Page 1 of One Pucking Wish

CHAPTER

ONE

PENELOPE

Gabby chatters away. She’s one of the rare people in the world who still enjoys talking on the phone. I’d prefer a text or email from my high school best friend. Seeing that I speak to her twice a year, I guess I can’t complain. We’re eight years removed from our best-friends-forever status. Yet she’s always quick to include me when there’s any gossip she thinks I may be interested in.

After graduation, we grew apart. I went off to college, and she stayed in the small, one-blinking-red-stoplight town we grew up in. I don’t understand it since I couldn’t wait to leave that place. It always felt so small and suffocating. Then again, Gabby and I had very different home lives. While she was raised by two doting, happily married parents, I grew up with a single mother who was an alcoholic to boot. My entire goal in life was to escape.

My former best friend is a decent enough person—we just have nothing in common anymore except our past. Rest assured, anything pertaining to said past will spark a call from her whether I want it or not. Today, the news definitely falls in the not category. In fact, the gossip she’s going on about isn’t, in fact, news to me. I’ve been staring at the social media post of the engagement announcement for several hours now.

“Can you believe he’s engaged?” she asks, and though I can’t see her, I can imagine her big green eyes bugging out of her head right now. She’s always been somewhat of a drama queen.

“Yeah, I know. It’s crazy. I’m happy for him,” I lie through my teeth because the truth is, I’m not remotely happy for him. I’m jealous and heartbroken. Once upon a time, he promised that the only finger he’d put a ring on was mine.

It’s ridiculous to hold him to something he said nine years ago, but I do.

“Yeah, she’s a model. I guess she’s been in like two Target ads,” Gabby exclaims.

“Wow. That’s pretty cool.”

More lies.

I hate the girl. I don’t think the fact that she’s a model is cool at all.

Gabby continues yapping. I half-heartedly listen as I scroll through the engagement pictures of the love of my life on social media, as I have been for hours now. Everything about the photos shatters my heart, but I can’t look away. He looks so happy, and it hurts. But maybe the most painful realization is she’s literally everything I’m not.

She’s tall and thin, while I’m average at five foot five inches and on the curvy side. In fact, according to the sizing charts in the stores, I’m considered plus-sized. She has long dark brown, almost black hair while I have a deep red. Her skin is evenly toned and tan. Mine is pale as a ghost with freckles. It’s as if he searched for someone the exact opposite of me.

“I guess her parents are from Mexico, and she comes from a lot of money. Her father owns some company down there, but I can’t remember what it was…maybe textiles or something with investments?” Gabby continues.

“Those are two very different things,” I say.

“It doesn’t matter. The point is she’s rich or at least her parents are. I heard the wedding is going to be amazing. Are you going? You and Tucker are still friends, right?”

“Uh, you know… not really. I haven’t spoken to him in a while. I’m probably not invited.”

“Are you kidding?” Gabby gasps. “I heard they’re going to invite everyone from our class. The wedding is going to be huge. I’m sure you are. You and Tucker have been friends since third grade.”

Considering we graduated with forty-five people, inviting them all wouldn’t make a massive guest list. Even if everyone brought a date, that would only be ninety people. I wouldn’t be surprised if Tucker invited our whole graduating class. He was friends with everyone and voted the most popular, funniest, nicest, and most likely to succeed. Yeah, in our tiny little town, Tucker Fenway was a god… and he was mine.

As it goes in small towns, there wasn’t a time in my life when I don’t remember Tucker being a part of it. However, in third grade, we truly became inseparable. We were assigned seats next to one another, and I helped him cheat on his spelling test. Even at eight years old, I was smitten. He and I organized a “king of the hill” group and proceeded to play that specific game every recess of that year, solidifying our best friend status. It was over after that. We were besties throughout the rest of elementary and middle school. In the fall of freshman year in high school, he asked me to the homecoming dance. That night ended in a kiss, igniting our perfect best friends-to-lovers fairy tale. Tucker and I dated throughout high school. We were the it couple and voted most likely to get married.

The truth is, I was nothing without Tucker. He put me on the map and made me somebody in that town of nobodies. He was charming and charismatic. Everyone loved him, and by extension, they loved me, too. Because he loved me. Without him, I was just the daughter of the town drunk. With him, I was high school royalty—as regal as one can be in that pathetic excuse for a high school.

“Are you going to bring a date?” she asks.

The picture of the supermodel holding out her hand to the camera, the flashy diamond on display as Tucker kisses her cheek, makes me feel ill.

“What?”

“To the wedding? Penelope Stellars, you cannot blow this off like you did our reunion. Everyone will be there!” Gabby chastises.

“I’m not blowing off anything,” I sigh, my invisible Pinocchio nose extending farther.

“Well, are you dating anyone? If not, you can come by yourself. Promise you’ll come, Penny. You haven’t been back since your mom died. We all miss you.”

I doubt that.

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