BETWEEN THE BLOOD TEST, an ultrasound (that went where no man had ever gone before), and a massive list of probing—er—intrusive questions, I was done. More than done. And, for the first time in my life, I was glad to be wearing my school uniform again.
A knock sounded on the door. “Decent?”
“Yes,” I managed, and Dr. Edmonson came in.
I got a great view of his bald patch as he walked through the door, flipping through my charts.
“It’s what I expected.” He sighed, every bit as dramatic but nowhere near as sigh-worthy as McDreamy.
“What is it?” I asked. “Because I’d love to get my mom to stop bombarding me with pregnancy tests.”
He chuckled, but quickly sobered. “Usually, we’d wait for the readings to come back, but as a favor to your mom, I took a peek myself. You have PCOS.” At my confused look, he added, “Polycystic ovarian syndrome.”
For the next fifteen minutes, he explained this thing I had no idea existed but had somehow taken over my body, my weight, and apparently my fertility. He explained why I’d packed on the pounds so quickly since middle school and had to go to weekly waxing appointments with my mother. That I’d have a harder time conceiving, when the time came, if I was able to at all.
All of it seemed overwhelming. And unfair. I mean, yeah, I ate fast food, but so did half the kids at Emerson Academy. Why was I the one ballooning out and they could still stay in single-digit uniforms and procreate like monkeys? “So, how do we get rid of it?”
“You could try to lose weight.”
I rested back in my chair and rolled my eyes. “My mom’s on that one.” Everyone acted like if you were fat, all your medical problems were fat. They never wanted to 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 this. She weighed at least as much as me. But her eyes were on her homework assignment, even though her hand wasn’t writing.
Tinsley scoffed, “I mean, I’d trade Twinkies for not being fat any day.”
Merritt’s voice turned falsely pensive. “I don’t know. I mean, it’s one thing to have a little extra cushion, but another to be obese.”
“True,” Poppy said.
Was Zara hearing this? If anyone would stand up to Merritt, it would be her—she was my size but had curves in the right places—and a feisty personality to match. Plus, her dad was rich enough to have as much clout as Merritt’s parents. I turned to see if she was catching it, but she kept her thumbs tapping over her phone. Probably texting some celebrity her movie producer father had connected her to.
No hopes for Callie, who was so tame a kitten would probably scare her. “It’s so unhealthy,” Merritt continued. “Not to mention gross. What guy
would want to be on top of all of that?”
Tinsley let out a peal of laughter. “Or under it!”
“Enough,” I thought. Or, at least, I thought I thought it.
The entire room quieted, and Merritt said, “What was that, Aurora?” My shoulders tensed. “It’s Rory.”
“More like Borey,” Poppy said.
I raised my eyebrows. “My name rhymes with whore and that’s the best you can do? I expected more from you, Poppy.”
Merritt seemed equally as unimpressed by Poppy’s insult and held up a finger to stall Poppy’s retort. “No, I want to hear what Aurora has to say. Tell me, how many guys have you been with?”
God, could everyone stop talking about my vagina for one hot second? “What’s it matter? Just lay off.”
“Oh, I get it, your feelings are hurt because you can’t get a guy interested in all of…that.”
I rolled my eyes. “Please. I could get a guy interested.”
Okay, I might have been blowing hot air, but at this point, I’d do anything to get Merritt to shove her opinions up her size-zero ass.
“Oh, I’m sure you could get a guy interested. Chester would probably even pay you a quarter or two.”
Tinsley cackled. “If he could get it up.”
Poppy shrugged. “They make Viagra for a reason.”
I bristled at them making fun of the sweet old man who always hung out at Waldo’s Café. Being insulted like that wasn’t exactly fun either. Especially after the morning I’d had. “It’s not like there’s a checklist to get a guy to go out with you,” I said. “They’re free to choose who they want.”
“And my point,” Merritt said, walking toward my desk and swinging her pleated skirt on the way, “is that no hot guy in his right mind would go out with someone like…well…you.”
I barely managed to keep my mouth shut. I’d heard Merritt talk like this to other people but had never had her wrath directed at me. (Being a teacher’s kid had some advantages.) But now that I was an ant burning under Merritt’s name-brand magnifying glass, I couldn’t back down. Especially not with the other plus-sized girls overhearing this.
“I could get a hot guy to go out with me.” I countered, sounding way more confident than I felt. Besides hotness was subjective, right?
“Oh?” She raised her eyebrows and looked around the room, lapping up the attention of everyone who had their eyes glued on us. “Did you all hear that? Precious Rory Hutton could get any guy she wanted.”
More than a few people laughed along with her.
That didn’t feel great, but I kept my eyes leveled at her. I was not backing down.
She pressed her manicured hands on my desk and leaned over, revealing her cleavage. “Do you mean it? Any guy and not just some hottie in a strait jacket?”
I stood up, not wanting to be underneath her in any way. “Really.” I folded my arms over my chest, secretly wishing my mom would hurry up and get done grilling Dr. Edmonson about my prognosis.
“Prove it,” she said.
“Oh yeah.” I rolled my eyes. “Let me go grab a guy and ask him out with everyone watching. Good plan, Merritt.”
She tapped her chin with a hot-pink fingernail. “Actually…” I did not like the look flashing in her eyes. Not one bit. “What do you say we make this interesting?”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Interesting?”
“Yeah.” She crossed her arms, giving her push-up bra some help. “What do you say we make a bet?”
“Go on,” I said, trying to hide my apprehension.
“If you can get Beckett Langley to take you to homecoming, I will gladly give up my homecoming crown and back off. If you lose, you stay home from homecoming. I don’t need your kind ruining my day.”
I rolled my eyes. “If you’re going to make a bet, at least make it fair.
I’m not trying to steal your boyfriend.”
“He’s not my boyfriend anymore.” She leaned back on Jordan’s desk, oblivious to the obvious discomfort on Jordan’s face. Merritt picked at her nails, pretending to be bored, but I didn’t miss the flash of pain that crossed her dainty features. “So what do you say? Do we have a deal?”
Jordan shifted back and gave me a look somewhere between upset and helpless. She wouldn’t dare go up against Merritt and risk her scholarship.
It was up to me. “Game on.”
The entire class gasped. Or maybe that was the blood rushing in my head.
I dropped into my chair, shell-shocked. Merritt forbid anyone in the room from saying a word of the bet until homecoming, on the threat of her daddy throwing around his money to get them kicked out of the school. It had been done before.
Mom came back minutes before the bell rang and assigned us chapters to read. At class change, I rushed to the hallway with the rest of the students, not wanting to hear what was sure to be a barrage of a million questions from my mother.
No, I had to get out of here and figure out how to do the impossible: get Beckett Langley to fall for a girl like me.
