The Bad Boy's Girl (The Bad Boy's Girl #1)
Blair Holden
- Introduction—
Mom and Dad are at it again and I can hear their shouts through our thin, almost paper-like walls. They are still under the impression that if they shout downstairs, I won’t be able to hear them. Yet sadly for them, and for me, I can hear each and every word crystal clear.
But that’s what they do. They fight up to the point where they want to tear each other’s hair out and then go to their room. Lately, however, my dad has taken to sleeping in the guest bedroom, which he sneaks out of every morning before I go to school.
He thinks I don’t know, but I do.
I’m aware that things are bad between my parents but they’ll never leave each other. They’re stubborn like that. I get that from them, the stubbornness, but I really do hope I’m never put in a situation like theirs. Though I don’t have to worry about finding someone I love and then ending up hating them, because the guy I love will never love me. He’s too busy being in love with Nikki the Ho. Oh wait, let me rewind and tell you exactly why Nikki’s a ho.
Nicole Andrea Bishop, also known as the reason behind every bad thing in my life, is my ex-best friend and vice-captain of the varsity dance team. I’ve known her since kindergarten when everything was rainbows and butterflies, and sharing a cup of Jell-O meant that we were BFFs.
Truly, that’s what Nikki and I were for about ten years. Then high school happened and turned her into the spawn of Satan.
Gone was the girl with missing front teeth who used to braid my hair because I was physically incapable of doing so. Gone was the girl with severe acne who stayed up all night with me, helping me prepare for the nightmare that was my French final in junior high. Gone was the girl who’d become a sister to me, who had dinner with my family every Saturday night before we started our weekly Gilmore Girls marathon.
By the time freshman year ended, she had been possessed by the spirit of Regina George and I was that pesky fly that kept hovering near her. I fought to keep our friendship alive, I truly did, but there was only so much my pride could suffer.
This is the part where I tell you that I used to be fat. Oh, and when I say fat, I don’t mean the kind of fat where you could wear skinny jeans and crop tops yet still find it in yourself to criticize those few extra pounds.
I weighed a whopping two hundred and thirty pounds. I was that girl who wore sweatpants and XXL hoodies with my Converse all day, every day, and didn’t think twice about it. But before you begin to pity me, let me assure you that I was never conscious about my weight. In fact, I was pretty okay with it. I didn’t diet, nor did I exercise (much to my mother’s chagrin), and I didn’t sacrifice small animals so that the gods would miraculously make me shed all the extra weight. I ate what I wanted, I stayed inside watching Gossip Girl on my laptop, and in school I was ignored, never bullied, but ignored.
Then Nicole joined the dance team and suddenly everyone hated me. I can still hear them, you know, the catcalls and hushed, well, not completely hushed, whispers as Nicole and I would pass the other students.
“What’s Nicole Andrea Bishop doing with a girl like her?”
“How is Fatty Tessie blackmailing Nicole into being her friend?”
“Why doesn’t Nicole just get rid of the extra weight?” Yeah, that one was hilarious.
Suffice it to say Nicole realized that I was damaging her reputation. So after months of avoiding my calls and not “having time” to hang out with me, she made it clear that I was now a bother to her and that we couldn’t be friends anymore.
I swallowed my pride and agreed. Just like that, ten years of friendship went down the drain, all because my best friend was too big of a coward to stand up to the people who questioned our friendship. Now, if she’d stayed a coward, I would’ve been okay with it, but she decided that one humungous character flaw wasn’t enough. Oh no, apparently the prerequisite for popularity is becoming some sort of twisted villain you find in the classic western movies. Which Nicole did.
While I returned for sophomore year eighty pounds lighter, she returned with a boyfriend. Not just any boyfriend at that. Nicole returned as the girlfriend of the boy I’d been crushing on since I was eight.
Jason “Jay” Stone was the first boy who ever got me flowers. Well, if you consider a single, roughly plucked dandelion a flower. He did this when we were in the third grade and I came to school wearing my favorite bow. He told me I looked pretty and that was it—I was in love. As time went on we became good friends. Well, he was a good friend to me. I simply became tongue-tied in his presence. He was your typical All-American Boy with his blond hair, blue eyes, and enviable baseball skills. However, as I added pounds to my body, I became shy about my association with him. I was overweight and carried prepubescent awkwardness. I told myself that I wasn’t the kind of girl who deserved to spend time with Jay Stone, and I distanced myself from him.
Nicole knew full well how I felt about him. She even encouraged me to ask him out because she claimed he had a crush on me despite my weight problems. Let’s just say I was very, very opposed to the idea. However, during the summer before my sophomore year, I realized that maybe I’d finally stumbled upon a breakthrough. As I slaved over the treadmill and consumed my body weight in water, I felt that maybe this would be the year. The year when I’d finally have a shot, that I could finally be someone who could possibly flirt with Jay Stone.