Wrong Impression

1. Are you trying to pimp me out again?

Note: in case you haven't finished RIFOY, but are reading it now, or plan to read it, this chapter contains spoilers

Angie was dead. She stared at her test paper again, at the bold B on the top of the page, unable to believe it. She'd never gotten less than an A, never went under 95% on any of her tests. And now she'd gotten a B in Biology. Her life was over.

Groaning, she pushed the paper away and leaned back in her simple wooden chair. She could still redo some of the work, improve her grade. The teacher had said so. The teacher had also very obviously winked at her and wagged his eyebrows like a pervert that wasn't supposed to go anywhere near children.

Why? Why did she have to be good looking? It was turning into the bane of her existence. She'd tried so hard to tone it down. She couldn't even afford a blow-dryer anyway, so her hair was always a black poufy mass caught up in a ponytail. Her eyes always had bags under them because she worked well into the night, but the red in them brought out her green irises. And she couldn't help being thin. It's not like she had enough money left for food.

Baggy clothes? Try the clothes she had since she was thirteen, which were now unfortunately a little tight on her, especially in certain places that weren't as big when she was a preteen. And even if she loved her body, she also hated it.

Because people objectified her. Because they thought that if she was poor and pretty, it was okay to hit on her, that she'd do them for a hot meal. She'd rather die.

And it was the main reason she'd moved away from her small town home and into Tucson, ready to take on the world by herself. Her parents wanted to stop her, but couldn't. They could offer her nothing except for their love and support, and had four other children to take care of. Angie would be fine on her own. All she had to do was study and work and her dream of going to college and landing a good job could come true.

She groaned again. And then she went and got a B. She didn't even have a chance at full scholarship without a perfect GPA. She'd have to work to increase her grade which meant dealing with the sleazy teacher. Ugh, life was just grand.

A knock on the door startled her out of her miserable thoughts. Angie checked her watch. It wasn't time for her roommate, Tiana, to come home, but she wouldn't knock anyway. God, she hoped it wasn't another drunk loser looking for Tiana. She had men calling in at all hours of the day and night.

Because her lovely roommate was a freaking pimp. She said she did business, but Angie knew better. Thank God she spent an insignificant amount of time in that place.

She shuffled towards the door, grabbing a baseball bat on the way, because in this crappy neighborhood you could never be too careful, and cracked it open the tiniest bit. Her heart skipped a beat.

"Kat?" Angie dropped the bat and pulled the door open completely.

"Hi, Angie," her best friend from childhood said with a sad smile.

Wow, she'd changed a lot. Still blonde, blue-eyed and gorgeous, but she was so tall now, so curvy and mature looking. Like a fashion model from heaven. And she wasn't alone.

"Danny?" Holy shit, she was still with Danny after all those years? He'd grown too, but was hardly any taller than his girlfriend and was a little gangly.

"Hi, Angie." Danny smiled at her and nodded towards Kat. "She actually goes by Kay now."

"Kay, huh?"

It was much better than Kathy. Angie only called her Kat because she had trouble pronouncing her name when they were kids, but she'd never called her Kathy, even after she could. Because she had a serious dislike for the name.