There were so many families here. And other teenagers. Lots of people from school came here. Julia had never been invited.
And her parents would never bring her to a place like this. They didn’t like to go out or stay up late. Or do anything, really. Julia’s parents were both such antisocial nerds, she didn’t know how they’d ever found each other. Her mom said that everything social was easier before social media. Even being an outcast.
“Have fun at the drive-in,” her mom had said when Julia left. “I hope you like mosquitoes. Also—don’t drink anything. Drive-in bathrooms are always disgusting.”
Her dad had given her twenty dollars and told her to bring back the change.
Julia made her way through the cars to the little building at the back of the field where the bathrooms and snack shop were. There were picnic tables set up outside and a swing set where some little kids were playing.
It was the last Saturday night before school started. The days were still hot, but it was cool enough that night to wear long sleeves. Chloe had lent Julia a pink satin baseball jacket. She was wearing it with jeans and an old T-shirt of her mom’s that saidThe Breeders.
She went to the bathroom first. She already had to go. It was perfectly clean (Take that, Mom), even though the floor was concrete with a big drain in the middle like they hosed the whole thing down every night.
Julia washed her hands and tried not to look up at the mirror over the sink. She was still getting used to the person she’d see there ...
It wasn’t her.
Julia Kimball was a weirdo. Not even a weirdo—a kind of nothing girl that nobody noticed. She had long, heavy, dirty-blond hair and thick glasses that made her eyes sort of pop out of her temples. Her clothes were fine, her face was fine. Nobody ever made fun of her—but only because nobody cared that much.
Like, nobodyavoidedJulia. She’d always had friends. Lowercase-ffriends. She got invited to parties when people were inviting the whole class. And the other girls at school didn’t mind talking to her or letting her sit at their lunch tables. When her mother won tickets at work to see Olivia Rodrigo, Julia didn’t have any trouble finding someone to go with her. A girl named Addison. They’d bought matching purple sweatshirts.
But no one ever thought Julia Kimball wasinteresting.
No one ever thought she was pretty.
Julia dried her hands with a paper towel and glanced up carefully at the mirror.
The girl in her reflection looked wary ...
She had layered, curly hair that coiled against her cheeks and shoulders. When Julia shook her head, the curls bounced and trembled.
There was something uncanny about the girl’s face. It looked too big, too flat. There was too much space between her eyes.
Julia swallowed. She remembered the lip gloss—liptint—that Chloe had given her for her birthday, and dug it out of her pocket to reapply.
There was no reason to have pink lips, standing here alone in this bathroom. Or sitting alone in the dark in the back seat of Aiden’s Jeep. But Chloe said it had to be a habit.
“Beauty is a habit,” Chloe said. She also called it “a commitment,” “self-care,” and “good strategy for life, if we’re being honest.”
You might think,Oh, easy for Chloe to say all that.With her doll-like face and huge hazel eyes.
But on top of being naturally beautiful, Chloealsoworked at it. Julia admired that—working hard at something when you didn’t have to. (That was how Julia approached her schoolwork.)
Chloe was like no one Julia had ever met before ...
She’d lived in Germany and Korea and Delaware. She bought all her clothes from limited-time drops—she was obsessed with online influencers who no one else had been influenced by yet. (Chloe wore an oversized sweater to school once with no pants, and she didn’t even get sent home for it!) She wasreligiousabout skin care and makeup. She worepink eye shadow that made her look like a slightly bruised newborn. Her skin glowed so much, she looked wet. She had hair like chestnut silk.
Julia would have expected Chloe to make friends with some of the other cool girls at school—even though none of them were as cool as her—or at least some of the other pretty girls. But Chloe sat down next to Julia in choir on her very first day, and that’s it, they were friends.
Chloe acted like they werealreadyfriends. She asked for Julia’s number. She asked when school got out for the summer. She invited herself to Julia’s house, and they sat leaning against each other on the couch, watching TikTok on Chloe’s phone.
“What do you have in common with that girl?” Julia’s mother kept asking.
Nothing,Julia would think.Isn’t it wonderful?
Julia had only ever lived in Bellevue, Nebraska. She bought all her clothes at the outlet mall just outside of town. Her parents were totalitarian about social media, so Julia had never been directly influenced by anyone. She didn’t wear makeup. At least she hadn’t, before Chloe. And she’d never thought about her hair beyond thinking,It is what it is, I guess.
It was Chloe’s idea for Julia to cut it.
