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had breasts, but they just weren’t made of quite enough of the stuff that guys liked to gawk at.   I’m fairly certain that I look passable in a bathing suit, but I’d never grace the cover of some swimsuit magazine.   I didn’t really think that that had any bearing on Graham and me, but looking at Erica’s body, how her little pink top and her brown corduroy skirt hugged her shape, I understood that I wasn’t physically attractive to Graham either.   It just kept piling on, didn’t it?
    Erica put her hands down and started digging through her bag.   “Did you know that she told him she was in love with him the day he ended it?   He told me about it afterwards and we laughed at how pathetic that was.   God, she’s desperate.   He even told me how he always felt sorry for her because her mom had died and everything — but that just proves what a good guy he is doesn’t it?   So goddamn charitable.
    “He said that her mother was some illegal immigrant or something, and that she probably died from some disease they have in those third world countries that had been dor-something…I don’t remember what it was he said, but she probably had it when she was pregnant, and now Grace might have it, too.   Isn’t that… sad ?”  
    She pulled out a tube of gloss and started to swipe her lips with it, puckering and pouting, apparently gauging the level of coverage.   She smiled, and then frowned.   Too much gloss — a large amount had landed on her teeth; a nice, hot pink chunk.   Despite the rage that was boiling inside of me at the blatant lies that she was telling, I couldn’t help but smile a little at that.
    Becca broke in then, her high-pitched voice causing me to grit my teeth.   “I thought her mom died in a car accident.   Some freakish explosion or something.   Hmm.   Learn something new every day.   Wait — she actually said she was in love with him?”
    Erica nodded again, quickly wiping away the foreign pink spot on her teeth with some tissue she pulled out of her bag, and smirked.   “Of course, I wouldn’t be surprised if she tried to attach herself to this new guy.   Did you see the way she looked at him?   Like a dog in heat; how pathetic.   If Graham doesn’t want her, what makes her think that this guy would give her the time of day?  
    “She probably just wants to be his friend, just to be able to say that she was friends with the two hottest guys in school.   Of course, from the way he was looking at me this morning, I don’t doubt I could take him away from her, too.   Not that she’d even be able to catch his attention.   Not in those clothes anyway.”
    Take who away from me?   Was she talking about the gray-eyed god that had somehow gotten my heart beating again without so much as a word?   The one who I had absolutely embarrassed myself in front of?   The one who made my knees feel like they were made out of water?   Ugh…she was right.   I am pathetic.
    “Did you hear his name, though?” the Becca person asked, leaning forward to inspect her makeup.   I saw her then.   Her hair was just as blonde as Erica’s, but with dark roots peeking through, and it was cut short in a sloping bob.   Her eyes were dark, like mine, and void of any real sincerity.   She had berry stained lips, and when she reached up to touch them, as if checking to see if the stain would rub off, I noticed her nails were painted the exact same shade.
    “Uh-uh,” Erica responded, shaking her head while still watching me.   “I was too busy staring at his eyes when he told Graham.   Something about those eyes just makes me want to do whatever he wants.   Anyway, he’ll probably tell me in class.   I think we have sixth period theater together.   I took a peek at his schedule while he was talking to Graham.   Did you know he speaks with a British accent?”
    “No way!   That’s hawt!”
    Somewhere deep, under all of the rage and sadness that was pulling me under, I