Off the Record by Camryn Garrett (read more books TXT) 📕

you just lost a few pounds.” He’s just saying it to say it. I swallow down whatever feelings his words give me.

“Come on,” Christina says, grabbing me by the hand. “I’d love to see how you look in it. I bet it would complement your skin tone and your eyes just perfectly.”

I always feel uncomfortable when people who aren’t Black say anything about my skin tone, but Christina is Korean American, and she seems nice enough.

She cups my face, staring into my eyes. It’s oddly erotic. She smells like flowers and rich people. Then she grabs the dress, snapping at Meghan, who holds open a door across the room for me.

I’m only able to get it on because I suck in my stomach. If Meghan can tell, she doesn’t say anything. There aren’t any zippers, so she just clamps the dress up. The slit doesn’t fall against one of my legs like it would for Angelina Jolie. It’s somewhere between them, gaping wider than it’s supposed to.

I don’t want to look in the mirror. I don’t want Marius or Christina to see. Marius will smile and be nice, like usual, but I know he’ll regret even suggesting I try it on. Christina will be upset that her design looks like such a mess on me when it was so beautiful on the hanger.

Meghan does the honors of opening the door. No one gasps, like the moments in the movies or Say Yes to the Dress. Christina’s eyes roam over me, lips moving, even though nothing comes out. Marius stares for a moment. When he sees me looking, he looks away.

Tears clog my throat. I shouldn’t even be crying. A boy didn’t jump up and down when I wore a dress. So what?

“I’ll make the proper changes,” Christina says. “I’ll have to let it out, since it wasn’t made with you in mind, you see. But you make the dress, Josie. I’ve found its rightful owner.”

My eyebrows rise. She can’t be seeing the same thing I see—how the dress practically folds under my body, like it’s not enough for me.

“I don’t know where I’d even wear it,” I say instead, shrugging. Christina’s face is nice to look at. She feels like someone I can talk to. “I don’t really go anywhere that requires a dress this beautiful.”

“Oh, please.” She barely acknowledges the compliment. “We’ll have to find somewhere for you to wear it. Meghan, will you grab the tape measure?”

“Maybe prom,” Meghan suggests, stepping toward me. “Do you mind?”

I shake my head. As she holds the tape measure around my hips, I resist the urge to scoff. Forget the fact that I could never actually afford this dress. Marius doesn’t have to worry about paying, since he’s basically borrowing the clothes for some award show, but I don’t have anyone to sponsor this dress. No one even knows who I am.

“I don’t think so,” I say instead. “I wasn’t really planning on going.”

“Oh,” Meghan says, in a way suggesting that she’s already tired of this conversation. She starts to mutter numbers under her breath.

“I never went to my prom,” Marius says. I almost forgot he was here. “And I sort of wish I had. You might regret it if you don’t go.”

“I don’t think I’ll care,” I say. Meghan gestures for me to lift my arms, so I do. “High school isn’t a place I want to remember.”

For the first time, Meghan looks like she agrees with me.

@JosieTheJournalist: why comment on someone else’s weight when you can just be quiet

Our six a.m. flight on Wednesday is only three hours, which isn’t nearly long enough for a nap. By the time we get to Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, I’m basically dead on my feet.

“Come on,” I say, pulling at Alice after we’ve gotten our luggage. “Let’s stop at Starbucks.”

She groans. “I just want to go to the hotel.”

“I have to do that roundtable thing today, remember?”

“Yeah,” she says, stepping around me as I stumble with my suitcase. “The roundtable thing is at the hotel. Since you don’t need me, I was gonna binge all the Real Housewives episodes I’ve missed and eat a ton of junk food.”

That actually sounds like heaven right now. I shove down my jealousy as we near the Starbucks.

“Fine,” I say. “You don’t have to come, but I need something to help me stay awake.”

“Can’t we just go to the hotel?”

Jesus. My face feels weird and my entire body is just waking up after being confined to the plane. All I’m asking her to do is stand in line with me. Why is everything a fight with her?

“No,” I say. “You owe me after telling Marius about my anxiety without even asking me first.”

I don’t know what I was expecting—maybe for her to at least look like she feels bad—but she just shakes her head.

“Oh, please,” she says. “It’s not like I told him you used to wet the bed. I told him something that would be helpful to know. And he wasn’t mean about it. Right?”

He wasn’t, but that’s not the point.

“I don’t care what you thought,” I say instead. “It’s my information to tell people. What if I told him about—I don’t know—your heavy periods or something?”

“It’s not the same thing. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m not,” I say. “You’d be pissed if I told him something personal about you. It’s not fair of you to just go around—”

“See, this is why you’re impossible.” She slaps her hands against her thighs. “I try to do something nice and you’re so ungrateful—”

“Whatever,” I say, heading over to the Starbucks. “Forget about it.”

When I was little, flying in an airplane sounded so fun, being up so high and looking down on the clouds. Now it just seems like a chore, an annoying way to get from one place to the next. I almost wish we had a tour bus. One without Alice on it.

After a few minutes waiting in the