Emily's Secret

1. The new kid at school is a bad boy

My name is Emily. I'm 16 years old. And I'm fat.

Sorry to put it that way. They say you should make fat sound somehow less fat. Like "I'm plus sized!" or "I have a few extra pounds!" or "I'm a big curvy girl!" or something like that. But at 5'7" and 200 pounds, I'm just fat.

Being a fat girl is the worst thing in the world. Nobody likes you when you're a fat girl. People are disgusted by you. You get bullied. Although I get bullied less since that time in middle school when I got so pissed at this skinny popular girl who was making fun of me that I punched her as hard as I could in the face. I guess I punch pretty hard. I got suspended from school for two weeks, with a warning that if something like that ever happened again, I'd be sent so a school for juvenile delinquents and my situation would be that much worse. But none of the boys or girls who had mercilessly bullied me for years had ever been suspended or threatened with being sent to a school for delinquents. The adults who run the school don't like the fat girl very much better than any of the kids do.

Since that incident, my reputation changed, but didn't improve. Instead of the pitiful disgusting fat girl, I was the freaky scary disgusting fat girl. People avoided me even more. Well, on the other hand, I guess it was an improvement.

One of my few friends at school was Alice. Alice was a skinny girl, but she was skinny in an unattractive way, all angles and no curves, her skin was bad, she wore thick glasses. None of the popular girls wanted anything to do with Alice, so she wound up hanging out with me. She appreciated the fact that none of the popular girls dared to bully her when she was around me, because they were afraid of me.

So yesterday, I was at the school cafeteria with Alice, and she told me about the rumors of a new boy at school. He was supposed to be a bad boy, kicked out of his former school for something, but no one knew what he did. And they also said he was incredibly hot.

"I'll believe it when I see it," I told her, not buying into the rumors. "If he's a bad boy, he's probably the gross ugly kind, full of acne and greasy hair." And if he did turn out to be some kind of hot guy, then he wouldn't be interested in me or Alice.

Well, that was yesterday. Today, which is the first Tuesday in August, I was waiting at the bus stop for the bus to take us to school. There was once a time when kids got a summer vacation, but the adults of the world got together and decided that summer vacation was too much of a good thing, so they only gave us one week off in July, and then it was back to school again.

School in summer is the worst thing for a fat girl. In the winter, you can wear layers of heavy clothing that cover up some of your imperfections. But with the skimpy clothes of summer, all of your fat is on display for the rest of the world to be disgusted by.

I stood alone at the bus stop. None of the other kids who used the same bus stop as me wanted anything to do with the freaky scary fat girl. I wished that one of the few friends I had took the same bus route as me, but there was no such luck.

And as I stood there alone, waiting for the bus, a new kid walks up. He could only be the new kid that the rumors were talking about! He was tall, about 6'3", and incredibly handsome, with dark brown hair and clear blue eyes. He was wearing a tight t-shirt which showed off his impressive muscles.

I wasn't the only one looking. Everyone else at the bus stop also had their eyes transfixed on the new kid. The girls looked at him with desire, and the boys with fear. As he cockily walked up to the bus stop, acting like he owned the place, he bumped against Jack, who was on the football team and one of the most popular guys at school.

Jack was not about to let himself be intimidated by the new kid. So he immediately attempted to assert his alpha-male status.

"Hey asshole," Jack said, "who the hell do you think you are?" And he shoved the new kid in the chest.

And then, to everyone's amazement, the new kid, completely unfazed, grabbed Jack's shirt and then slammed him down onto the ground as if Jack were just a weak scrawny kid and not a buff football player. "I'm the asshole you don't ever mess with," said the new kid. Jack looked up at the new kid, pissed off, but not in a position to do anything about it.

And then at that time, the school bus pulled up to the curb. I was the first to get on. None of this drama had anything to do with me, even though I have to admit that I enjoyed seeing Jack get put in his place. Jack was a member of the group of popular kids that made life miserable for the outcasts like me. But I was the fat girl that everyone hated, and a fight between a popular football player and a bad boy type wouldn't have any impact on my life. Or so I thought.

I took an empty seat near the back of the bus, and sat down. As expected, no one sat next to me or talked to me. The other kids excitedly whispered to each other about the scene they just witnessed outside the bus. Jack sat down near the front, and Hannah, one of the popular girls and a cheerleader, sat next to Jack and consoled him.

Last to board the bus was the new kid. Everyone stared at him as he confidently walked down the aisle, smirking at Jack as he walked by him, passing seat after seat, and then, of all places to sit, he sits down right next to me!