Chapter 1: Desk Mates and Tall Tales

In eighth grade, my desk always smelled like chalk dust and cheap shampoo. That’s where I sat next to Shellie, the queen of tall tales. She’d lean in and say her family owned a big house out past the edge of town, with a special room just for piano practice. Her mom, she claimed, adored her—always took her advice when buying a car and was planning a road trip to Disney World in Orlando, complete with matching family T-shirts. Shellie bragged she’d never done her own laundry until she turned thirteen. Said her breakfasts were the kind where her mom would get up at five in the morning just to shuck fresh corn, boiling it right there in their sun-yellow kitchen.

But Shellie’s hair looked like a dog had chewed it, and at boarding school she couldn’t even afford tampons—there was always this sour, metallic smell around her. She only ate one meal a day, split between breakfast and lunch. The cuffs of her jeans were so frayed and long they almost touched her knees. The denim looked like it’d survived a couple of Texas rodeos—and smelled faintly of old cafeteria milk.

She was so poor, she had nothing left to hide. In a place where everyone flashed new Nikes or the latest iPhone, she clung to her stories and her stubborn pride.

Everyone hated her. You could feel it in the way people rolled their eyes when she spoke, or the way they slid their chairs away at lunch. Some girls covered their noses. The boys just laughed louder. It was like her presence sucked the air out of the room, and nobody even tried to hide it.

One day, while I was listening to music, Shellie started bragging again. I was so annoyed I snapped, "What’s your excuse, Shellie? Your mom die or something?" The words tumbled out, sharp and mean, before I could stop myself.

She slapped me, right across the face, and my nose started bleeding. My cheek burned, my ears rang. For a second, the whole room froze—then the teacher just kept scribbling equations on the board. Crimson dripped down onto the worksheet we were supposed to be filling out.

“My mom is the best mom in the world, you’re not allowed to talk about her. I’m like this now… because my mom didn’t see. If my mom saw—then it would be fine.” Her voice broke, but she glared at me like she could burn a hole straight through.

I pinched my nose, jumped onto the desk to get away from the blood pooling at my feet: “Fine, fine, then call your best mom in the world to pay my medical bills, come on.”

I wanted to disappear, but all I could do was stare at the blood on my worksheet, wishing I could swallow my words back down.