Puddin' (Dumplin', #2)

by Julie Murphy

YOU HAVE AS MANY HOURS IN A DAY AS BEYONCÉ.

I know. They don’t put fat girls on the news. Well, they didn’t let fat girls win runner-up in the Miss Teen Blue Bonnet Pageant either. But everything happens for the first time at some point, so why can’t that first time be me?

one size doesn’t actually fit all.

It’s like some days you just wake up and your body doesn’t seem to look right in any of your clothes.

But I’m just sad she never told me. Or maybe it’s that I wasn’t listening closely enough when she did try to tell me.

Sprinkles make everything better,

We’ve never been the type to hug much. Not like Ellen and Willowdean. But in a way, I’m okay with that. Because this hug—this suffocatingly tight hug that Amanda has perfected from years of wrestling with her brothers—means so much more.

“You can use the word fat, by the way. It doesn’t bother me.” “It seems rude.” I smile. “Because you’ve only ever used it in a rude way.”

“Fat. We both have it. I just have enough of it for it to be the first thing you notice about me.”

I still wonder what it might be like to go into a mall and shop in any store I want, instead of just the ones who want me.

Maybe Bryce told him some horrible lie about me. Or even worse, maybe he told Mitch a horrible truth about me.