Kody Keplinger: The DUFF: Designated Ugly Fat Friend

Because I was moving on.

Because talking on a cell phone and driving at the same time just isn’t safe.

I pushed Wesley out of my mind when I saw Toby’s car already parked in my driveway. Dad wasn’t home from work yet, so he sat on the front porch steps with a book. The sun glinted off the rims of his glasses, making them look extra sparkly. Like he was a trophy.

I got out of the car and hurried up the sidewalk toward him. “Hey,” I said. “Sorry. I had to take Casey home.”

He looked up at me with a smile.

Not a crooked grin…

I had to shake myself. I wasn’t going to think about Wesley. I wasn’t going to let myself miss him. Not when I had Toby. Sweet, normal, sparkly-smiling Toby.

“It’s fine,” he said. “I’m enjoying the weather. It’s so unpredictable in the spring.” He stuck his bookmark in the pages of his novel. “It’s nice to have a little bit of sunlight.”

“Brontë?” I asked, seeing the cover of his book. “Wuthering Heights? Isn’t that a little girly, Toby?”

“Have you read it?”

“Well, no,” I admitted. “I’ve read Jane Eyre, which was definitely full of early feminism. I’m not saying that’s a problem. Personally, I’m a total feminist, but it’s a little sketchy for a teenage boy.”

Toby shook his head. “Jane Eyre is Charlotte Brontë. Wuthering Heights is Emily. The sisters are very, very different. Yes, Wuthering Heights is usually considered a love story, but I disagree with that. It’s almost a ghost story, and there’s more hate than romance. Every character is atrocious and spoiled and selfish… It’s kind of like watching an episode of Gossip Girl in the eighteen hundreds. Except, of course, much less ridiculous.”

“Interesting,” I muttered, chagrined that I secretly watched Gossip Girl on a regular basis.

“It isn’t a favorite of most boys my age, I guess,” he said. “But it’s a page-turner. You should read it.”

“I might.”

“You should.”

I smiled and shook my head. “Are you ready to go in or what?”

“Absolutely.” He snapped the book shut and got to his feet. “Lead the way.”

I unlocked the door and let him walk inside ahead of me, where he immediately took his shoes off. Not that we live like pigs or anything, but no one ever does that in our house. I couldn’t help being impressed.

“Where will we be working?” he asked.

I realized suddenly that I was watching him and looked away. “Oh,” I said casually. “Um… my room? Is that okay?” God, I hope he doesn’t think I’m a stalker freak for staring at him like that.

“If it doesn’t bother you,” Toby said.

“No, it’s cool. Come on.”

He followed me up the stairs. When we reached my bedroom, I pushed the door open a crack, checking quickly for embarrassing items (bras, panties, et cetera) that might be lying on the floor. Sure the coast was clear-and praying I hadn’t been too obvious-I swung the door the rest of the way open and gestured for Toby to walk inside.

“Sorry it’s a little messy,” I said, looking down at the pile of unfolded, clean clothes that always stayed on the floor at the foot of my bed and trying not to think about the last time I’d had a boy in my room and how he’d laughed at my neurotic clothes folding. What would Toby think of it?

“It’s fine.” Toby moved a stack of overdue library books out of my chair and placed them on the desk. Then he sat down. “We’re seventeen. Our rooms are supposed to be messy. It wouldn’t be natural if they weren’t.”

“I guess not.” I climbed onto my bed and sat with my legs crisscrossed. “I just didn’t want it to bug you.”

“Nothing about you could bug me, Bianca.”

It took everything I had to ignore how cheesy that sounded. I smiled anyway and looked down at my purple comforter. I’d never received so many compliments from one person, and I wasn’t very good at accepting them. Mostly because I was always too busy mocking how mushy they were. But I was working on that.

And the truth was, I was kind of blushing.

I didn’t even notice Toby had moved until he was sitting beside me. “Sorry,” he said. “Did I embarrass you?”

“No… well, yeah, but in a good way.”

“As long as it’s in a good way.”

He leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek, but I didn’t let him stop there. I turned my head and pressed my lips against his, just as he started to pull back. It didn’t go quite as smoothly as I’d hoped. I mean, his glasses kind of knocked me in the face for a second, but I pretended I hadn’t noticed.

His lips were so soft that I wondered if he used ChapStick. Seriously, nobody has lips that perfect naturally, do they? He must have been disgusted by mine, which probably felt rough and scaly to him.

But if he was, he didn’t show it. His hand moved up my arm and rested on my shoulder, pulling me a little closer. We sat on my bed and kissed for a few minutes, but the sound of my cell phone broke the moment. Damn it!

And of course, it was that same Britney Spears ringtone-the one I wanted least to hear at that exact moment-that seemed to scream at me. Toby pulled away and looked down at the floor where I’d dropped my purse. When I didn’t move, he turned back to me with raised eyebrows.

“Ignoring someone?” he asked.

“Well,… um, yeah.”

“Are you sure you don’t need to answer it?”

“Positive.”

Before he could ask any more questions, I kissed him again. Hard this time. And even though he hesitated for an instant, he returned it. I fumbled to take off his glasses and placed them on the nightstand beside my bed before our arms twisted around each other, the kiss deepening.

I pulled him down onto the pillows with me. There wasn’t quite enough room for both of us on my twin bed, so he had to lie partially on top of me. One of his hands was in my hair, and the other rested near my elbow.

He wasn’t trying to grab my boob, he hadn’t slid his hand up my shirt, and he didn’t attempt to unzip my jeans.

Actually, Toby didn’t try anything risky. I had the feeling I was going to have to make all of the big moves, like loosening the buttons on his shirt, which I did.

For an instant, I wondered if he was hesitating because of me. Because I was the Duff. Because he didn’t really find me attractive. Despite all those compliments he paid me, it didn’t feel like he wanted me. Not the way Wesley had.

No. I knew that wasn’t right. It wasn’t that Toby didn’t want the big things-he was a teenage boy, after all-but he was a gentleman. A patient, respectful boy who didn’t want to cross any lines. And we’d only been dating for a couple of days.

Did that make me a slut? The fact that we’d only been dating for, like, four days and I was already rolling around with him in my teeny-tiny bed? Had my thing with Wesley totally twisted my perception of sex?

Or did every girl do it?

Vikki slept with most of her boyfriends on the first date.

The whole school thought Vikki was a whore, though.

Casey had slept with Zack only a week after they’d started going out.

Casey had been fifteen at the time, and Zack was her first real boyfriend. She was naive and stupid, and she didn’t hesitate to admit that it was a major mistake.

But I knew I wouldn’t feel that way about Toby. I mean, I was the one pushing this forward. I wanted to go farther with him. Because I liked him. Because he was cute and sweet. Because he wasn’t ashamed to date me. I couldn’t think of one good reason not to sleep with him.

God, I just wanted to stop thinking. I kissed him harder, pulled him closer, trying to re-create that mind-numbing feeling I’d had before… with Wesley. But it wasn’t working. I couldn’t stop thinking.