The Girl You Knew

ONE

I slept with the only boy who ever called me fat. That doesn't happen unless you're really naive, or just really stupid. In my sixteen years, I had never been either of those things. Until now.

"Hello? Earth to Layla?" Sloan snapped. "What do you think of this dress?"
"It's cute," I said, taking a sip of my icee. We'd been back-to-school shopping at the mall for over three hours now.

"Cute like cute cute or cute because you're ready to get this over with?" She asked, narrowing her eyes at me.

Sloan was a master of three things: clothes, boys, and fun. Our junior year of high school was set to begin in less than a week, and she was taking her shopping very seriously. You could have buried me in a band tee and my converses and I would have been at peace. But Sloan? She was different: she loved labels and cashmere and all the fancy fashion things that I knew nothing about. We were polar opposites.

We met in the middle of my fifth grade year. This tall, beautiful dark-haired girl with permanently sun-kissed skin walked into Mrs. Ryker's class on a random Tuesday, picked the desk directly across from mine, leaned over and asked to borrow a pencil, in which I handed her a Lisa Frank #2, and from there, we were friends.

She'd just moved from Dallas, following her mother's third divorce. From that divorce, they acquired a large sum of money: enough to buy them a fancy new apartment and a fresh start. According to Sloan, it was unfortunate that they'd landed in Georgia, of all places—ugh—but it was lucky that she'd met me. Even luckier, she only lived a couple of blocks from my neighborhood.

At this point, I had already lost most of the weight. And I had never had a best friend. Sloan showed up at almost the perfect time. There are a few things I quickly learned about her. First, she was always forgetting or losing things. Pencils, notebooks, homework, the keys to her apartment.

She was, of course, gorgeous. Completely and utterly confident, a trait that I did not inherit at birth. She lived by mini skirts, platform flip flops, and lipstick. She knew the name of nearly every fashion magazine. And while the adults, including my parents, thought she was gaudy and a bit too much, girls our age envied her—girls wanted to be her, boys wanted to be with her.

I got skinny right around the time we met. I can't pinpoint when I started gaining the weight. I just know I was young. And I wasn't sure if it was so much fat as it was maybe just a case of extreme baby-fat, because it had all melted off by the time I was twelve.

Sometimes, though, I still caught glimpses of that girl in the mirror. Ty Hanna was the first boy to ever make fun of my weight. I can pinpoint that moment. I was ten years old, standing on the diving board over our pool, in a bikini that my mother assured me was adorable! while Ty laughed at me. Pretty soon, my older brother Luke was laughing, too. I still made the dive, my face on fire both from embarrassment and the impact of the water. I swam all the way to the end of the pool, stepped out, and in silence, grabbed my towel and walked inside, climbing the stairs all the way to my bedroom. I cried for what felt like ages, until I finally fell asleep. When I woke up, I never said another word about it.

I don't think I ever spoke more than two words to Ty after that day. It was hard to avoid him completely because, low and behold, he was my brother's best friend. But I did a pretty damn good job of it for the most part. At least, until the summer before our junior year.

"Okay," Sloan said, emerging from the dressing room now. "What about this?"
She was wearing a plain black mini dress with sparkly wedges. "I thought we were school shopping." I said, eyeing her.
"We are," she grinned. "But this is for the party tomorrow night."
"You look hot." I said, rolling my eyes at her.
She turned, taking another glance in the full body mirror. "I do look hot, don't I?"
"You're Sloan Taylor. You always look hot. Now can we wrap this up?" I pleaded, finishing the last of my icee.
"Okay," she sighed. "But first, we have to find you something to wear."
"For what?"
"For the party tomorrow night. Because you're going."