Page 82 of Not That Into You

“You?”

“Yes.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Clearly.”

His brow furrows. “I always imagined you hanging out with the theater kids or something.”

I scrunch my nose. “The theater kids?”

“You know. Artsy people.”

“Well, this may shock you, but I was different in high school.” I take another bite of sandwich.

He cocks his head. “How were you different?”

Swallowing, I shrug. “I was pretty typical, I guess. I tried to fit in with the popular kids.” I pause. “I was never really friends with them, but I floated around the periphery. Sometimes, I was invited into the inner circle, but usually, I was just in the background.”

He leans back, eyes wide. “Really?”

“I know. As I said, shocking.” Sighing dramatically, I shake my head. “My misguided youth.”

“And you were on the tennis team?”

“Yes. Some of the popular kids were on the team, so...”

“That’s why you played tennis?”

“No, but it motivated me to try out for the team.”

He shakes his head. “Sorry. I’m still trying to wrap my head around you wanting to fit in with the popular crowd.”

“What can I say?” I put my sandwich down and wipe my hands with a napkin. “I was young and foolish.”

“How did you get into tennis?”

“I had a friend I grew up with who played tennis. She was actually really serious about it and competed nationally. Anyway, she gave me one of her old rackets when we were little, and we’d hit the ball around. By the time I got to high school, I was good enough to join the junior varsity team.”

“Huh.” He purses his lips. “So what changed? When did you stop chasing the popular crowd? College?”

“No.” I take a drink from my water bottle. “I finally woke up during my senior year of high school.” Shaking my head, I screw the cap back on the bottle. “I’d started dating this guy over the summer before senior year, and he was way out of my league?—”

“Oh, come on.”

“No, he was. He was one of the most popular guys in school. I couldn’t believe he asked me out. I was working as a server at Applebee’s, and he’d pick me up at the end of my shift, and we’d hang out. But then school started, and everyone came back from their summer vacations, and he changed. He blew me off until I realized we’d broken up without ever discussing it. He ghosted me.”

Shrugging, I frown. “And then all the people I’d been trying so desperately to impress for so many years started talking about me behind my back and making fun of my mother. They did poor impressions of her accent and made fun of the food we ate.”

Cameron’s eyes go wide. “Seriously?”

I nod. “At first, I couldn’t figure out why. Who told them about my family? Then I realized my ex was the only person in that crowd who’d ever met my mother, who’d ever come over to my house for dinner.”

He grimaces. “Ouch.”

“Yeah, it hurt. After that, I avoided them and stopped caring about what I was wearing or whether my makeup was perfect. Why try to fit in with people who don’t understand me or my family and don’t want to?”

I felt guilty at the time. Not because I turned my back on my so-called friends, but because I tried to be like them, and they had been so quick to make fun of my mother, a person I loved and admired. They had no idea who she was or what she’d been through. They didn’t care how hard she worked.

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