Chapter 2

She shook her head and glanced at Mark, who was heading toward the kitchen. “Do you know if he goes to our school?”

“Hmm. No, I don’t think so. I only know Colette works here.” He let out a sharp breath. “She has this amazing piece of ass…” But before he continued, he glanced at Paige’s dirty look and cleared his throat. “But yeah, I mean, it didn’t work out anyway.” His fingers started picking at a dent in the wooden table. “She’s a crazy cheating bitch. Faking her feelings and shit. And thank God she works here on weekdays.”

If only their waiter Michelangelo showed up with another one of his lame puns.

“So,” Andrew said, “did I already say you look great?”

“Um…no.” Was he finally going to be decent?

“Oh. Well, you do.” He ran his hands through the extra long hair at the top of his fade haircut. “You always look great, like with the makeup and stuff.”

Widening her eyes slightly, she scooted her chair closer. “Thanks.” Even though it was a compliment from a dickbag, it was always nice to hear someone--especially a guy--praise her makeup. It was like people appreciated her artwork, and was there anything wrong with looking her best every day?

But the boost in her self-esteem died off as fast as it had come when Andrew asked, “You made YouTube tutorials, right? Like in middle school?”

Her heart rate increased as yet another person brought up that part of her past. The bitter images came back as she looked down at the table. “Oh, yeah. It was a while ago.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He leaned forward, his eyes seeming to search for his memory in the space between them before glancing up at her. “And you stopped at the end of eighth grade, right?”

She nodded slowly.

“Why’d you stop?”

“Um…” She struggled to think of a response that didn’t say too much about her personal life, particularly during eighth grade, to a borderline acquaintance in the most gossipy social circle in school. The amount of shit the whole school knew was much more than what she was okay with, and surely at least Andrew knew about the pictures and rumors that turned her life around. They were probably what even got her on this date with Andrew, considering he was an attention-seeking prick. And how much different were her exes?

“Oh, wait!” he exclaimed, hitting the table top. “When your nudes came out everyone started hating your videos.”

Paige wanted to hide right then and there. Maybe move away and live as a hermit for the rest of her life, just as long as no one talked about her anymore.

“Is that why you stopped?”

She wanted to punch his face so hard that it would look like one of his dimples. “Um, can we not talk about that?”

“Oh, sure.” He leaned back with an apologetic look. “Sorry.”

A buzzing sound came from his pocket. When he answered his phone, his mouth formed an O. “Colette? Yeah, we got a table already. Wait, what? Sorry, I can’t hear you, hang on.” He glanced at me. “I gotta talk to Colette. If Mark comes back can you order for me?”

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Uh…” He seemed to look at the first thing he saw and said, “The first one with the scallops and mussels.”

When he went outside, she hoped he was going to pay for his food as she looked at the price of his order. He might as well pay for her food too, since he probably had an allowance larger than what he needed. If she had that money, she’d spend days on end buying clothes and makeup. The mall was always the fastest wallet-drainer, but at least she’d get to stop wearing stuff she owned since the summer before freshman year. Her closet even had some of Mom’s old clothes, which Mom had worn in her teen years just before she left home and got pregnant with Jerry. Then she had Paige two years later.

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