There's Something About Sweetie(4)

“Yeah, it was totally disgusting to watch, but I’m happy for you,” Pinky said, stepping up to grab her burrito. “Really.”

“Believe me, it’s not what it looked like,” Ashish said, feeling bad about bursting their optimistic little bubbles.

Once they all had their food, they sat at their usual table by the big window that overlooked the organic garden.

“So what happened?” Pinky said, tearing off a big bite of her burrito. “You were supposed to ask her out.”

“I tried,” Ashish said. A concrete wall of hot shame slammed into him as he recalled saying the words “past my prime” to three incredibly hot girls. What the hell? “I ended up telling her about Celia breaking up with me instead.” He said the rest quickly and quietly, needing to get it off his chest but also hoping the others wouldn’t hear. “And I might also have moaned about how much I suck at basketball and compared myself to a broken chandelier.”

Elijah groaned, but Oliver silenced him with a glare.

Ashish took an aggressively nonchalant bite of his sausage burrito, to show he didn’t care that he’d just embarrassed himself in front of three of the school’s cutest girls. A guy had to retain some self-respect, even if it was all bullshit.

The burrito was Richmond Academy’s specialty spicy cardboard flavor. Awesome. “Wait.” Pinky gave him a funny look. “Were you in love with Celia or something?”

Ashish looked slowly around the table at them all. “Uh. Yeah. And she didn’t feel the same way at all, so now I’m just some high school man-baby she can laugh about.” Oops. He hadn’t meant to say that last part. Talk about super-not-cool.

Everyone was staring at him in silence, their eyes wide. Shocked that Ashish Patel, player extraordinaire, had been in love. And that he was now completely wrecked as a result. The pity on their faces was the freaking cherry on top of everything, a special prize, just in case he wasn’t feeling like enough of a loser already.

Pushing his tray back, Ashish stood. “You know what? I … I’m going home.” And then he walked right out of the cafeteria, not even turning around when he heard his best friends call his name.




Sweetie held the shampoo bottle up to her mouth. It helped her get into the right headspace. In here she wasn’t just Sweetie, she was Sizzling Sweetie, Sexy Shower-Singing Sorceress. She liked alliteration, what could she say?

“R-E-S-P-E-C-T!” she belted out.

Kayla, Suki, and Izzy shouted the next lyrics back.

“R-E-S-P-E-C-T!” Sweetie sang again.

“Gimme those Jujubes!” Izzy sang, at the same time that Kayla sang, “Open sesame!” and Suki sang, “Mayfair, pretty puh-lease!”

They stopped suddenly, and then Kayla said, “Jujubes? Are you kidding me, Izzy?”

“Oh, like ‘Open sesame’ is any better?” Suki retorted from her shower stall.

“What about ‘Mayfair’?” Izzy said. “That doesn’t even make sense!”

“What does Jujubes even mean?” Suki said.

“Nothing, that’s what,” Kayla said. “If you ask me …”

Sweetie knew the argument could go on forever, so she just launched into the following stanza. The others fell quiet, listening.

This was how they were, their postpractice showers. The other girls on the team didn’t even say anything; they enjoyed it when Sweetie began to sing.

She shimmied in the shower, her round, robust voice echoing across the tile like a symphony of clear bells, bouncing off the glinting silver faucet and showerhead. When she was done, she bowed her head, letting the water rush over her, her arms held up high and triumphant.

There was thunderous applause, just like every other time. Sweetie closed her eyes and smiled, enjoying this one moment when she felt supremely confident and unquestionably beautiful.

Then as the last of the applause faded, she sighed, turned off the shower, and reached for her towel.

Out by her locker, Sweetie dried off and climbed into her clothes quickly. She didn’t even know why she was moving quickly. … It wasn’t like Kayla, Suki, and Izzy would judge her. But Amma’s voice echoed in her head: Cover your legs and your arms. Until you lose weight, you shouldn’t wear sleeveless tops and shorts. If her mother felt that strongly about a sleeveless shirt, she could imagine what she’d say about Sweetie being naked in the girls’ locker room.

“You slayed it, as usual!” Kayla called from her locker. Her deep-brown skin was flawless, her abdomen toned and her legs shapely. She didn’t rush to put on her clothes.

“Thanks. You weren’t so bad yourself.” Sweetie smiled, trying to shake off her thoughts. She’d kicked butt on the track today, beating her own best time on the 1600 meter run. She should be feeling nothing but happiness. My body is strong and does everything I want it to do, she told herself, repeating the mantra she’d always chanted silently after one of Amma’s “motivational” talks. I’m the fastest runner at Piedmont High School, and the second-fastest high school student in the state of California.

It was true, too. Sweetie could leave anyone in the dust. There was a reason the local paper had called her the Piedmont Road Runner recently (but it had been a mistake to read the comments on the online article—those were full of people who couldn’t stop asking variants of the asinine question, How does she lug all of that around the track?). Coach was always telling her she could get a scholarship to pretty much any college if she kept it up.