Second Chance Friends by Jennifer Scott

Author:Jennifer Scott
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2015-04-16T16:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

“I’m going to see her,” Melinda said, before the other two had even sat down. She’d arrived early, looking very put together in her pressed and tucked uniform. Eager for the day to begin. The truth was, she was far from either of those things, but somewhere during her sleepless night—the likes of which there had been too many to count since Paul had gone—she had decided that it was time to stop pining and begin the process of moving on with her life. If that was what she was going to have to end up doing.

When Melinda was thirteen, she’d felt like the most unlovable creature on the face of the earth. She was small, but not in a cute way like some of the petite cheerleaders. She was boyish. She sat with her legs spread apart at the knees and walked with a side-to-side swing of the shoulders. She knew nothing about makeup—her mother didn’t believe in it, and she was too afraid to sneak it the way Holly did—and wore her cousin’s hand-me-downs, a decade out of fashion. Her arms naturally fell in a rounded way about three inches apart from her body when she moved. Like a muscleman getting ready for a fight, her grandma used to say.

No thirteen-year-old girl wanted to be a makeup-less muscleman.

Especially not a thirteen-year-old who was desperately in love with Mitch Duvell, the blond-haired, blue-eyed, handsome soccer player with whom all the girls were in love. Mitch sat next to Melinda in science class. They were lab partners, and he was always really nice to her. And for about three months, she believed that maybe he really did like her. Maybe he could see the girliness underneath the plain face and the bruiser gait. She had her friend Jackie ask him if he liked her.

He’d laughed. Had thrown his head back and laughed out loud. Melinda had been waiting around the corner by the vending machines, so she didn’t see it happening, but she heard. She definitely heard, and she burned with shame and turned and ran out of the school before Jackie could even find her and relay the message. She knew what the message was.

And two days later she saw Mitch Duvell holding hands with adorable Amber Crane, who wore ruffled short skirts and had a fake tan.

For the rest of that year, Melinda didn’t even bother to make eye contact with anyone, much less find another boy to like. She was certain that she would be alone forever. That no boy existed who would ever love her for who she was. And she knew that no matter how much she might want to, she couldn’t change.

And now, all these years later, her husband gone more days than Melinda cared to count, with no word, she felt like that thirteen-year-old all over again. Unloved. Unlovable. Forever alone.

Might as well be good at the one thing I’m good at, she thought. Might as well put on the uniform and go save lives.

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