Curvy Girls Can’t Date Soldiers by Kelsie Stelting

Five

Nadira

After school,we had our first Mathletes practice of the semester. Since only five people had joined Mathletes this year, Mr. Aris always treated us to our favorite coffee order.

I picked up my iced coffee filled with cream and sugar and sat as far away from Regina as I could. Still, it didn’t stop her from serving up an underhanded compliment.

“I get so tired of drinking black tea,” Regina said loudly to me. “I’m so in awe of how you just eat and drink whatever you want.”

The three guys on the team were completely oblivious, and Mr. Aris had just gone to get extra batteries for the buzzer system, so I was on my own. I rolled my eyes and sat down at the table, checking my phone for another email. Ignoring her seemed like the best option at this point.

Arguing with Regina would only give her more fuel and more chances to be mean. I had bigger things to worry about. Like had Apollo seen the message I sent him? Would he reply today? Or would he stick to the one email a day requirement and call it good?

I felt a little guilty for using Tatiana’s picture, but not guilty enough to send a real photo of me. In one month’s time, the research project would be over. In four months’ time, I would be on the East Coast, thousands of miles away from him and a distant memory in his email inbox.

Mr. Aris breezed into the room, holding a packet of batteries. “Sorry, took a while digging through the supply closet to find the right size.” He began plugging them into the equipment, while a freshman on the team, Donovan, pressed the end of a D battery to his tongue.

Another guy chuckled and said, “Ha, you had a D in your mouth.”

“Come on fellas,” Mr. Aris scolded, humor in his eyes.

They guffawed even more.

I shook my head. Teenage boys were some of the grossest beings in existence. I should know—I had two brothers who left towels stiff enough to break in half.

Mr. Aris plugged in the buzzer system and handed each of us a button to press. “We have three meets left this season—four if we can qualify for the state competition, which... drumroll please.”

Donovan banged loudly on his desk.

“Will be held at Emerson Academy for the first time in forty years!” Mr. Aris announced. “If we don’t qualify, we’ll be charged with volunteering. Otherwise, we can pass it off to your classmates and focus on winning.”

Regina clapped excitedly, but I only nodded. We had plenty of work to do if we wanted to make it to state. We’d been sloppy at the last meet, struggling especially with logarithms and geometry proofs.

“We’re practicing sudden death today,” Mr. Aris said. “It’s been a while since we’ve ended a match in a tie, but you never know. Since Nadira’s the captain, she’ll be going head-to-head against the other team’s captain. To practice, you’ll each compete against Nadira, and whoever comes out on top wins a prize.” He bent to retrieve something from behind his desk, and when he picked it up, I couldn’t help but laugh.

“A pie?” Donovan said.

“No,” Mr. Aris replied. “A pi.” He lifted the lid to show the pi symbol cut out of the crust.

“What flavor?” I asked.

“Only the best: peach.”

It was on.

For the next hour, we faced off against each other, seeing who could get the most points on the whiteboard. Soon, it came down to Regina and me.

Mr. Aris held his fist to his mouth, pretending to have a microphone. “In the final two, we have Nadira Harris, Mathlete captain and soon-to-be aerospace engineer. On the other side, we have Regina Granger, Emerson Academy senior soon to dominate the world of finance. Who will win? Let’s find out!”

The boys drummed their hands on the table, but I focused in on the question Mr. Aris was writing on the board, furiously copying it down to my own page.

My mind buzzed, pulling equations and patterns from the problem and from previous classes. I took turns tapping furiously on my graphing calculator and writing on the page, so close to cracking the equation.

A buzzer sounded and I looked up, seeing Regina’s pompous smile. But instead of waiting for her answer, I kept solving. Any good Mathlete knew that you never stopped until you knew the answer.

She read off her response, and Mr. Aris pushed his own red buzzer, showing the answer was wrong.

“Nadira, you have fifteen seconds,” he said.

I kept writing and typing and with three seconds to spare, I buzzed in and read my answer from my page.

With a grin, Mr. Aris extended the pi(e) my way. “Winner, winner, peach pie dinner.”

* * *

I sat at the kitchen counter, my iPad propped up with Cori on the screen while I ate my pie and helped her with math homework.

Except, we’d finished her homework half an hour ago, and now we were just snacking and chatting. My brothers were in the other room, tearing into the pizzas I’d gotten at the store, completely oblivious to us.

“You have to send him the right photo of you,” she said.

I shook my head and took another bite of peachy goodness. “Not a chance.”

“Dir, come on.”

“What?” I asked, getting frustrated. “Why does it matter that he knows what I look like anyway? Huh? No part of the research assignment mentioned photos.”

“It’s not required, but what if he likes who you are and wants to take you on a date?” Cori asked. “What then?”

“What interest would he have in dating me anyway? I’m moving thousands of miles away this summer.”

“Long distance relationships can work,” she said.

I shook my head. “What is it with you guys and being so obsessed with relationships anyway?” It seemed like all day my friends had questioned me about Apollo, making the situation into more than it needed to be. He was just a cute guy whose picture was fun to look at. “I’m happy you and Adriel found the loves of your lives—I am—but a relationship’s not that high on my radar. My parents lived ‘happily ever after,’ and where are they now? They’re both working overtime, not even spending time with each other!”

Cori frowned. “It’s not that.”

“What is it then?” I asked, genuinely curious. I didn’t need more pressure to date than my perpetual singleness had already given me.

“We know how much we like our boyfriends. We just want you to be happy.”

“And I can’t be happy on my own? I need a man?” I had a weird, twisty feeling in my gut even as I said it.

She gave me a suspicious look. “Are you happy?”

I looked down at my pie for a moment, then back at her. “Why don’t you let me worry about that?”

“Okay,” she said gently. “Can I just say one more thing before we drop it completely and forever?”

I dropped my chin and gazed at her. “Am I going to regret saying yes?”

She gave a halfhearted smile. “I just want you to know that I think you are absolutely beautiful, and I think you deserve to feel comfortable in your own skin. Any guy, if you choose to have one, would be lucky to have you.”

My eyes stung because she’d landed on everything I’d been struggling with. Growing up with vitiligo wasn’t easy. Not when my pubescent years were filled with people calling me a Dalmatian or Michael Jackson or a Rorschach test. Top it off with being fat and getting completely ignored by members of the opposite sex, and you had the cherry on top of an I-feel-ugly-all-the-time sundae.

She brushed a strand of wavy red hair behind her ear. “I better get going, though. I told Ryker I’d call him.”

I waved at her and said goodbye before ending the video chat. Why did I feel so bad? Why couldn’t I just see for myself what my friends said they saw in me?

Not finding any answers, I packed up my school stuff and went upstairs to get ready for bed. After a quick shower, I changed into my pajamas and lay down, checking my email for the thousandth time to see if Apollo had replied.

He had.