I put the phone to my ear and play the first message.
“Oh. My. God. I can’t believe you went to an East 48 concert! By yourself?” She squeals and then laughs. “Seriously, who are you and what have you done with Vicky Decker? Anyway, call me. I need details. Stat.”
A pang of guilt twists my stomach. I really fooled her. She’s so excited for me. I can almost forget what I overheard on the phone, that she thinks I need to get a life. But that sends another kind of twist through my gut. I press play on her next message.
“Vicky! Where are you? Don’t tell me you’re hanging out with Adrian Ahn now.” Uproarious laughter. Despite the photo, she knows that’s not possible. “Who did you go to the concert with? Someone took that photo of you dancing and looking, wow . . . you look so great. Call me, okay? I’ll be here all night.”
I save the final message until I’m home and sitting in front of my computer. The picture I doctored of myself with Jenna’s new bus friends is filling the screen. I can’t stand seeing myself with them anymore. They stole my best friend. I don’t want anything to do with them. A few clicks reverse all the changes I made, and leaves Jenna in her rightful place.
And me nowhere.
I pull up the East 48 photo. No Jenna. No Jenna’s new friends. This one is mine. I’m sorry I even showed it to her, that she thinks I could ever be that girl, dressed like that. Dancing like that. In that ponytail. It’s so not me, I might as well have purple hair! I take the paintbrush tool and I draw bright purple hair on myself. Then I change the color and add orangey-red streaks. I draw dark glasses on myself. And tattoos. An arm full of bracelets.
None of it looks real. But it turns me into someone else entirely. Someone fun and confident and unafraid. What would it feel like to be that girl? To make people look at me instead of always hiding?
I put my computer to sleep and listen to Jenna’s final message.
“Hey.” The excitement is gone from her voice now. “Are you mad at me or something? I don’t know why you’re not calling back. I hope everything’s okay. So, call me. Vicky?” There’s a fidgety silence at the end, and a sigh, and she hangs up.
My heart is pounding now, because of what I’m about to do.
Which is nothing.
I’m not going to call her, or text. Because that will only make it worse. I won’t be able to talk to her without crying. Or continuing to lie about the concert. I’ll have to tell her the truth, and I really will be pathetic then. I’ll be her loser friend back home who sits alone in her bedroom and Photoshops herself into other people’s lives.
I’d rather she remember me as that girl dancing at the concert.
5
I’M TOTALLY ZONKED OUT AROUND eleven on Saturday morning when Mom comes into my room all cheerful without even knocking. “Oh, you’re still asleep! Sorry. I got you this.”
I open one eye as she holds up a Forever 21 bag, then pulls out its contents—a black stretchy top and a neon-yellow skirt. I roll over to face the wall and close my eyes, hoping it’s a dream.
Mom says, “You can wear it to the party!” at which point I’m actually hoping this is a nightmare.
I flop back over to face her. “I told you, no party.”
“Not us, silly. Marissa DiMarco. It’s next weekend.” Mom holds the neon skirt up to her waist and looks at it in the mirror. “I ran into her mother at the mall. She thought you might like to go.”
“What?” I am now fully awake and living the nightmare. “Why would she think that? I’m not even friends with Marissa.”
“I simply mentioned—”
“Nooo. Mom, what did you do?”
“Nothing! She asked how you were doing. All I said was that your best friend Jenna had moved away . . .”
I pull the covers over my head and start whimpering.
“. . . And she mentioned the party they were having and maybe you’d like to come.”
There is only one thing worse than never being invited to anything, and that’s the pity invite. No, wait . . . even worse than the pity invite is the my-mother-made-me-do-it pity invite.
“You’re killing me. You are literally trying to kill me.”
“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” Mom says quietly. “I just thought—”
I play dead under the blanket. No movement. Not even breathing.
My mother sighs. “Well, just think about it.”
I wait until she leaves my room and shuts the door before throwing the covers off my face and taking a huge, gasping breath. The new clothes are draped over the chair. While it was nice of her to buy me clothes, my mom clearly doesn’t pay attention to what I actually wear. Scratch that—she pays attention, and then buys what she thinks I should wear. I pull both pieces out of the bag. Why would she buy me a skirt? I don’t even wear skirts. And this one? I might as well put a traffic cone around my waist and shout “LOOK AT ME OVER HERE YOOO-HOOO!”
Having the clothes appear in my room is slightly better than an actual shopping trip. My mother has a tendency to shout my name from across the store, waving garments and offering commentary on which part of my figure they will flatter or hide the best. The only upside is, if I agree to an outfit of her choice, I get to go to the thrift store afterward, which is where I buy most of the clothes I actually wear, like my oversized “boyfriend” sweaters—which are just men’s sweaters—and my lightly scuffed shoes. Mom hates it there. So, she drops me off and I get to shop by myself.
I crawl out of bed and pull on the skirt and top, and shuffle out to the kitchen to show her.
“Oh!” She presses her hands together like namaste. “They fit!”
I twirl around and curtsy. “Now can you take me to the thrift store?”
“Are you really going to wear it?”
Of course I’m not—I look like a giant bumblebee—but I at least have to pretend it’s a possibility. “Maybe with a sweater?”
She sighs. “Fine. I’ll drop you on my way to the grocery store.”
I eat breakfast and change into my usual clothes. The neon-yellow-and-black ensemble gets shoved in its bag and tucked into my closet, never to be seen again. Just as we’re getting in the car, a text from Jenna lights up my phone.
Need to talk to you.
I fight the urge to text her back. To believe that she actually needs me. Because I know that’s not true. She’s just used to me being there when nobody else is. Which, ironically, is part of the reason she finds me pathetic. You can’t have it both ways, Jenna. I tuck my phone back into my pocket.
“Everything okay with Jenna?”