Rock Bottom Girl

by Lucy Score

“We all did incredibly stupid things in high school,” she said quietly. “Okay.” I waited.

“Hey, no cleavage staring on the first date, buddy. Eye contact only,” she said.

“Sorry. Old habits.”

“Are you forgetting the fact that I dumped him in high school for you?” she hissed. “You did not,”

“You broke up with him because you were bored to death.”

“Are you supposed to make a guy feel like second fiddle on a first date?” I asked.

“Ouch.” “Yeah, ouch.”

Before she could complain or take a swing at me, I crushed my mouth to hers.

But then her tongue danced around mine. Her hands gripped my shoulders. Her hips rocked into me. Blindly, I stumbled over to one of the library’s pillars at the foot of its stairs. I pressed her against the brick and tasted her. She made my blood sing with those sexy little moans.

“The library is not for necking,” Mrs. Ritter, the head librarian, said crisply.

“You’re mixing your Star Wars with your Nike slogans,” Vicky observed. “Shut up. I’m new at this rah rah shit.”

I wondered if most coaches were on anxiety medications or if they just

played fast and loose with potential heart attacks.

Jake: You look crazy tense. Chillax. Be encouraging.

“What?” I asked. “You’re being really coachy,” Phoebe observed. “Well, you guys are being really teamy. You’re working together.”

Angela stopped and faced the team. “Don’t let my sacrifice be in vain. Win this, bitches,” she said.

“We will win this for you, Cleat Face.”

The Barn Owls had their W. I had my victory.

“You did it, Mars!” Jake swung me around under the stadium lights, and everything was just about perfect.

It was a whistle engraved with the words ‘Coach Marley.’ Courtesy of Jake. I had to give him credit. The man was an excellent gift giver.

“Okay. Obviously Mr. Weston is into you, and that’s great. But you’re still kinda sad-circling around.”

“Sad circling?” “Remember that antidepressant prescription commercial with the sad circle?”

“Yes,” I said carefully. Was I a cartoon frowny face with a rain cloud over my head? “That’s you,” Angela said, appearing one seat back in the aisle.

“We think if you made an effort with your appearance, you’d be happier,” Phoebe insisted.

“Instagram. YouTube. They’re full of role models. You want to learn to contour your face? How to get the best clothes haul at Target for back-to-school? How to respond to bullies without losing your soul? It’s all there,” Natalee said.

“Basically, we’ve been talking, and we think you can do better,”

“There is no better than Mr. Weston. Better than what you’re doing now for yourself.”

Jake: I’m taking your silence as a “Yes, Jake, I’d love to go to the bonfire with your handsome face and hot body. I’m looking forward to it so much that I’m going to buy you a present just for inviting me.”

“Low maintenance doesn’t have to mean absolutely zero fucks given,” Morgan E. shot back.

“Darling, you will leave here better than you arrived. Now, how do you feel about defuzzing these caterpillars?” she asked, running a pink-tipped fingernail over my eyebrows.

“You believed in us. You’re making us better. We’re just returning the favor.” “We took up a collection.” “I guilted my parents into a donation.”

“I don’t know what to say,” I confessed. Self-consciously, I held up my hands and formed a heart with my fingers. Grinning, my girls repeated the gesture.

Zinnia: What the hell happened to you, and can you make it happen to me too? If this is a photo filter, I need it. Me: My team made me over. I don’t recognize myself. Zinnia: You look gorgeous! Tell me you’re not wasting that look on Saturday night leftovers with M&D.

The Jake Weston was picking me up at my house on a motorcycle. I was sure I’d fantasized about this exact scenario.

“I’ll get on first, and then you climb on behind me. Make sure you hold on real tight,” he said with a devilish wink. Ugh. I had a crush on my fake boyfriend. This was not good.

I, Marley Jean Cicero, was on the back of a motorcycle, hugging the hottest boy in town. It probably wasn’t healthy, but I felt that on some level, I had just healed an old wound.

“She’s all mine,” Jake called good-naturedly after him. “Jake!” I hissed. “What? He saw you do the slow-motion hair toss out of a helmet and walked smack into the sign. It was fucking hilarious.”

“Dating,” I said. “A motorcycle ride, a taco truck, and now flowers? A-plus.” “It’s not as hard as I thought it would be,”

“I just did what you told me. Thought about what you’d like to do and then did it.” God, he was so…everything.

I was grooming Jake to be the perfect man. For someone else. I’d go back to frantically polishing

There are people who take too much responsibility for everything and the people who don’t take responsibility for anything.”

but you were a hero to half the school. You don’t think you were the only person that girl tormented, do you?”

“How you make them feel now.” “You definitely aren’t the same guy you were twenty years ago,” Marley admitted.

“Maybe a little more serious for me,” I admitted. “Well, well,” she said smugly. “It’s about damn time. What do my dads think?” “I’ve been putting off their family dinner invitations.”

“Ninety percent

of people remember high school as a miserable experience.”

I felt my cheeks warm at the “girlfriend” introduction. I liked having that designation with Jake. I liked being attached to him in that way. And, if I were continuing with the whole honesty thing, I would be

forced to admit that I liked just about everything associated with Jake.

“If you’ll excuse us. I think I need to make out with my lady in the shadows,” Jake said.

“I loved looking across the fire and seeing you smile at me,” he said gruffly.