Dumplin - Julie Murphy Page 0,18

to my neck and along my shoulders. His touch sends waves of emotion through me. Excitement. Terror. Glee. Everything all at once. But then his fingers trace down my back and to my waist. I gasp. I feel it like a knife in the back. My mind betrays my body. The reality of him touching me. Of him touching my back fat and my overflowing waistline, it makes me want to gag. I see myself in comparison to every other girl he’s likely touched. With their smooth backs and trim waists.

“I’m sorry.” His breath is hot and short.

“No,” I say. “Don’t. Don’t be sorry.” I’m not that girl. I don’t spend hours staring in the mirror, thinking of all the ways I could be better. Me shrinking away from his touch embarrasses me in a way I don’t entirely understand.

He shakes his head. “No, I mean, I shouldn’t have—I don’t think—I shouldn’t be dating anyone right now.”

I guess what’s funny is that until he mentioned it, the thought—the possibility—of us together hadn’t even crossed my mind. “Oh.” It comes out like a sigh.

“I have a lot of shit going on. And I shouldn’t. Or at least I haven’t for a while.”

I nod.

If any other girl had told me that she’d been told this by a guy, I’d tell her to back it up. To put the brakes on. Because he sounds like a jerk. I just can’t think that about Bo. But I guess this is how every girl in the history of the sexes has been played. Because the rules apply to every situation except your own.

I open the door to his truck. “I better get home.” Rain splatters inside the interior.

“It’s late.” That’s it. That’s all he has to say.

“I’ll see you at work.”

It takes 2.5 seconds for the rain to soak through my clothes. My dignity has left the building. I get in my car and speed off out of the parking lot. I turn the volume on the radio up all the way in the hope that it might drown out everything rattling inside of me. Lucy, my mom, Ellen, Bo. Little versions of each of them seem to live inside of me, one louder than the next. The only voice that isn’t there—the one I need the most—is my own.

TEN

It is officially too hot to go swimming. Even for Ellen. Jake slithers in and out of our hands as we watch a daytime talk show about a woman who is in love with her brother, but didn’t know he was her brother because they didn’t grow up together.

“They have got to be lying,” I say.

El shakes her head. “No, no, they’re weird, but I think they’re telling the truth. Plus, why would they lie?”

“Um, because they’re gross and because they know it. They probably got caught and needed an excuse or something.”

“God,” she huffs. “You are such a skeptic. Would it hurt you to believe that not everyone has shitty intentions?”

Jake coils around my wrist. His scales are smooth from having just shed. “I’m not always a skeptic, but the odds of them telling the truth are practically nonexistent. I mean, that’s like saying Tim could be your brother.”

She’s so engrossed in the show that she doesn’t answer.

This would be a good time to tell her about what happened with Bo. My mom was already asleep when I got home, but she said she heard me come in after two and that next time that happened she would call my boss. An unladylike hour, she called it. It sort of killed me that she automatically assumed I came straight from work. I WAS MAKING OUT WITH A BOY IN AN ABANDONED PARKING LOT, I wanted to scream. But that sounds pretty unbelievable. Even to me. And I was there.

I don’t know how to form the words to explain to El that not only did I get my first kiss, but it ended up being a full-on make-out session. She’d already be pissed at me for not telling her about my feelings for him in the first place. And even though neither of us said that what happened last night was a secret, it feels like one.

It’s stupid, I guess, because El would never think this, but I feel like last night was so completely unfathomable. A boy—a totally hot boy who girls stare at—kissed me, like really kissed me. It was the type of kiss that leaves you short of breath. I don’t know how