Kody Keplinger - The DUFF - Designated Ugly Fat Friend

“I didn’t-” His eyes fell, staring at his shoes for a moment. I could tell he felt guilty. “Bianca, I’m sorry.” He looked into my eyes again. “I didn’t mean-” His hand reached out to touch me.

“Don’t,” I snapped, shrugging away from him. I slid to the side and stepped away from the wall. I wasn’t going to be cornered. I wasn’t going to let him have the power here. “Just stop, Wesley.”

It didn’t matter if some part of him found me attractive. That didn’t change things. I was just another girl he’d slept with. One among many.

“I didn’t mean anything to you,” I told him.

“Then why am I here?” he demanded, turning to face me again. “Why the hell am I here, Bianca?”

I glared up at his hardened face. “I’ll tell you why. Your parents leave you by yourself, so you fill your life with meaningless flings. With girls you’ll never have anything serious with-girls who practically worship you-so that they don’t abandon you. The only reason you’re here is because you can’t take the thought that someone else walked away from you. Your sensitive ego can’t handle that, and it’s easier to make me miss you than to make your parents come home.”

He was speechless, just staring at me with his jaw visibly clenching for a few seconds.

“Did I hit the mark, Wesley?” I spat. “Do I get you as well as you think you get me?”

He glared at me for a few minutes-long minutes-before stepping back. “Fine,” he muttered. “If that’s how you want it, I’ll go.”

“Yeah,” I said. “You should.”

He turned and stormed out of the house. I heard the front door slam, and I knew he was gone. For good. I took a few deep, slow breaths to clear my head and walked back up to my bedroom, where Toby waited for me.

“Hey,” I sighed, sitting down on the bed beside him. “I’m so sorry about that.”

“What happened?” he asked. “I wasn’t eavesdropping, but there was a lot of yelling. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “It’s a long, complicated story.”

“Well, if you ever want to talk about it”-Toby adjusted his glasses and gave me a nervous smile-“I’ve got the time to listen.”

“Thanks,” I said. “But I’m okay. Everyone has dirty laundry, right?” Well, everyone except you, Toby.

“Right,” he agreed. He leaned over and kissed me gently. “Sorry we were interrupted earlier.”

“Me, too.”

He pressed his lips to mine again, but I couldn’t enjoy it. I just kept thinking of Wesley. He had looked so hurt. But that’s what I had wanted when I left him, just a little, wasn’t it? For him to miss me? I tried to push it down, wanting so badly to lose myself in Toby’s arms. But I couldn’t.

Not the way I’d been able to lose myself with Wesley.

I pulled away, disgusted with myself. How could I think of Wesley when I was kissing a guy like Toby Tucker? What was the matter with me?

“Is something wrong?” Toby asked.

“It’s nothing,” I lied. “Just… we should probably start doing research for our editorials.”

“You’re right.” He didn’t seem irritated or offended or dejected at all. Perfect manners. A perfect smile. The perfect boy.

So why wasn’t I perfectly happy?

Wesley stayed on my mind for the next couple days, which put me in a really pissy mood-pissier than usual, that is.

I didn’t want to think about him. I wanted to think about Toby, who was obviously way too good for me. He could tell I was grumpy, but instead of harassing me about the cause, he just squeezed my hand, kissed me on the cheek, and bought me candy in hopes of making me smile again. How could I be thinking of another guy-an annoying, egotistical, womanizing guy-when such a wonderful one stood right in front of me? Maybe someone needed to slap me or put me through shock treatments like they give crazy people in the movies. That might have brought me to my senses.

But Wesley seemed to be everywhere. He was always climbing into his car just as I walked out to the student parking lot or standing two feet ahead of me in the lunch line. Do you know how hard it is to forget someone exists when they’re constantly in your sight? Pretty damn hard. For a second, I actually wondered if he might be doing this on purpose, like stalking me or something, but I ditched that idea when I noticed that he didn’t even look at me anymore. Like he was too mad about the things I’d said to acknowledge me.

It should have been a relief not to have his creepy eyes crawling all over me, but it wasn’t at all. It hurt.

Every time I saw Wesley, I was overcome with a flood of emotions. Anger, sadness, pain, irritation, regret, lust, and, worst of all, guilt. I knew I shouldn’t have said those things about his attachment issues-even if they were totally true. And despite my urge to apologize, I kept my mouth shut tight. Honestly, I would rather have dealt with the knowledge that I was a terrible person than suffer through another uncomfortable conversation with him.

Though I couldn’t avoid the conversation with his sister.

I was in the library one morning, trying to find a book that didn’t contain romantic vampires or kids flying on dragons, when Amy walked up to me. I swear, she was so freaking quiet that I didn’t have a chance to run. One minute I was alone, the next she was right beside me. I was ambushed.

“B-Bianca,” she stammered. She was wringing her hands and staring at the ground, as if talking to me was actually going to kill her.

“Oh. Um, hey, Amy.” I shoved the book I was examining back onto the shelf. “What’s going on?” I kept my face pointed away from her, pretending I was still scanning the titles in front of me.

I didn’t want to look at her. For one, she looked too much like her brother, and I was trying-and failing miserably-to forget about him. For another, I couldn’t stand to meet her eyes when she tore into me, which I just knew she was about to do. Not that I could blame her.

Well, okay, so I couldn’t really imagine timid little Amy tearing into anything, but still.

“I, um… I have something to say to you,” she said, trying to sound determined.

Or maybe Amy was upset at me for facilitating Wesley’s “lifestyle.” Maybe she wanted to blame me for the distance between them.

If that was the case, I wanted to defend him. To tell her that her grandmother was misrepresenting Wesley. That he wasn’t a bad guy-and definitely not a bad brother. But I knew not to get involved. It wasn’t my place to fix his family issues. He wasn’t even part of my life anymore.

“Okay. Go ahead.”

Here it comes, I thought. Whatever she says, don’t cry.

“I… I want to…” She took a deep breath. “Thank you.”

“Huh?” I turned around to face her. Surely I hadn’t heard her right. There was just no way.

“Thank you,” she repeated. “For Wesley. He… he’s a lot different, and I know it has to be because of you. I… I appreciate it, so thank you.”

Before I could ask for a detailed explanation-spoken slowly so that I could follow-Amy turned around and hurried away, her brown curls bouncing behind her.

I was left standing in the middle of the library, totally confused.

And it got worse later that day.

When Wesley rounded the corner after lunch while I was pulling notebooks out of my locker, I wasn’t really surprised. Like I said, he was everywhere. Vikki was with him, clinging to his arm and flipping her hair like the girl in a shampoo commercial. She was laughing, but I could have bet money that whatever Wesley had said wasn’t all that funny. She just wanted to inflate his ego… as if it needed to get any bigger.

“Over here,” she giggled, pulling him into the alcove ten feet away from me. “I wanna talk to you.”