and I tried to hide my red cheeks. She hadn’t pointed me out directly, but she might as well have.
“This is so dumb,” Merritt trilled from the back row where she sat with the rest of her groupies. “Mrs. H. might as well just give another lecture on ‘the dangers of obesity.’”
Her friend Tinsley made an ominous “ooooh” sound like the ghost of Christmas Fat was haunting the room.
Poppy giggled, egging them on, as usual.
“I don’t get it,” Merritt continued. “Why not just cut the Twinkies and quit whining about it?”
I gritted my teeth and turned to see how Jordan, the scholarship student sitting next to me, was reacting to