Page 2 of The Bodyguard
Which was why I needed to find another flower that I could pluck that would end with him loving me instead of not loving me.
I took a bite of my hotdog and mustard squirted out onto my shirt. Shoot. Mom would be mad about that. She would be mad I was eating hotdogs at all. She called things like burgers and dogs common food.
What she didn’t know was that they were delicious. And eating common food was pretty much the only thing that made me happy. So I ate a lot of it. Especially today.
Hank had said Dylan might show up today for the barbecue. Hank had invited him and he thought his mother would let Dylan come this time.
But at the last minute Dylan called to say he couldn’t make it, which is what usually happened. I don’t know why I ever expected him to come when he had only visited the ranch that one summer.
Bea had been right. I shouldn’t have let myself get too close. Dylan wasn’t like Garrett. Who came to every party he was invited to and who was always nice to me.
I heard the ruckus on the field and saw Ronnie waving and calling for the ball. Garrett threw directly to her, but it sailed right through her hands and into the bleacher seats. The people sitting on top, mostly Hank and his buddies, scrambled out of the way and the ball actually fell through and practically dropped into my lap.
Knowing it was my chance to talk to Garrett, I leaped at it. I got up with the ball in one hand and my hotdog in the other. I came out from under the bleachers and started running. We were using the flat land beyond the open pen and large stable building as the football field, but at that moment it felt as if I had a mile to run. Halfway to Garrett, I tripped.
I could hear Hank and his friends laughing.
“I think she needs to run more and eat less hotdogs, there, Hank,” one of them said with a huge roaring laugh at his own joke.
I ignored them all and got up. Garrett had already reached me and was giving me a hand. He was scowling at the men still laughing on the bleachers.
The hotdog was ruined so I dropped it on the field.
“Here you go, Garrett,” I said, a little out of breath, as I handed him my prize.
He smiled at me and I got lost in his green eyes like I always did whenever I saw him. He was fifteen, and too old, and technically I wasn’t even allowed to like boys yet, but I liked him. I had always liked him. I was so lucky it was his family’s ranch that bordered Hank’s property to the north.
“You’re the best, Brin.”
Brin. I liked that, too. That’s what Dylan had called me that summer. I shrugged and giggled a little in response.
“Sure you don’t want to play?”
I shook my head. I couldn’t throw or catch. I wasn’t good at any of that kind of stuff and I didn’t want him to see how much slower I was than Bea at running. Bea always won any race between us.
“I like watching,” I said.
“Yeah, you’re a watcher, all right. You’re rooting for me, though, right?”
I nodded.
“Okay, go be my best cheerleader.”
I sighed and ran off the field. I was Garrett Pine’s best cheerleader. It made me so happy I didn’t even want another hotdog.
There were, however, cupcakes. Couldn’t miss out on those.
SABRINA
High School—Start of Freshman Year
“I don’t understand. I thought her family was so rich. Why wouldn’t they send her to fat camp or something?”
I pretended not to hear the girls whispering about me as I passed their lunch table with my tray of food.
It was fried chicken fingers and french fries. More common food, as my mother would tell me. Certainly nothing healthy at all. But it’s not like anyone at home cared enough to make lunch for me and, well, I guess I didn’t care, either.
I was headed for an empty table in the back of the lunchroom. Hopefully where I could just sit and eat and read without anyone saying anything nasty.
