Page 4 of Sugar Coated Secrets

“Hey, look. It’s Betty Cocker,” Vicki sneers, causing everyone to laugh.

I grab my notebook and pack of cookies I baked and slam the door closed, getting everyone else’s attention. “My name is Dulce, and it’s Betty Crocker,” I say scathingly as I walk past them, instantly regretting the words sliding off my tongue. I shouldn’t have said anything. For the most part, I don’t, but it’s the end of the year. I don’t have to deal with them much longer.

Vicki snorts. “Yeah whatever, you stupid ugly bitch. That is why no guy has asked you to prom.”

“What is she wearing?” Marissa says, giggling.

She stands next to Trent, wearing low-rise skinny jeans and a low-cut shirt with a push-up bra. Her makeup is overly done with a red shade of lipstick too bright for her complexion.

I act like her words didn’t hit home. She is right; no one has asked me to prom. At this point, I can go alone and save this humiliation or disappoint my grandmother and stay home.

I turn around and ignore the way Ford looks at me, rolling his eyes at Vicki and her stupid friends.

“Let me guess, Vicki. You’re going with Chris but wish it was Ford,” I retort, watching her eyes widen. Her face turns a shade close to purple, knowing Summer is his girlfriend. “I wonder what Summer would think since you two hang out these days.”

“You bitch,” she says in a harsh, piercing tone while Chris raises his brows and looks between her and Ford.

I wonder what Chris sees in Vicki. She has a nice body, long dirty-blond hair, and green eyes. I don’t know how he doesn’t see the sultry looks she gives Ford every time they hang out or how bitter she is because, in her mind, she settled for less than who she really wanted.

I don’t care what Ford thinks. I don’t care what any of them think because they are all privileged assholes and bitches who deserve each other. I used to avoid them as much as possible, but I’m tired of being harassed and made fun of.

“I’m calling it like I see it,” I tell her.

“Dude, did you piss yourself?” Trent says with a smirk, looking at the front of my jeans. Vicki laughs, followed by Marissa, Chris, Gwen, and then Ford.

“It’s called washing your hands, Trent,” I say sarcastically. “You should probably be doing it more since you keep putting yours where they don’t belong.”

“You’re just jealous because no one but your grandma likes you,” Vicki sneers. “I bet your parents died because they couldn’t stand the sight of you and killed themselves.” I flinch like she slapped me, taking the air from my lungs.

“Hey, knock it off, Vick,” Ford chides, his eyes filled with sympathy as he looks at me.

“What?” she says in a playful little voice like she did nothing wrong, but I see the twist of fury in her eyes. “It’s true.”

I turn around to leave. Before I push the exit door, Trent says, “I think she likes me.” His words are followed by laughter.

I’d rather die a virgin.

The sky was overcast, and I could smell the rain coming. I wanted to get home before it started, but the Crocs I wore pretty much all the time were impossible to run in.

I loved my Crocs. They were comfortable, affordable, easy to clean, and they went with all my plain outfits, including the fifties diner-style dress I wore as a uniform to work at my grandmother’s bakery.

I own one fancy dress, and it was my mother’s. My grandmother made the white gown for her when my father asked my mom to prom. It was the most beautiful gown mymother owned aside from her wedding dress. Both were white, and my grandmother made both.

My grandmother saved it for when it was my turn to go to prom. It’s too bad she did it for nothing because I’m not going to prom tomorrow night.

Every guy or girl hopes to be asked to prom by whoever they are crushing on their senior year. I hoped, but I didn’t expect it. I knew I wasn’t going, and I knew just like everyone else at school that no one would ask the bakery girl they dubbed “Betty Cocker.”

The clouds break in the sky, and the cold wind picks up, hitting my face as the first drops of rain fall. The blades of grass sway in the wind, picking up my hair, and the sound of leaves swaying as I pick up my pace.

The sidewalk ends, a sign that I’m a quarter of the way home. Cars speed out of the student parking lot, heading in the other direction. Their loud engines rumble as the tires kiss the pavement and horns blare. Most kids at Airy High are into racing cars on the backroads when their parents are out of town. And apparently, Ford is the best driver of all.

Ford Keller wasn’t like the other boys at school. Yes, he was good-looking. Yes, he was popular. But he wasn’t immature. He loved to drive his car from what I overheard at school. He raced all the popular rich kids on the backroads. It was a popular hangout, according to Summer and her friends, but what had me listening was how good he was at sex. It didn’t surprise me. Ford was good at everything he did.

So good, he was accepted to some sort of prestigious racing school overseas when he got his driver’s license. He was waiting to graduate from high school and make a name for himself, but he was already a celebrity in the town of Airy.

It’s hard not to like him. Honestly, he hasn’t made fun of me or called me names. There was never a time when my heartdidn’t flip or butterflies didn’t swarm in my belly when I looked at him, but he didn’t notice.

Sometimes I thought he noticed me, but I imagined it.

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