Kody Keplinger: The DUFF: Designated Ugly Fat Friend

I kept telling myself not to cry as I sat the coffee table back up and vacuumed the smaller pieces of glass out of the carpet. I couldn’t cry. If I’d cried, it wouldn’t have had anything to do with the fact that my parents were getting divorced. That wasn’t a shocker. It wouldn’t have had anything to do with missing my mother. She’d been gone too long for that. I wouldn’t even have been mourning for the family I’d once had. I was happy with the way life was, just me and Dad. No. If I had cried, it would have been out of anger, out of fear, or something else entirely selfish. I would have been crying because of what it meant for me. I had to be the adult now. I had to take care of Dad. But at that moment, my mother, living like a star in Orange County, was acting selfishly enough for the both of us, so I had to put the tears aside.

I’d just rolled the vacuum back into the laundry room when the cordless phone started ringing.

“Hello?” I said into the receiver.

“Good afternoon, Duffy.”

Oh, shit. I’d forgotten about working with Wesley on that stupid project. Of all the people to see that day, why did it have to be him? Why did this day have to get worse?

“It’s almost three,” he said. “I’m getting ready to drive over to your place. You told me to call before I left… I’m just being considerate.”

“You don’t even know what that means.” I glanced down the hall in the direction of my father’s snores. The living room, while no longer a death trap, still looked rough, and there was no telling what kind of mood Dad would be in when he rolled out of bed. I just knew it probably wouldn’t be a good one. I didn’t even know what I would say to him. “Look, on second thought, I’ll come to your house. I’ll see you in twenty minutes.”

Every town has that one house. You know, the one that is so freaking nice that it just doesn’t fit in. The house that’s so lavish that you almost feel like the owners are rubbing their wealth in your face. Every town in the world has one particular house like that, and in Hamilton that house belonged to the Rush family.

I don’t know if it could technically be called a mansion, but the house was three stories tall and had two balconies. Balconies! I’d gawked at the place a million times as I drove past, but I never thought I’d be going inside. On any other day, I would have been a little excited to see the interior (of course, I never would have told anyone that), but my thoughts were so wrapped around the divorce papers on my kitchen table that I couldn’t feel anything but anxious and miserable.

Wesley met me at the front door, an annoyingly confident grin on his face. He leaned against the door frame, arms folded across his broad chest. He was wearing a dark blue button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. And of course he’d left the top few buttons undone. “Hello, Duffy.”

Did he know how much that name bothered me? I glanced at the driveway, which was empty except for my Saturn and his Porsche. “Where are your parents?” I asked.

“Gone,” he replied with a wink. “Looks like it’s just you and me.”

I pushed past him and walked into the large foyer, rolling my eyes with disgust. Once my shoes were positioned neatly in the corner, I turned to Wesley, who was watching me with vague interest. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Don’t you want the grand tour?”

“Not really.”

Wesley shrugged. “It’s your loss. Follow me.” He led the way into the enormous living room, which was probably as big as Hamilton High’s cafeteria. Two large pillars held up the ceiling, and three beige couches, along with two matching love seats, were arranged around the room. On one wall I saw a huge flat-screen TV, and on another I found a giant fireplace. January sun spilled in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, lighting the space with a natural, happy feeling. But Wesley turned and started walking up the stairs, away from the comforting room.

“Where are you going?” I demanded.

He looked over his shoulder at me with an exasperated sigh. “To my room, of course.”

“Can’t we write the paper down here?” I asked.

The corners of Wesley’s mouth turned slightly upward as he hooked a finger over his belt. “We could, Duffy, but the writing will go much faster if I’m typing, and my computer’s upstairs. You’re the one who said you wanted to get this over with.”

I groaned and stomped up the stairs. “Fine.”

Wesley’s bedroom was on the top floor-one of the rooms with a balcony-and it was bigger than my living room. His king-size bed hadn’t been made yet, and video game cases were scattered on the floor beside his PlayStation 3, which was hooked into a big-screen TV. Surprisingly, the room smelled nice. It was a mixture of Wesley’s Burberry cologne and recently washed clothes, like he’d just put laundry away or something. The bookshelf that he walked toward overflowed with books by different authors, from James Patterson to Henry Fielding.

Wesley bent over at the waist to look at the bookshelf, and I looked away from his Diesels as he pulled his own copy of The Scarlet Letter off the shelf and moved to sit on his bed. He gestured for me to join him, and I did, reluctantly. “Okay,” he said, thumbing absently through his hardcover book. “What should we write the paper on? Any ideas?”

“I don’t-”

“I was thinking we could do an analysis of Hester,” he suggested. “It sounds cliché, but I mean an in-depth characterization. Mainly, why did she have the affair? Why did she sleep with Dimmesdale? Did she love him, or was she just promiscuous?”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh my God, do you always go for the simplest answer? Hester is way more complicated than that. Neither of those choices shows any imagination.”

Wesley looked at me with one raised eyebrow. “All right,” he said slowly. “If you’re so smart, then why did she do it? Enlighten me.”

“For distraction.”

Okay, so maybe it was a little far-fetched, but I just kept seeing that damn manila envelope. Thinking of my selfish bitch of a mother. I kept wondering what my father was like drunk for the first time in eighteen years. My mind searched for anything-anything- that would distract me from the painful thoughts, so would it be too ridiculous to think that Hester felt the same way? She was lonely, surrounded by hypocritical Puritans, and married to a completely creepy, absentee English guy.

“She just wanted something to get her mind off the bad shit in her life,” I mumbled. “Some way to escape…”

“If that’s the case, that didn’t go well for her. It all backfired in the end.”

I didn’t really hear him. My mind was rushing back to a night not long ago, a night when I’d found a way to push my worries out of my head. I remembered the way my thoughts had gone silent, letting my body take over. I remembered the bliss of nothingness. I remembered how, even after it ended, I’d been so focused on what I’d done that my other worries barely existed.

“… so I guess that idea could make sense. It’s definitely a different angle, and Perkins likes creativity. We might get an A.” Wesley turned to look at me, and his expression grew suddenly concerned. “Duffy, are you okay? You’re staring off into space.”

“Don’t call me Duffy.”

“Fine. Are you okay, Bian-?”

Before he could say my name, I closed the space between us. Quickly, my lips moved against his. The mental and emotional emptiness took over instantly, but physically, I was more alert than ever. Wesley’s surprise didn’t last as long as it had before, and his hands were on me in seconds. My fingers tangled in his soft hair, and Wesley’s tongue darted into my mouth and became a new weapon in our war.