Unpretty: An Unloved Ones Prequel Read Online Free Page A

but it sounds like shouting, and I feel like I’m going mad.
    I find Sarah by the cafeteria doors and we walk inside together. I don’t say anything, and she doesn’t notice my condition. But when we walk inside, the wall of sound hits me so hard that I have to back outside again, dropping my messenger bag and putting my hands over my ears.
    "Kathy!" Sarah cries, following me back outside.
    "It's too loud," I say.
    Sarah looks at me for a moment as if coming to a decision. "Are you sure you're feeling okay?" she asks. "You look really pale."
    I remember the beach, and realize this might be the perfect opportunity. "I might be coming down with something."
    Sarah puts an arm on my shoulder. "Maybe you should see the nurse. You look… messed up."
    I nod again. "Will you be okay?" I ask. I don't want to leave her alone at lunch.
    "I'll be fine. I'll sit with Darleen and her gang." She rolls her eyes. "Although you just know she's going to talk my ear off with the most dull stories about band practice. You owe me for this."
    She gives me a hug, and then we part ways. I'm still jumpy. Everything is so loud, and it all smells so bad. I pass a drinking fountain and can smell the sewer through the drain. I pass by a classroom with closed doors, and I can hear pencils scribbling and scratching like fingernails on a chalkboard. It feels like after I've gotten over a bad cold, and my taste and hearing comes back again after being clogged. Except I wasn't sick, and now my senses are out of control. Maybe I really should see the nurse.
    But instead I hit the vending machines, and eat in a bathroom on the far side of the school. I lock myself in a stall and eat sitting on a toilet with the lid down. It smells like stale cigarettes. I finish the food, and sit listening to the pipes rattling in the walls.
    When the bell rings, I pick up my wrappers and stand up.
    And my pants sag around my hips.
    It feels so weird that I drop the wrappers on the floor, and feel the waist of the jeans with my fingers. I can pull the jeans away from my stomach so far that I can fit a hand through the gap. My heart races. These jeans were hell to get on this morning. I must have ripped them. That’s the only explanation. I open the stall door and check myself in the mirror.
    But there is no rip. My pants have either grown since this morning—or I've started to shrink.
    * * *
    The bus drops me off, and I walk home in silence. I have to keep a hand on my pants because they keep sliding down as I walk. I don't usually wear a belt; there's no point, and it's hard to find belts in my size.
    No one is home when I walk through the door. I plop down my messenger bag on the couch, and rush to my bathroom. It takes all my patience to strip off my clothes. I want to be sure about this: I don't want even an ounce that isn't really me to contaminate the evidence. I have to know for sure.
    I step onto the scale, and the blue screen lights up. The numbers flash randomly. When they settle, I gasp.
    I get off the scale, wait for it to reset, and then get back on again. The same readout is given.
    "This can't be right," I whisper. "The scale is broken."
    I don't believe it, but it's even harder to believe my new weight. I walk naked through the hallway to my Mom's room, and step onto the scale in her bathroom.
    It gives me the same weight.
    Slowly, not feeling the joy I should at my new condition, I make my way back to my bathroom. I pick up the marker, and on the mirror, under where I wrote 257 this morning, I write my new weight with a shaky hand:
    242.

Chapter Three

 
    It’s not until that evening that I remember my wish. I’ve spent the afternoon napping and avoiding my mother. But then when waking up at dinnertime, I see the empty cupcake wrapper on my nightstand, and I remember:
    I wish I were thin
.
    I drag myself out of bed and make my way to the dinner table. I avoid eye contact, and dish out a portion of food for myself. We’re having fast food: fried chicken