The Forever Crush Read Online Free Page A

Kate’s four-star advice without her knowing that it was me.
    â€œSpeaking of boyfriends,” Piper said. “Jemma, I hear you’re going to dinner and a movie with Forrest on Friday night.”
    â€œDinner and a movie” turned out to be something dreamed up by the beautiful Clem Caritas. Yes, my not-so-friendly locker neighbor. Once a month, a select group of eighth-graders made dinner at someone’s house and then went to see a movie. I had never been invited before.
    â€œOh, goodie,” Kate said. “Me and Brett are going, too.”
    â€œAnd I’ll be there with Dylan,” Piper said.
    Dylan was the latest of Piper’s boyfriends. He was in ninth grade—a high-school guy!—and played ice hockey.
    â€œA triple date…,” I said a little blandly.
    I was worried about all those eyes on Forrest and me. Surely these girls who knew me so well would be able to tell that Forrest and I were a big fat fake.
    â€œMoving on,” Kate said, turning back to the laptop. “Oh crud, study hall is almost over.”
    It was hard to keep track of the time down in the school basement. There were no clocks. Were we really still the Pink Locker Society if we hadn’t stepped through our pink lockers in weeks? I tried not to think about our beautiful and well-appointed offices now that they were off-limits. It felt like forever ago that we opened our lockers on the first day of school and saw them—the pink locker doors inside our regular lockers. Ever since Principal F. shut us down, we had to keep jackets hung up in our lockers to hide the secret pink doors.
    But while I was dreaming of our comfy couch, ergonomic desk chairs, and conference table, Kate was still thinking about Emma Shrewsberry and that question about being fat. It was assigned to me and I hadn’t come up with an answer yet.
    â€œWhat have you found out?” Kate asked.
    â€œI’m working on it,” I said.
    This was like saying “I’m almost there,” when I actually hadn’t even left the house. I assumed there would be some kind of easy answer to her question. There wasn’t.
    â€œWell, remember that it’s a two-part question,” Kate said. “She wants to know how to find out for sure if she’s fat or not. And, if she is, she wants to know how to lose weight fast.”
    I made a mental note to talk with Bet, who was already investigating the Fat or Not notebook.
    â€œUgh,” Piper said.
    â€œWhat?” asked Kate.
    â€œIt’s nothing. Just a stupid message,” Piper said.
    â€œLet me see,” I said, and turned the laptop toward me.
    The girls who write this stuff are trashy and cheap. What if boys see this? STOP now!!
    Your worst enemy
    The three of us were silent for a moment. When girls called girls stuff like that, we knew it was code for other more shocking words. They were like curse words, but it was more than that. They were words that hurt girls and made them feel deeply bad about themselves. Parents would fall over with shock if they knew how often girls in middle school hear them.
    A mean eighth-grader, now moved on to high school, thankfully, once called me one of those shocking words on the school bus. I was only in sixth grade and I didn’t know what it meant. I had to ask my mother, which led, as you might expect, to my mom actually boarding the bus the next day to discuss the matter with the bus driver. Once I knew the definition I felt better because it in no way applied to me. I hadn’t even kissed a boy then.
    â€œThere is this high-school girl,” Piper said in a small voice. “She hates me because I’m going out with Dylan. I think it could be her.”
    Piper had been called those mean names before, plenty of times, actually. You could tell by her quiet voice and the way she stared at the floor as she spoke. Piper sometimes joked, “Beauty is my curse.” But this was one of those