Curvy Girls Can't Date Quarterbacks - Kelsie Stelting Page 0,39
bottom step, I turned back and eyed her. “I have a lot of homework.”
Okay, that was a lie. Unless my assignment was avoiding uncomfortable conversations and disappointed looks. Then I was booked until graduation and every school holiday for the next four years.
“You can get to it after supper,” she said, then turned toward the kitchen, expecting me to follow her.
I stayed on the step for a moment, considering just going upstairs and dealing with whatever rampage she went on afterward. But then she called, “Are you coming, Rory?”
I let my backpack slip from my shoulder to my hand, and I dropped it by the door on the way to the kitchen.
Mom was standing by the sink, her arms folded over her chest.
I walked with caution, trying to anticipate what was next. Another lecture over the government’s current diet recommendations? A lesson on the dangers of cholesterol? Eventually, I got tired of guessing and just said, “Let’s get this over with.”
She rubbed her temples. “Your health isn’t just something you get over with. It’s going to affect you for the rest of your life.”
I pressed my lips together because I was about three seconds from saying something I’d regret.
When she realized I wasn’t going to reply, she said, “I want you to make a healthy supper for us tonight so you can practice.”
“Mom, I know what’s healthy. It just doesn’t make a difference whether I eat it or not. The scale doesn’t change.”
She shook her head. “Even if you actually stick to a diet and the scale doesn’t change, that’s fine. Your body still needs the good nutrients.”
There it was again. The insinuation that I just cheated on my diet over the summer and that I had been going behind her back to sabotage myself. “You think I want to be fat? That I like knowing my weight repulses you?”
Her mouth went slack. “Rory, your weight doesn’t repulse me.” She stepped forward and put her thin hands on my shoulders. “I just want you to be happy. Can’t you see that I love you and want what’s best for you?”
My eyes burned with unshed tears. I was so tired of this. Of the rhetoric that said fat girls couldn’t be on magazine covers because you were idolizing unhealthiness. What about crash diets and obsession with looks? Wasn’t that just as unhealthy? People used drugs and slept around and were on the covers of magazines, but they didn’t catch half the flack plus-sized girls would just because of their size. And my mom was one of them. One of the people who would never see past my size.
The front door opened, and my dad yelled, “Rory! You got a letter from NYU!”
My lips quivered as I gave my mom a final glance and went to get the letter.
Dad grinned ear to ear as I approached, but I couldn’t meet his eyes. “Aren’t you excit—What’s wrong?” he asked.
I took the letter and headed toward the stairs. “Ask your wife.”
I carried the letter to my room, tears spilling over my cheeks, and sat on my bed with the red and white envelope. With shaking fingers, I opened it and saw the news. I’d been accepted.
I held the letter to my chest and hoped when fall came, I’d be accepted in more ways than one.
Twenty-Three
We were halfway into the third quarter, but the team was up by more than twenty points. Even the cheerleaders seemed a little bored with the game, and the crowd had resorted to chattering with each other instead of intensely cheering for the team like they had last time.
“So, this weekend,” Jordan said. “What are we doing for Operation Cupcake?”
“Operation Cupcake?” I asked. “Really?”
“I like it,” Ginger said.
“We’ve got to make him come to her,” Zara said. “We know he wants some of what she has to offer.” She nudged my shoulder, waggling her eyebrows at me. “Now we’ve got to make him ask for it.”
“And why would he ask for it when I look like this”—I gestured to my thick hoodie, coat, hat, and blanket covering me—"and they look like that?” I pointed at the cheerleaders in their tight winter gear, their ponytails and bows high over warm headbands. “There’s no contest.”
Ginger shook her head. “Dude, at least it’s not summer when they’re showing off their underwear—I mean—bloomers for the entire student body to see.”
“That’s a fair point,” Jordan said.
Zara shook her head. “You’re missing the point. Ror’s leaving something to the imagination. And what happens when a present’s