Whenever her black nail polish chipped—the second she discovered the very first patch of white keratin—she began to pick at it. Then she painted over it in the same deep black. Each coat became even more rich than the original color; her fingernails turned darker and deeper each time she painted over. This, she thought, was a metaphor for her life. Lia was always bad at metaphors in English class.
If you think about it, Lia was always bad at English. Not that she couldn't speak perfect English, because she could (and she enjoyed pissing off adults by using her advanced vocabulary skills to do so). Her logic was that the things that she could adequately learn outside of school were irrelevant inside a classroom. This didn't make her a big fan of homeschooling or cyberschooling either. To her, school was a social paradise. You see the same people every single day for almost 10 months straight—save weekends and holidays. She made her best friends the first day of school freshman year, and even as a junior they were still her go-to-girls. They always went to parties together, shared secrets, and shopped.
“Lia,” Grace called. Grace flicked her dark blonde hair over her shoulder and waved a hand in between Lia’s face and her phone. “You’re going to go blind. Stop. Staring. At. The. Phone.”
Lia whipped her head up to look at her friend, glaring. “He said he had to ask me something. It’s important enough to go blind for.”
“I’m not letting you do this to yourself again,” Grace stated. Kit strutted over to the grimy mall food court table, carrying three diet Cokes and a medium fry carton. She set the drinks down and placed the fries in the middle of the three. “Kit, tell her that she can’t get back together with Sam.”
Lia looked at Kit with pleading eyes. Kit shrugged. “He’s not that bad.” Grace sighed. “But you would be settling.”
“Would not,” Lia contested.
“He may be hot and smart, but that doesn’t compensate for his jerky-ness.” Lia’s phone chimed with an incoming text message. She quickly looked down at her phone and picked it up at the same time.
Sam: My place tonight, 8:30?
Lia: I’ll b there
Grace leaned over to read the text. “Ugh, I cannot believe you, Lia.”
“He’s not a jerk. And I lost my virginity to him,” Lia said. “My virginity.You know, the most sacred thing in the Universe.”
“I know. I was there when you got the text that said that he was breaking up with you a week later. I was there when you cried because you thought that you weren’t good enough for him. I was also there when he hooked up with you at that party, and then didn’t talk to you again for another month.”
“He could have changed,” Lia offered, desperate to get her best friend’s approval. She didn’t know why she cared so much how Grace felt about Sam. Maybe because Lia agreed with her. She just didn’t want to admit it.
“Oh, don’t pull the ‘changed’ card, Lia. He is never going to change. He’s a guy and he’s a pig,” Grace argued.
You don’t know him the way I do, Lia thought. You don’t know who he really is inside.
Sam had been Lia’s first love. She had a crush on him since the summer when they met at a pool party. They started texting and flirting, meeting up at parties with other friends, and trying to see each other at the community pool. Sam was also flirting with other girls, but he really seemed to care about Lia. They started dating sophomore year, when he asked her to homecoming. She was thrilled. Her life couldn’t have gotten any better.
They dated for three months before Sam persuaded Lia into having sex with him. She would have given up anything for him. When she told Grace and Kit, Grace freaked out. She didn’t trust Sam, and she knew that he would be trouble. Grace vowed to be there for Lia no matter what when it came to Sam. So, when Sam broke up with Lia, Grace made sure Lia’s reputation wasn’t ruined. It was like it had never happened. Lia and Sam were just a doomed high school romance.
“Lia, look at me. Sam is bad news. I don’t want you to be hurt the way you were last time.”
“I promise, Grace, he won’t hurt me,” Lia replied. “I have you to make sure of it, right?”
Grace half smiled. “Of course. And so is Kit. We just want to keep your heart intact.”
“I love you guys,” Lia said.
“We love you, too,” Kit replied.
