Even the guys like Hayes, the ones you’d think would go for someone less cookie-cutter. Someone with layers. With depth. Originality. Someone like… well… me.
“Sorry, Ambs. If I knew, I’d tell you,” I say, managing an actual smile. “But Hay and I have barely talked this week.”
She shoots me a look, all smug amusement.
“Ahhh… so that’s why you’ve been such a bitch. You and Hayes are fighting, huh?”
I sit up straighter.
“We are not fighting.”
“Uh huh. Sure.”
“You’re so annoying.” I chuck a contraband Hershey’s bar at her from the stash I keep hidden from my mom behind my bed.
She snatches it midair, completely unfazed, and sets it aside with a look of pure disgust.
“Say what you want, but you always go full emo when things are off with you two. You’ve got a seriously unhealthy attachment to a guy you swear is just a friend.” She pauses a beat, her gaze sharpening as she studies my face, like she’s sizing me up. “Then again, I’ve always thought you had a thing for him.”
“Good thing no one asked you.”
I grab a hair tie and stalk toward the mirror, scowling at my reflection. I basically resemble a sleep-deprived raccoon. Smudged eyeliner, dark circles, and a tangled mess in the back of my hair that looks borderline aggressive.
“You can’t go to the game looking like that,” Amber tsks, shaking her head. “Sit—I’ll fix you.”
She goes to work, her acrylic nails sharper than they look. I wince as she tugs them through the snarls near my scalp, but the pain is brief.
When she’s done, she beams at her handiwork and tells me to close my eyes as she douses me in hairspray.
“Ta da!” she says, spinning me toward the mirror.
I blink at my reflection. The knot on the back of my head is gone, replaced by two long, elaborate fishtail braids. My hair actually looks… incredible.
“You know,” she says, her voice catching a little as she studies my reflection, “when I was little, I used to wish I looked just like you.”
“Seriously?”
She nods, her soft blue eyes crinkling as shereaches up to brush my widow’s peak with surprising gentleness. “You’re like Snow White come to life. All pale and mysterious and fairy-tale.”
For the first time in weeks, the anger I’ve been clinging to loosens its grip. Just a little. In its place, something warmer slips in before I have the chance to brace against it.
“I bet some guys would even like you,” she adds breezily, “if you weren’t so scary.”
And just like that—poof—there goes the warmth.
“Geez. Thanks.”
“Listen, Ally, I think it’s great you’ve got this whole ‘independent woman’ thing going on, but it’s time for a little tough love.” She eyes me critically, gaze sweeping down my outfit—faded dark-wash Levi’s, scuffed combat boots, and one of Hayes’s old football jerseys that swallows me whole. “I’ll try to put this delicately. You think being smart and moody makes you intriguing and cool, but to everyone else, you just come off as… hard to love. If you ever want an actual boyfriend, you’re going to have to make some changes. You can’t just keep being…” She wrinkles her nose. “You.”
I snort. “That was delicate?”
“You know what I mean.”
She claps her hands together and tilts her head, already scheming.
“I have a great idea!” she says. “I just bought this sexy red tube top. It would look so good on you. You should wear it today.”
“I like what I’m wearing,” I say, but the bite in my voice is softer thanusual. Even though it’s infuriating to hear her suggest I change the very parts of myself I actually like—the ones that make memeand different from everyone else—I can tell she thinks she’s helping.
