Page 4 of Puck Your Friend

15 years ago… (age 12)

I open the cabin door and instantly know they’re talking about me.

All three of them sit at the table near the window. Their voices drop the moment I walk in. Tasha, who’s always in perfectly coordinated outfits with glitter on her dark cheekbones, standsand pulls a folded piece of paper from her back pocket, waving it in the air.

My stomach turns. That’s my letter. The one I started writing to my mom. I haven’t finished it.

“Dear Mom,” she reads, fake sweetness dripping off every word. “Camp’s fine, I guess. Nobody talks to me much.”

Brielle, with her perfect straight blonde hair that glitters in the sun, leans back in her chair. Her face is caked in blush and bright purple eyeshadow, heavy enough to look clownish.She glances at me, her lips curl into a sneer. “Maybe they would if you didn’t look like a boy.”

I don’t know how she keeps her hair like that with the humidity here. Mine’s always been short and curly, chopped quick in the kitchen because my mom won’t pay for a real cut.

Marcy twists the cap off a tube of red lipstick and smears more over what’s already stained her mouth. Her dark hair is pulled into two tight Dutch braids, and her eyes are lined with thick black liner. She looks like Snow White if Snow White raided her mom’s makeup bag and forgot what a mirror was.

She smacks her lips, then smirks.“Or if you had boobs.” She passes her iPhone 3 to Brielle. “Take a pic of me.” Her pale hands frame her face as she poses.I hate how soft her skin is. She gets to look delicate, like porcelain.

I got my dad’s tan complexion, which never burns, but will also never look soft like snow.

Brielle leans in toward Marcy and angles the phone at them to snap another photo of them together. “None of the cute boys will even come near us when you’re around. You scare them off.” She looks at the pic she took. “Shoot, I got the angle off. Let’s try again.

It’s infuriating. They don’t get how privileged they are to have a phone like that. If I want to take pictures I have to use the disposable cameras my mom sent me with.

Marcy snorts. “Especially the boys who are going to be Alphas. They’re the cutest. They probably think we’re taken by you because you’re so flat.”

They all burst out laughing.

Tasha fake coughs into her hand. “Frannie the Flat.”

I cross the room and rip the letter from Tasha’s hand. Crumple it into a tight ball and shove it into my pocket.

They don’t stop laughing. My cheeks burn, and it takes everything in me not to punch Tasha, but that would get me kicked out.

Turning, I leave before I let my anger make me do something stupid.

I know they stuff their bras. I’ve seen the balled-up socks, and how they turn their backs to change shirts.

They still have something I don’t. They’re pretty, under the makeup. Boys look at them, and I get passed over.

I’m too competitive and athletic for the boys to want to talk to me and too tomboyish for the girls to want to hang out. I thought sports camp would be different from school. There would be other girls here who liked the same things I do, but the three girls my age want nothing to do with me, and the Alpha girls think I’m too young to hang out with them.

It’s worse than school here. At least with school, I can go home at the end of the day.Maybe I should just ask Mom to come get me. Even though Dad worked out of state for six months so they could pay for me to come here. It’s not cheap. If I like it, I can apply for their scholarship program next year.

The trail behind the cabins twists past the flagpole and a few picnic benches, then dips into a patch of woods marked with a crooked STAFF ONLY sign. I glance around and slip under the rope, pushing through the brush for a half a mile until the trees open up into a small clearing with tall grass.

A section of the lake glints in the sun beyond it. There’s no dock or cabins. The trees are dense here, compared to our morning runs through the woods. The land juts out enough to block the view of the rest of the camp. The shore is just a rough dirt edge with grass and patches of rock. A big oak leans toward the water with a thick trunk. It has so many big branches packed with leaves that I can’t see the sky through them.

Heading over to it, I make a fist, trying to force down what I’m feeling, but it doesn’t stop the tears from coming. They make my eyes burn; I hate crying.

Kneeling at the back of the tree, I pull my pocketknife from my shorts. It was my grandpa’s. Mom never saw me pack it or she would’ve grounded me from coming.

It opens with a snap. The blade shines. He taught me how to sharpen and care for it, and I keep it looking new.

I keep hearing their voices in my head. I press the blade to the bark and carve, letting the act release my rage.

“Francesca the Flat.”

“Maybe if you didn’t look like a boy.”

---