Cherry laughed. “Yes! Literally, yes!”
He waved his hand around his face. “I just mean the necklace. And the hair.”
“I’m not even wearing my hair like that tonight. I thought you liked my hair?”
“I do! I like your everything! It’s just...”
Cherry gripped the steering wheel. “It’s just that I look like a cartoon character—who was drawn to look exactly like me. I can’t change my entire appearance!”
“Your sister did!”
Cherry sat back against the seat...
Like a five-thousand-pound wrecking ball had just swung through the windshield and hit her in the chest.
“Cherry,” Russ said. “I didn’t mean that.”
She ignored him. She’d been driving north on Saddle Creek Road. She got into the left lane and made a U-turn.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m taking myself home.”
He covered his face with his hand. “Cherry, I’msorry.”
She ignored him.
“I didn’t mean it.”
She ignored him; it wasn’t hard.
They weren’t far from her house. After a few minutes, she parked behind the dumpster in her driveway, blocking the sidewalk.
Russ had turned in the passenger seat to face her. “Please don’t get out of the car, Cherry.”
Cherry put on her right shoe and got out of the car.
Russ scrambled out, too.
“Go home,” she said.
“I can’t drive.”
“Take an Uber.” She was walking up her sidewalk.
“Cherry, wait!”
She didn’t wait. She went in the house and let Stevie out of her kennel.
Stevie followed Cherry upstairs, and Cherry let her. She let her sleep on the bed.
Chapter 40
When Cherry was a girl—when she was eight, when she was twelve, when she was sixteen—she figured that she’d lose weight someday.
That she would reach some point, and there would be a transformation.
That was the story arc of every fat girl in fiction—of every good girl who was ever overlooked. There wasbeforeandafter. At some point, you changed. You blossomed. (Or tightened into a bud.) You assumed your true form.
