First, it’ll let them know that I trust them.
Second, it’ll show that I can be chill.
The super-secret third reason is that this secret is tearing up my heart and dying to escape. If I don’t let a little bit of the truth out, the rest is going to barrel out of my mouth at the wrong time, and that would be disastrous.
“Um, so you both know Harrison,” I say.
“Do you have a crush on him?” Karen asks. “Because I kind of think you have a crush on him.”
“Nobody talks like that,” Emilia glares at Karen. Then she turns back to me, “But you do, don’t you? You like him. Is that it?”
I swallow.
Hard.
No backing out.
This is it.
I set myself up for this, and the only place to go is forward.
“Yeah,” I whisper, and it’s like a giant weight has lifted from my chest. I didn’t even realize just how much that secret was killing me.
It hurt.
A lot.
And it’s something I can’t tell anyone else.
I definitely can’t tell Harrison.
He can never, ever know how I actually feel.
The biggest problem is that I knew Harrison before all of this. I knew him before his dad’s weird plan. I knew him before he was popular.
I knew him before he started bullying people who were smaller than him.
“I fucking knew it,” Karen laughs. “So are you going to ask him out?”
“Yeah,” Emilia says. “Or are you two already, you know?” She wiggles her eyebrows and I shake my head.
“Nah,” I whisper, blushing.
Not that I haven’t thought about it.
Because oh, I’ve thought about it.
I know that Harrison isn’t a virgin. I know he’s had sex before: probably with a lot of people. He’s dated enough of them, anyway, and I know he’s been seen around school a lot with Dana. She’s tall and curvy and beautiful. In other words, she’s everything I’m not. Where she has shape and poise, I’ve got...
I don’t know.
I’m just flat.
Straight.
Plain.
“So what are you going to do about this?” Karen says. She looks at me thoughtfully as she reaches for one of the cookies that are sitting between us. The three of us have somehow managed to all fit on my bed, and Emilia brought a tin of cookies.