Curvy Girls Can’t Date Soldiers by Kelsie Stelting

Twenty-Six

Nadira

Friday nights were always busy.Cori played on the girls’ varsity basketball team, and then my brothers played on the boys’ varsity team. I’d spent way more hours sitting in the gym than any mathlete should. By now, I was a pro spectator.

Rule number one of surviving hours on end of high school basketball? The concession stand. Rule two? Friends.

I loaded up on nachos, hot chocolate, and Nerds Rope, and then went to the gym to find my friends Adriel and Faith in the stands. I saw them and started climbing the steps, scanning the crowd. My parents were there too—a few rows over from my friends—ready to watch the games for the night.

My chest ached, wondering if they would ever make it to a Mathlete event before the end of the season. We had two left—if we made it to state. The odds were not in my favor. Still, I forced a smile as I reached my friends and sat beside them.

“Where’s Carter?” I asked Adriel. Her boyfriend had become a fixture of our friend group lately, and it was weird not to see him around.

She swallowed her bite of popcorn and said, “He’s been training for this bodybuilding meet coming up. Actually, I was going to ask you guys if you wanted to come?”

I raised my eyebrows. “Guys with muscles lining up on a stage? Sign me up.”

“Same.” Faith giggled. “When is it?”

“After spring break,” she said. Her eyes lit up, and she nudged my arm. “Maybe you can invite Apollo.”

I shook my head, looking down at my food that suddenly didn’t look so appetizing. “He’s going to hate me by then.”

“You never know,” Adriel said.

Faith nodded. “Give him some credit. He likes you, not just some picture.”

I was about to respond when the announcer told us to rise for the national anthem. Des walked to the middle of the court, holding a microphone.

I placed my hand over my chest as she sang the words in the most beautiful rendition I’d ever heard. She sang at almost every game, but each time sounded different. I could hardly believe how talented she was.

I found myself getting jealous. She was beautiful with a talent for singing. Adriel was an amazing dancer, Cori had a scholarship to play college ball, and Faith was about to save the world in the Peace Corps. What was special about me? Anyone could memorize an equation or two.

I let out a sigh, which was covered by raucous applause for Des. She deserved the recognition.

The game began, and I split my time between hoping my phone would vibrate in my pocket, cheering for Cori (who was an absolute beast on the court), and explaining basketball as best I could to Faith and Adriel. Des had younger brothers who played sports, so when she joined us, she understood what was going on in the game.

Sitting with my friends was a nice distraction from the fact that my parents were here for my brothers but hadn’t been there for me. I especially needed the distraction when the boys’ game started and I could hear them cheering above all the noise in the gym. I watched my parents, their eyes intent on Terrell and Carver. Each fall made their eyes crease with worry. Each successful basket made them smile with pride.

My chest ached so badly by halftime I needed a few seconds to get away from it all. To center myself. To stifle the jealousy rising in my chest.

I leaned over to my friends and said, “I’m going to get some air.”

Des asked, “Want me to come with?”

I shook my head. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

My feet couldn’t move fast enough as I left the gym, fighting the stinging tears in my eyes. I pushed past the double doors into the cool night air and walked down the stairs, stepping around the corner so I could have a private space.

Tears dripped down my cheeks as images of my parents supporting my brothers flashed through my mind.

My brothers were the perfect children in every way. They had skills validated by the entire student body. They did decent in school. They had friends, girlfriends. They were fit and attractive.

And then there was me with my mottled skin everyone stared at and my gap teeth that my parents refused to have corrected with braces. Not to mention my large stomach and thick thighs that ruined jeans (the ones that fit).

I sniffed, the cool air burning my nose and making my eyes water even more. Hot tears rolled down my cheeks, and I squatted down, just wanting to disappear. To be someone, anyone else.

My phone rang, and I pulled it from my pocket to cancel the call, but the name had me stopping short.

Apollo.

It was time for our nightly call, and if I was being honest, I just wanted to talk to someone who thought I was special. Who felt the way he said he did about me.

I pressed the button to answer and held my phone to my ear. “Hello?”

I’d tried to make my voice sound normal, but the instant Apollo heard me, he said, “Nadira, are you okay?”

“No,” I choked out, half-laughing only so I wouldn’t burst into more tears.

His voice was gentle as he asked, “What’s going on?”

“I feel so pathetic,” I said, shaking my head. “I shouldn’t have answered. I just…I don’t know…I just wanted to talk to you.” A small sob peppered from my lips.

“Hey, hey, hey, I’m here. What’s going on?”

The tenderness in his tone took me aback like a hug that only made you cry that much harder. “My parents never come to my Mathlete competitions, but they’re here for my brothers’ games. They’re here, and I don’t know what I did to be less important to them. If I could play sports, I would. If I could be tall and skinny and charismatic, I would. But I’m not, and it sucks.” I cried harder, diving in the spiral of every thought I’d been working so hard to suppress.

“Baby,” he breathed. “Don’t say that.”

My heart hurt even worse. Here was this amazing guy calling me baby, talking to me like I was a treasure, and all I’d done was keep secrets from him and answer his call when I was already falling apart.

“Why do you even want to talk to me? Why?” I asked, but it sounded like an accusation. Like what was wrong with him that he wanted to spend his evenings talking to me instead of sending an email and being done for the day? And he wanted to meet me? If he had any sense at all, he’d be deleting my email. Forgetting my number.

Forgetting me.

The line was silent, and for a terrifying, heartbroken moment, I thought I’d convinced him. Shown him that he really was better off without me. But what he said brought more tears instead.

“Nadira, if I didn’t want to be talking to you, I wouldn’t be. I’d send you an email a day and move on. You’re not like that. You’re smart, in the scary way that says you can start a colony on Mars or destroy the universe. There’s not an in-between. And you’re funny, but in the sarcastic way that makes me think a second longer than most jokes do. I don’t understand why, but you’re easier to talk to than people I’ve known for years. And I’m not about to question it, because I like you, Nadira. Not who you wish you could be.”

Tears streamed down my cheeks, but they were happy this time. All this time, when I’d been trying to hide behind Tatiana’s picture, Apollo had seen the real me underneath it all.

“I like you,” I admitted. “I really like you, Apollo. More than a pen pal should.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t let ‘should’ get in the way. Not with us.”

My lips twitched into an almost smile. “Why?”

“Can’t you feel it? There’s something special here.”

My heart beat painfully in response. “I can,” I whispered.

“Me too,” he said. “So promise me? No more should when it comes to you and me?”

“I promise.”

“Good.” He sounded pleased, and I just wanted to hear the smile in his voice all day. But my friends were probably waiting for me. Maybe even looking for me.

“I should—I need to get back to the game,” I said, not wanting to in the slightest.

“Skip it.”

“I wish. Can we talk tomorrow?” I asked, hope fighting against my carefully constructed walls of what I expected my life to be like as a curvy girl with vitiligo.

“You can count on it.”

I looked at his name on my screen for a moment before I ended the call and went inside.

I needed my friends to help me find a way to tell Apollo the truth once and for all, and I hoped what he said was right. That he’d fallen for the real me behind the person I thought I wanted to be.