Against the Odds (Book 2)

♥ Chapter XV ♥

Gotta finish this thing before they show up in book 3 uuugghhh

♥♡♥

Everything was too loud. It was supposed to be my birthday party but it didn't feel like it.

Half the kids didn't talk to me, the pool, the bathing suit my mother forced me into—all of it sucked.

I was taller than all the other girls and flat as a board in all the places I shouldn't be. Mom said I looked perfect. That's why she put me in these strings for clothes. Only when I went out there, everyone was staring as if I had something hanging out somewhere. I didn't even like bikinis.

"This would've been so much easier if Jada was here," I whispered into my silent closet. My mother's been planning parties since I was ten, inviting most of the kids in my year—people I didn't even know—but never Jada. She kept saying Jada was "a bad influence" but I didn't see it. Jada never got in trouble, got better grades than I did, and even helped me with my schoolwork more than either of my parents. But there was no sense in telling them that. They never listened to me.

I'd been sitting here for a while, without my phone because my mother took all of them. She said something about young people needing to learn to enjoy things without technology. She paid a photographer to take pictures. That made me uncomfortable too.

Standing, I sighed and walked over to my full-length mirror. I grimaced at my image.

The bikini was orange. Orange! And on top of that, the bottom was a thong. I didn't even wear thongs, let alone wear them in front of a bunch of fourteen and fifteen-year-olds.

I adjusted the cups of my bra, trying to get them to cover more. I failed. My boobs were nowhere near big, not even average, but no one would even know that with this top because all they could see was the swell and pointed peek of my-

"Eww," I whined, crossing my arms over my chest and turning away. "Fuck it."

I marched over to my wrack of flannels. I knew my mother would snatch it off me the second she saw it, but I wouldn't go back outside looking like this. I couldn't.

My sight blurred as I frantically pushed back flannel after flannel, sweaters, hoodies—but still didn't take one down.

"Karissa?"

At the sound of Evander's voice, I stopped. My hands went to my face instead, clearing all evidence of tears. He was the last person I needed to see me cry.

Of all the times he could show up.

"You okay?"

"What do you care?" I flicked the wetness off my fingers. I wasn't wearing enough fabric to clean them on.

Even though Evander and his family spent a lot of time here and me at his house as we grew up, we'd never gotten too close. Mostly because he got obnoxious the older he got while I grew attracted to him in the same sentiment.

"It's your birthday," he replied easily. "You shouldn't be crying on your birthday."

It was the stupidest thing anyone could ever say. I turned to him, not caring anymore. "Try having a mother like mine." I gestured to my attire in disdain, hot tears searing my cheeks. "I look ridiculous."

Evander was the oldest person here. A year above me but only months away from sixteen. His parents put him in school later than the rest of us. And just as I was taller than most girls in my year, he was the same for the boys. It was probably the only thing we had in common. Not enough to bond over though. And not to mention he probably doesn't have a burning disdain for seeing himself naked.