Читать книгу Gabi, a Girl in Pieces - Isabel Quintero - Страница 23

September 1

Why is Georgina such a fucking idiot? Why? During first period (which is the poetry class that I signed up for because it seemed like fun but turns out is going to be another English class, and while I love English, two English classes means double the writing and double the reading and double the everything else. I so hope I can survive.), Martin Espada asked me if it was true that Cindy was pregnant.

I was like, “What? Who told you that?”

Martin rolled his eyes, “Who do you think?”

Georgina. He didn’t have to say her name. Everyone knew Georgina had the biggest mouth in the world since the first grade when Tomasa Jones peed her pants on the slide during recess and Georgina told everyone (even the custodians).

He nodded and asked again, “So is it true?”

I don’t know what possessed me to be rude to one of the nicest boys I have every met (he was probably just trying to let me know that Georgina was talking shit about my best friend), but I said, “So is it true you have a hairy ass?”

Martin’s face got all red as he stuttered, “What? I was just—whatever,” and turned around.

I wish I hadn’t been so mean to Martin. He’s really nice. And kind of cute. And it turns out he already writes poetry. Good poetry. None of that “the rat is on the mat” shit. But stuff that has meaning. By lunch time, I had heard it from eight different people, and there were eight different stories. In one of them, both Cindy and I had had sex with German—vomit. In another, Cindy didn’t know who the father was. The best one was that Cindy had gotten pregnant from some old guy who is now in prison and blamed poor innocent German. Georgina’s wild, clown-faced imagination had not failed us. She also said that we’d been in the pharmacy lots of times, getting tests and condoms. Stupid Georgina—if condoms had been purchased, Cindy wouldn’t have been in this mess. But no one questioned her stories with logic, and people stayed away from us like we had herpes or something contagious like that. I heard the word SLUTS! thrown at us a few times, but no one owned up to it.

I was pissed. I almost wondered if I should stay away from Cindy. What if my mom was right? What if Cindy was a bad girl, and she would somehow smear her badness on me? But then I realized how stupid and treasonous that way of thinking was. Cindy and I are homies for life. So the three of us—Sebastian, Cindy and I—ate at our usual table and just ignored the stares.

Sebastian tried to lighten the mood and shared that he had met a boy in his Spanish class who had just moved here from Bolivia. And he was gay. And he was cute. And Sebastian was very excited. That kind of took our mind off of Cindy’s situation. That and the chili cheese burrito I was shoving in my face.