The next day at school, while I’m walking from English to World History, Bryce rushes up behind me and kisses my neck. I shriek from the shock and because I am super ticklish.

“Bryce!” I yank his arm and pull him up beside me. “What the hell are you doing? My mom has eyes in every crevice of this place.”

“I miss you.” He pouts.

“I miss you,” mimics his friend Patrick as he passes us in the hallway with Mitch close behind.

Bryce laughs and flips him the bird.

“Eat shit, Patrick!” I call.

Mitch offers a slight smile, and I nod my chin in his general direction. Yesterday I was thrilled to see him, but we’re not the kind of people who would actually acknowledge each other in public.

“You could come visit me at work,” I tell him.

“That place stinks,” he says. “And where would we have any privacy?”

“Well, maybe you could just power through the smell and maybe—just maybe!—we could hang out for a little while without you stuffing your hands up my shirt?”

He grunts. “You’ve never complained in the past.”

“Well, that was before my whole life was one giant prison sentence.” I squeeze his hand. “What have you even been doing without me?”

He lets go of my hand as the hall is about to split in two different directions. He bites down on his lip, and for a moment, I see him the way I did on the first day of tenth grade. My knees feel like Jell-O and I have to stop myself from pulling him into the handicap bathroom across the hall.

“I’ve found ways to keep busy,” he says.

A brief panic weighs on me. I trust Bryce, but I know every day I’m grounded is another day our relationship is at risk. It’s time to get creative. I stand up on my tiptoes and give him a soft, closed-mouth kiss. My mama and her snooping abilities be damned!

“I’ll figure something out. I promise.” One more kiss. “I swear!”

Millie

Fifteen

I follow Willowdean up the steps leading to the second story of her house.

“Dumplin’, I just brewed up some fresh sweet tea!” her mother calls from the kitchen. “Come and get it!”

Willowdean throws her head back, her eyes rolling. She sighs. “It is good sweet tea.”

She doubles back and leads me to the kitchen.

Ms. Dickson sits at the kitchen table in black-and-white polka-dot scrubs, her legs crossed, while she clips coupons. The moment she sees me, her eyes light up. “Millicent! I didn’t realize you were coming over! I thought that was Ellen sneaking upstairs.”

“It’s good to see you again, ma’am.” From what I know about Willowdean and her mother, they’ve had a bumpy relationship. Ms. Dickson isn’t perfect by any means, but I think that when I won runner-up at the pageant, the only people cheering louder than she was were Dale and Lee from the Hideaway. (Dale and Lee . . . well, Dale and Lee are a long story.)

“How’s your mama doing?” she asks, gripping my dangling hand as Willowdean pours us each a tall glass of sweet tea.

“She’s good, Ms. Dickson,” I say. “A little overprotective, but good.”

“Baby, call me Ms. Rosie.” She looks at me with sympathetic eyes. “We just want the best for our babies.”

“Except your best isn’t always our best,” chimes in Willowdean.

Ms. Rosie rolls her eyes. “Pains me to say it, but you’re not wrong.”

Willowdean doesn’t bother hiding her satisfaction. “We’re going upstairs,” she tells her as she hands me a glass with a striped bendy straw and a slice of lemon floating on top.

“Millie, you don’t be a stranger,” says Ms. Rosie. “And I hope we see you in the pageant again this fall,” she adds.

I grin wildly. “You just might.” But first things first: journalism camp. Well, actually: Malik. Then camp.

Upstairs, as I’m following Willowdean down to her bedroom, I linger for a moment in front of a room that would best be described as crafting heaven. A beautifully refurbished sewing machine sits in one corner with a long cutting table on the other side. Clear plastic cabinets sit against the other wall. Each drawer is color coded and full of fabric, thread, and yarn. There’s even a drawer labeled GLITTER, which is undoubtedly calling my name.

“Aunt Lucy’s old room turned pageant-prep/sewing room,” says Willowdean, once she sees that I’m still at the other end of the hallway.

My eyes drift up, and that’s when I see that every inch of spare wall space is covered with Dolly Parton paraphernalia.

Willowdean treks back down the hallway toward me. Her gaze travels the room, and her expression is a cross between longing and satisfaction. “Our Dolly Parton shrine,” she says. “Well, really it was Lucy’s, but it’s ours now. We did all this during the Christmas break. Whatever’s not hanging in here has found a home in my room.”

“It’s magnificent,” I tell her.

In her room, Willowdean hovers above a record player as she cues up an upbeat Dolly Parton song. “It’s called ‘I’m Sixteen,’” she says as she turns it down just a bit. “A new favorite, but more importantly it’ll stop my mom from eavesdropping so easily.”

We sit on opposite ends of her bed, sipping on our sweet tea.

“Your mom is so cool,” I tell her.

She sputters out a laugh. “You’re kidding, right?”

“She’s, like, so nice and probably doesn’t even care that you date Bo.”

“Honestly, I think Bo might be her new favorite thing about me.”

“My parents could barely handle me entering the pageant against their wishes,” I tell her. “A boyfriend? That is definitely Not Until You’re Thirty-Five territory. I can’t even muster up the courage to tell them I want to go to a different camp this summer.”

“Hey,” says Willowdean, “I imagine it’s a whole lot easier to be the cool parent when the person who thinks you’re cool isn’t even your kid. So this boy trouble nine-one-one? What’s going on?”

“Oh, right!” I’d nearly forgotten why I was here in the first place and the text I had sent. I set my tea down on her nightstand and flop backward. “It’s Malik.”

“Y’all are so cute. And you asked him to the Sadie Hawkins with your ukulele! What could possibly be wrong with y’all?”

“Well, that’s sort of the problem,” I say. “There is no ‘y’all.’”

“Ohhhhhh.” She lies down from the other side of the bed, so that our heads are side by side, her golden curls spilling out and tickling my shoulders. Before this year, I spent a lot of time wishing I could be Willowdean. It’s like she never has to overthink or try too hard.

“Malik and I talk almost every night,” I tell her. “And during the day at school it’s like . . . he’s nice, but it’s like all those in-depth conversations we have at night never even happened.” I let myself pout. “I’m just ready for something to happen already. I mentioned it to Callie, and she thinks I should just make my move, but . . . but she . . .”

“She’s skinny?” Willowdean asks, attempting to fill in the blank. “Well, I have a feeling boys have never been an issue for Callie. And not to say that they have for you, but it’s different.”

“I get it. Boy, do I get it.”

She turns her head toward me. “But Callie’s awful. You know that, right? She is not to be trusted. You’re too good to people, Millie. You put too much faith in people who don’t deserve it.”

I roll my eyes. “She’s not that bad.”

She huffs. “But in this one case, she might not be so off the mark. You know Malik likes you, right? All the signs are there.”

I nod. Except . . . I’m scared to even think it, but what if Malik is so different in person because he doesn’t want to admit he likes a fat girl? Maybe he just needs a little push.”

“You know, me and Bo . . . things didn’t start out so good at first. But there came a time when he put it all out there. He wasn’t pushy or rude, but he knew what he wanted and he was pretty sure I wanted it, too. But if it had been up to me to make that first move . . . well, we might still be having angry make-out sessions behind the Dumpsters.”