Beautiful Beast by Dayle A. Dermatis

Author:Dayle A. Dermatis [Dermatis, Dayle A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Soul's Road Press
Published: 2019-12-14T16:00:00+00:00

Sixteen

Taryn looked up from where she bent over the drafting table. She capped the marker and flipped the drawing over so I couldn’t see it.

We hadn’t gotten to that level of trust yet.

Okay. I could wait.

“Do you really have Doritos?” I asked.

She laughed. “Okay, but don’t rat me out if you have a weigh-in tomorrow.”

I froze. I’d been weighing myself every day leading up to the pageant, and although I knew I had another pageant to plan for—I didn’t know which one, or when, but I assumed Mrs. Wentworth hadn’t thrown in the towel on me—I thought things would ease up a little.

Taryn must’ve seen the panic on my face, because she said, “Don’t worry. Just tell her it’s water weight because you seriously rehydrated when you got home tonight, and that you’ll sweat it off in the sauna.” She disappeared into her closet. I heard rustling and hangers being shoved along the rod. When she reappeared, she was bearing a bag of Doritos. Not the single-serving size (which isn’t a single serving, those bastards), but a real, actual, full-sized bag.

“How do you get out of here to get all this stuff?” I asked as we climbed back into bed. “When your mom drives us anywhere, she’s pretty much always with us.”

“I stock up during the school year,” she said, pulling the bag open and releasing the gloriously unnatural scent of orange powdered cheese. My mouth watered. “Smuggle something home in my backpack every few days. Even though I’m not competing, she still monitors my food intake—hence the locks on everything.”

“That’s pretty out there.”

She shrugged, dipping her hand into the bag and coming out with a handful of chips. “It’s her house. She needs to feel in control. She worked with a nutritionist to figure out a healthy meal plan for both of us, so it’s not like she’s depriving me.”

“I suppose I do that to myself most of the time,” I said. “I’m not really depriving myself of Doritos if I’m choosing not to eat them. But it’s nice to have the option once in a while.”

“Consider me your junk food dealer,” she said, waving the bag.

I popped a chip into my mouth. The fake taste, loaded with salt and red dye number whatever and possibly crack, exploded on my tongue. I moaned. “So good.”

“Got you hooked already,” she said, and made a victory fist.

I wondered how she’d react if I asked her more questions about her mom. She might shut down on me again. It wasn’t to be nosy, not entirely. I did want to understand her relationship with her mom, but I also just wanted to understand her mom for me. Mrs. Wentworth was so very different from my mom that I’d sort of lost perspective. I didn’t want Mrs. Wentworth to regret taking me in, that was for sure.

“You were going to tell me about boob tape,” she reminded me.

I spun it as a funny story, with hand motions and everything. “I need three hands to put it on correctly.

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