Bon Bons to Yoga Pants

Chapter 9- Goth For The Day

A pile of textbooks slammed to the table, startling me from my lesson on formatting. My best friend Rachelle dropped into the chair across from me with a heavy thud.

"I need a brownie right now. I'm about to go Godzilla on all these poor innocent people if I don't get carbs in my belly."

I rolled my eyes. She had always enjoyed subtle entrances.

Today she wore her Fairy of the Darkness outfit, a veritable display of black. She must have been in the mood to embrace the beauty of the night again. Rachelle moved through fashion statements as fast as I could eat a plate of bacon. Today her eyeliner looked like it had been applied with a paint roller. Her bangs, cut in a straight line across her forehead, fluttered in a breeze blowing through the cafeteria. A small clump were dyed bright pink. No doubt with the washable hair dye she bought at the corner grocery store every now and then.

"Did you watch Phantom of the Opera again?" I asked. She sighed.

"I can't help myself. Every time I hear Gerard Butler sing Music of the Night, I just want to slip into my inner goth, throw him to the ground, and make passionate love to him. I mean it's just not fair, right? No man should be that beautiful."

I laughed.

The smell of pizza and something fried wafted through the cafeteria, which was already a cacophony of smells and sounds. Rachelle and I always studied here. The noise and distraction helped me concentrate, and Rachelle liked to stay close to food. An argument I never disagreed with.

From the first day we met at eight years old when she had just moved into our town, our collective weight bonded us together. Because of Rachelle, I wasn't the only chubby kid on the playground. Most kids were too frightened of her to poke fun at us. When Jimmy Willgard called her fat in third grade, she gave him a wedgie so big he had to go home.

"Best suspension I ever had. Mom gave me a bowl of ice cream for sticking up for myself," she'd told me proudly. "Chubby kids have feelings too, you know? Why is it okay to make fun of us?"

From then on, she protected, and I loved her. When Dad died, she remained after the funeral, Ben and Jerry's in one hand, Kleenex in the other. Unlike me, who tried to hide behind loose hoodies in shame, Rachelle embraced her weight, and, in some ways, loved to flaunt the fact that she could wear almost anything a skinny girl could wear.

That didn't mean it looked good, or wasn't embarrassing, but that wasn't the point to Rachelle.

"We need more fat people appreciation," she'd often say, fist raised in the air. "Down with Biggest Loser! Down with the syndicates! Freedom for chubbies! Save Tibet!"

"Heard from Bradley?" she asked, smacking a wad of pink bubblegum the same color as her pink highlight. She blew a bubble and it popped in her face. On cue, my phone flashed with a new text message from handsome man himself. We'd been conversing during my literature class.

"Yeah," I said, grabbing the phone and slipping it into my pocket. I itched to answer him, but didn't want to with Rachelle around. Even though she was my best friend, I still didn't like her knowing about Bradley. I felt very protective of him—or maybe just the dreams I'd formed about him—and wanted to keep him wrapped in a cocoon. "How was class?"

She rolled her eyes. "So boring. But look what the English department just posted. I saw it on the ground when I strolled by and thought you might be interested. Sorry about the footprint."

She slapped a dirty piece of paper on the table in front of me. Bold words across the top declared Three Slots Available. Applications due June 15th. Below that came the words that nearly stopped my breath. Competitive Two-Month Publishing Internship with Delta Publishing in New York City. Available for all English, communications and creative writing majors.