I Lost 90 Pounds, Only to Find He Tried to Give Me Away novel · Chapter 23 of 32

Chapter 23: What I Wrote

Nobody on the stage moved except Beck.

He came around the end of the desks and stopped at the edge of the stage, right above Carver.

"Get out," he said.

"It's a public building, Ormsby. My dad built it."

"Then go stand in a different part of it."

Carver didn't even look at him.

He was looking at me, waiting for me to cry or bargain.

I'd done both for him for a year.

I put my headset down on the desk.

"Post them," I said.

His smile came halfway back. "You think I won't?"

"I think you will no matter what I do. So I'm not doing anything."

"You're bluffing."

"I'm not posting a word about Sutton," I said. "Not because of you. I never was."

That threw him.

I watched it go across his face, the not understanding.

"Then what's your play?"

"Saturday," I said. "Seven p.m. You'll see it with everybody else."

The grad student, behind me, said very quietly, "Ooh."

Carver looked at the five of us, and at the sophomore with her notebook, and at the whiteboard.

He couldn't see the word on it from where he stood.

He turned and walked back up the aisle.

The doors banged behind him.

Beck didn't come back to his chair right away.

He stood at the edge of the stage with his hands in fists until the senior put a hand on his shoulder.

"We have forty minutes on these machines," the senior said. "Don't waste them on him."

We played until midnight.

I didn't make one bad call.

I didn't let myself think about anything but the screen.

For four days I did that.

Classes, practice, the stage, bed.

I didn't open my old account.

I didn't let myself remember what was in it.

Friday night, the night before the match, the director turned the arena lights off on us at midnight.

"Go to sleep," she said. "All of you. That's an instruction."

Betsy wasn't home.

She had her first overnight shadow shift at the hospital, seven to seven, for her intro nursing course.

She'd texted me at six with a picture of herself in scrubs and a hairnet.

"pray for the patients. eat dinner. I'll be in the front row with orange slices at 6:30."

Beck walked me back to Hartwell.

At the door of 412 I stopped with the key in my hand.

"Come in," I said. "I need to do something, and I don't want to do it alone."

He came in.

I sat down on my bed under the window.

He sat on Betsy's, across from me, next to her purple hat.

I opened the old account on my phone.

"I'm going to read you the worst ones," I said. "Before he does. Out loud."

"You don't have to."

"I know. Rule three. When I'm done, you answer every one. Whatever's true."

He nodded.

I scrolled back to last March.

My thumbs were cold.

"March twelfth," I said. "'I went to the pool with Betsy and cried in the locker room because of my thighs. I didn't even get in the water. Is that stupid.'"

I didn't look up.

"He wrote back 'lol a little.'"

Beck was quiet for a second.

"Did you go back?" he said. "To the pool."

"No."

"Then that's what I'm sorry about," he said. "That you didn't get in the water."

I scrolled.

"April. 'Would you still like me if I never got thin? Be honest.'"

"He wrote, 'let's not find out.'"

Beck leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.

"I don't know what you weigh," he said. "I never knew. I never asked. I still don't care."

"What I know is you say goodnight three times. And you think the sequel is always better than the first movie, which is wrong."

← Chapter 22 · All chapters · Chapter 24 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend