“You’re not even plus-sized, Cherry,” another girl said.
“Yes, I am,” Cherry said. It was the eighth grade; she was a size sixteen.
“Well, you’re notfat.”
Nobody had said she was fat. Explicitly.
“I don’t even like Evan,” Cherry said. It was true, though no one would believe that now.
Cherry didn’t even think Evan wascute. But she’d thought he was nice enough. They sat together in science. (They still would, after this.) Cherry had said yes to Evan because she’d wanted to come to this dance, and because she’d wantedsomeboy to like her.
Evan didn’t hang out with the popular boys, usually. He got to hang out with them that day because of what he’d done to Cherry.
Evan was gay.
That was obvious, in retrospect. He was married now. He lived in Colorado.
Cherry still hadn’t forgiven him.
Chapter 60
When Cherry was a sophomore at Creighton, she’d had a crush on one of the other art students.
His name was Cam, and he was a few years older than her. He was from Hawaii and studying ceramics.
Cam was so nice to Cherry...
Like, he always sat by her in class. And was always offering to help her or give her advice. If he saw her in the student center, he’d drop down onto the couch next to her. Sometimes he’d stay there for hours.
He always seemed to be making excuses to touch Cherry’s hands.
She liked him.
He was handsome. (She thought he was handsome.)
He licked his bottom lip when she talked.
Cherry spent a whole semester feeling like she didn’t know the secret word that would make Cam step fully into her reach.
It was confusing.
And upsetting.
Humiliating in a way that was familiar and that she couldn’t put words to.
She was only nineteen, and she’d known several Cams.
Chapter 61
The best thing about Cherry’s college boyfriend was that, once he’d decided to like her, he’d done so with his whole heart and his whole dick.
It had been a real mess in the end...
But at least she knew that he’d wanted her.
Chapter 62
When Cherry stripped the bed, she found the charm bracelet shoved between the mattress and the headboard. And she found the half-eaten spinach egg wrap in a paper envelope on the floor.
