Читать книгу Gabi, a Girl in Pieces - Isabel Quintero - Страница 33

October 12

Okay. Wow. So I realized why moms are so worried about sex: it’s everywhere. Like just around the corner. Ahhhhhhh! I can’t believe it finally happened. I was in Algebra II and asked Mrs. Black if I could go to the restroom. Of course she let me go (sometimes I think seeing me in her class every day for the last four years may be as unpleasant for her as it has been for me). I didn’t really have to go, but I was so bored and needed to get out for fifteen or twenty minutes before I lost my mind from doing one more quadratic equation. I was getting a Dr. Pepper (to go with the Hot Cheetos I was munching on) from the downstairs vending machines, the ones near the science rooms, when I heard some steps coming down the stairs. I looked up and who should it be but Mr. Hot Stuff himself: Eric!

I tried to scarf down the spicy cheese curls and give my Cheeto fingers a quick wipe inside my pockets. In an instant, all I knew was that this was the moment I had been waiting for. For him. For Eric, who makes me stuck for words. Makes me forget about Joshua Moore (who had currently been moved to the front of the class for being an ass—surprise, surprise). He came up to me, and we joked and flirted and talked. I hoped he might see past the waistline and see me—how funny I can be and how cute I giggle and how good I am in language arts. Maybe I just imagined it. Maybe he was just being nice to the fat girl. All those things were rushing through my mind. Until it finally happened—

THE KISSING THING.

Well, kind of. At first, we talked and joked and flirted and talked some more and then…HE TOUCHED ME. Touched me gently on the waist. We were so close, I could smell the peppermint gum he was chewing.

“You know,” he said, “I’ve never kissed anyone.” (This could or could not have been a line, but I didn’t care and went with it.)

“You know,” I said, “I have never kissed anyone either.” (That was so lame. I can’t believe I said it. Major facepalm.)

“Oh,” he said. And I tried to breathe because this was one of those moments where he was making me stuck for words.

“Yeah,” I said (like a dumb-ass). But then—and this is what made me believe that I wasn’t as big a dumb-ass as I had originally imagined—his hands on my waist, my back on the wall, my insides on fire, ALL my skin vibrating, lips set—I could almost taste peppermint…suddenly we heard, “What are you two doing?” and saw Mr. Paul’s big bald head sticking out of his biology classroom door. “Get back to class before I call security.”

I was both embarrassed and devastated—I was going to have to see Mr. Paul later, and he never lets anything go so he’d probably bring it up. We ran upstairs and just as we got to the last step, I turned and kissed him before I could even stop myself.

He was very shocked. Almost as shocked as I was. I had done something I had been thinking about doing, but knew I shouldn’t. Things were out of order—I was supposed to wait for him. More embarrassment.

“Wow. I didn’t know you had it in you. I guess there’s more than meets the eye.” That’s what he said. Stupid cliché but readily accepted.

I guess there is more to this fat girl than even this fat girl ever knew.

I called Cindy when I got home and told her that something happened, but I couldn’t tell her over the phone because my mom might be on the other line. I hate when she does that. I don’t know why she doesn’t trust me. Then Cindy asked me why I was being old fashioned and using a landline. “I dropped my phone in the toilet,” I said. “And my mom said that she wasn’t buying me another one. So I guess it’s back to the Stone Age. Pretty soon I’ll be writing you letters by candlelight.” She laughed, and I told her I’d pick her up tomorrow and then I called Sebastian and told him the same thing.

I really don’t get why my mom doesn’t trust me and has to listen to my phone conversations or why she doesn’t think I’m responsible. I get good grades and try to help around the house, and I don’t get in trouble at school. Which is more than I can say for Beto who is currently failing P.E. How do you fail P.E.? I don’t know, but apparently my brother does. Yet I am labeled the irresponsible and lazy one.

When I asked my mom what I do that makes me lazy and irresponsible, she said, “I started working when I was five. En el campo. In the fields! Camotes. Beans. Ejotes. Strawberries. Tomatoes and even cacahuates. Stooped over digging in dirt looking for peanuts, picking each green bean, each tomato. Backs hunched over as far as the eye could see so if you looked down the rows all you would see were legs without torsos. We started at the crack of dawn, apenas salía el sol, and there we were with sacks on our backs—stooping, picking, filling, stooping, picking, filling. We’d go home with cracked hands and black nails. Then at seven we would go to mass, tired. But a pinch from your grandma would wake us up. Then to school and then back to the fields. And you can’t even throw out the trash?” There was nothing I could say after she said that. After that speech, I actually felt lazy and irresponsible. And a little ashamed of being such a whiner.