Chapter 4

Emery

By the time Piper dropped me off, I had a dress, shoes I wasn’t convinced I could walk in, and a text conversation with a stranger I absolutely should’ve stopped answering an hour ago.

Instead, I was sitting in Piper’s car staring at my phone.

“You know you can take that inside,” Piper said.

“I know.”

“Because you’ve been staring at it since we left the mall.”

“I have not.”

“You smiled at it twice.”

“I smile.”

“Not at your phone.”

I shoved it into my bag.

Piper grinned. “You like him.”

“I don’t even know him.”

“You know he’s a guy.”

“I learned that approximately twenty minutes ago.”

“And suddenly the wrong number got interesting.”

“It was already interesting.”

Her grin widened.

I immediately regretted saying that.

“Goodbye, Piper.”

“Ask Mystery Man if he has a hot friend.”

I climbed out. “You need professional help.”

“Love you too!”

I shut the door and headed inside before she could embarrass me in front of the neighbors.

Mom was in the kitchen when I walked in, and Kayla sat at the island eating cereal even though it was almost six.

Mom noticed the bags immediately.

“What did you buy?”

“A dress.”

“For what?”

“Sadie Hawkins.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “You’re going?”

There was something about the surprise in her voice that bothered me.

“Maybe.”

“Who are you taking?” Kayla asked.

“Nobody yet.”

“You have to ask someone,” Mom said.

“I know how Sadie Hawkins works.”

“So who are you thinking about?”

Nobody.

That was the real answer.

But somewhere in the embarrassing little fantasy section of my brain, there was Rhett Callahan.

Fantasy Emery would walk into school tomorrow wearing something that actually fit instead of another oversized sweater. Rhett would look up, really look at me, and somehow realize I’d been right there all along. Obviously he’d fall madly in love with me shortly afterward.

Fantasy Emery was an idiot.

Real Emery was lucky he’d learned her name yesterday.

“I don’t know,” I said.

Mom held out her hand. “Let me see the dress.”

My stomach tightened.

“It’s just a dress.”

“Emery.”

I pulled it from the bag.

Mom held it up.

Her mouth tightened almost immediately.

“Oh.”

One syllable.

Somehow worse than an entire sentence.

“What?”

“Nothing. The color is pretty.”

Here it came.

“But?”

“It’s very fitted.”

“I know.”

“Did you try a larger size?”

“This is my size.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the most flattering size.”

My excitement started leaking out of me.

“It fit fine.”

Mom looked at the dress again. “It’s going to be very tight across your chest.”

“I can’t exactly change my chest.”

“You don’t need to get an attitude. I’m trying to help you.”

Of course.

She was always trying to help.

“I’m just saying girls with your figure have to be more careful about what they wear.”

Kayla went very quiet.

“What does that mean?”

Mom sighed like I was deliberately making this difficult.

“You’re very developed, Emery. You always have been. Something that looks cute on another girl can look…different on you.”

Different.

I knew that word.

I’d been hearing versions of it since middle school.

That’s too tight.

That’s too low.

You don’t need to draw attention there.

People will get the wrong idea.

“What wrong idea?”

Mom gave me a look. “You know exactly what I mean. Boys your age see a girl with a large chest in a tight dress and they’re going to look. And girls talk. You don’t want people thinking you’re trying to show everything off.”

My throat tightened.

The dress wasn’t low-cut.

It wasn’t inappropriate.

It just fit me.

“I wasn’t trying to show anything off.”

“I didn’t say you were. I’m telling you how it might look.”

Which was somehow worse.

Mom handed it back.

“You’re already self-conscious about your weight. Why wear something that’s going to make you spend the entire night worrying about your stomach and whether everyone is staring at your chest?”

Because for ten minutes in a dressing room, I hadn’t hated it.

Because Piper thought I looked beautiful.

Because some stranger had looked at the same picture and said anyone who didn’t notice me was an idiot.

“I like it,” I said quietly.

Mom’s expression softened in that awful, pitying way.

“Then wear it, sweetheart. I just don’t want you getting hurt when you’re already sensitive about these things.”

There it was.

Not you look beautiful.

Not have fun.

A warning.

Like always.

“I’ll be upstairs.”

I shoved the dress into the bag.

“Emery, don’t be dramatic.”

I kept walking.

⸻

The second my bedroom door closed, I pulled the dress out again.

I held it against myself in front of the mirror.

Now I saw everything Mom had pointed out.

My chest.

My stomach.

My hips.

What if everyone did stare?

What if somebody took a picture?

What if I walked into Sadie Hawkins thinking I finally looked pretty and everybody else saw exactly what Mom saw?

I started folding the dress.

Halfway through, I stopped.

My phone was on my bed.

Before I could think myself out of it, I grabbed it.

The last message from Unknown was still there.

My fingers moved.

ME: Have you ever felt like you’re just not good enough?

I stared at the message.

Oh God.

Why had I sent that?

I almost followed it with a joke.

Nothing came back.

Thirty seconds.

A minute.

Two.

Great.

I’d officially scared off the random stranger who’d been perfectly happy discussing dresses and my accidental pickup lines.

Then the three dots appeared.

Stopped.

Appeared again.

Finally:

UNKNOWN: Yeah.

I sat down.

That wasn’t what I’d expected.

ME: Really?

UNKNOWN: You sound surprised.

ME: I don’t know. You seem pretty confident.

A pause.

UNKNOWN: You don’t know me.

I smiled a little.

ME: You used that against me earlier.

UNKNOWN: And now I’m stealing it back.

There he was.

But another message came before I could answer.

UNKNOWN: Why? Somebody make you feel like shit?

I looked toward the dress.

ME: Kind of.

UNKNOWN: Who?

I hesitated.

ME: Doesn’t matter.

UNKNOWN: Okay.

That was it.

No pushing.

I liked that.

Then:

UNKNOWN: But whoever it was doesn’t automatically get to be right.

I swallowed.

ME: What if they are?

The dots appeared.

UNKNOWN: About you not being good enough?

ME: Yeah.

This time his answer came quickly.

UNKNOWN: Then they’re wrong.

I actually laughed.

ME: You don’t even know me.

UNKNOWN: True.

UNKNOWN: But I know enough to know nobody has their shit together as much as they pretend they do.

I stared at that.

Maybe it wasn’t profound.

Maybe anybody could’ve said it.

But somehow, tonight, I needed somebody to.

ME: Including you?

There was another pause.

UNKNOWN: Especially me.

Something changed then.

Just a little.

Yesterday he’d been a wrong number.

Today he’d been funny and cocky and weirdly easy to talk to.

But this was the first time I wondered what was happening on the other side of the phone.

What could a guy who seemed that confident possibly think he wasn’t good enough for?

I looked at the green dress again.

Then I hung it back on my closet door.

I wasn’t returning it tonight.

And somehow, talking to a person who didn’t know who I was had made me feel a little more like myself.