Page 23 of Finding Her

poppy

I waited until everyone else had left the locker room before I changed into my gym clothes, cursing Lilah under my breath as I did. I could never leave her alone with my stuff again. I would have to keep my gym bag in my locker, with a good lock on it that she couldn’t break into.

Because this girl—my roommate and supposedly one of my best friends—had raided my gym bag and taken out all my shorts except one pair.

Take a guess at which ones she left me with.

I stood in front of the mirror, looking at myself over my shoulder to see how obvious the bedazzlement was. Unfortunately, it was extremely obvious. Like so clear that there was no way anyone would miss it. Were these even dress code compliant?

To make matters even worse, the only shirt she’d left me with wasn’t the slightly oversized one I always wore, that probably could have covered most of my shorts.

No, she’d replaced it with what I could only assume was a shirt meant for a ninth-grader based on the size, with the sleeves and bottom hem cut off.

It just barely reached the top of the shorts, meaning if we were doing anything that invoked me lifting my arms or just generally moving—you know, typical gym class activities—everyone was going to be seeing a whole lot more of me than I was comfortable with.

It might not have been that bad if it was just all the girls in my class, but the thought of Bear seeing me like this made me turn fire engine red.

What was he going to think of me by the end of this semester?

There was no chance he was going to have interest in me at all—he was probably going to just think I was the biggest freak he’d ever met.

And I couldn’t even blame him for it, because hello, look at me.

I took a deep breath and walked out of the locker room with all the confidence I could muster. There was only one thing I could do right now, short of pretending to be sick to my stomach and claiming that I needed to go to the nurse.

Own it, Poppy.