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“Stop following me. I saw you at the library the other day,” he said. His normally sweet, handsome face looked so . . . different.

“It—it was an accident, being there the same time that you were,” I said, stammering. “I mean, I’ve got to go to the library and study. You don’t own the building, you know.”

But it was like Brian didn’t hear me, and all of a sudden, I noticed that the tiny blond girl he had been holding the door for at the library was standing off to the side, waiting for him while he told me off.

“First you show up at my house, then you follow me to the library. And don’t think I don’t know that it’s you calling my house and hanging up.”

Yes, I went to his house. Yes, I saw him at the library. But I wasn’t calling him. I swear. I was so confused, it was all I could do not to break into tears on the spot.

“Someone’s been calling my house and hanging up, Bee,” he said. “The caller’s number is unlisted, but I know that it’s you.”

“I don’t have an unlisted number. I don’t even have a landline. My cell is a friends and family phone. It shows my dad’s name. You know that.”

Brian wasn’t having it. “All I know is that you’re the only person who is acting desperate enough to call me at all hours of the night,” he said. “I need you to grow up. This happens all the time. Two people hang out for a while, one person grows out of the relationship and moves on. Stop making a federal case out of it.”

He was speaking so loudly that everyone in the cafeteria could hear him. I was so mortified. I just kept blinking wildly, like someone had sprayed mace in my eyes.

“It’s over, and if you keep stalking me, I’m going to report you to campus security.”

Then he stomped away. The boy who had been doing tongue calisthenics with me less than a week ago STOMPED AWAY.

At this point, I was nearly hyperventilating. I was breathing in and out so quickly, I thought I was about to have a heart attack, which is why I didn’t notice this girl sit down across from me.

“You do know that he’s a dick,” she said.

“Who?” I asked. I was in a complete daze.

“Lyin’ Brian. Two years ago, when we were both freshmen, he pulled the same mess with me.”

“You used to go out with Brian?”

“Sorry to burst your bubble, snowflake,” she said. “You’re not in a club of one.”

I looked down at my tray of fried chicken, smashed potatoes, and collard greens. For some reason, all of a sudden, I was really, really hungry. So I started eating. I noticed that on her tray, she had a Caesar salad, an apple, and a bottle of water. Besides the fact that she used to date Brian, the goody-goody food on her plate only added to my instant dislike of her.

“So what do you want with me?” I asked.

“I kind of owe you one,” the girl said. “I’m the one who’s been calling Brian’s house and hanging up.”

SHE was the girl who was calling him and hanging up! Do you believe it? Do you believe me now when I say that my luck just goes from bad to worse?

“What? You’ve got to tell him.” I had to get her to clear my name. Brian was never going to take me back if he thought I was stalking him.

“He ruined my freshman year, and I know that hang-ups drive him crazy,” the girl said. “So I call him nonstop for a few weeks, then I lay off and start up again. It really messes with his head.” She burst into a big grin. I couldn’t help but notice that she had nice teeth, pearly white and the kind of straightness that not even braces can produce, but at this particular moment, they looked more like fangs.

Will somebody PLEASE wake me from this nightmare? This nightmare where I am not only dumped by the love of my life, but I find myself having lunch with his psycho ex-girlfriend?

Granted, she didn’t look like a psycho. She was this really glammed-up Latina girl who looked a lot more like the posters in Brian’s apartment than I did. But still.

“I’m Consuela. We should be friends,” she said, putting her hand out for me to shake.

I did not want to shake this crazy girl’s hand. Luckily, I had my greasy fried chicken fingers to hold up as an excuse.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just don’t think I want to be friends with Brian’s ex. Nothing personal.”

“Well, I’ll see you around,” she said.

Then she flashed me this huge smile as if she was my new best friend. As if the idea of me being friends with someone who’d swapped spit with the love of my life was even
possible
. I think the Latin term for this is
movea onu crazae ladyil
.

As I walked home, all I could think was, This is just great. I mean really great.
Truly
great. I didn’t mean it in a good way. Oh no. I meant in the sarcastic, opposite-day way. Brian thinks I’m stalking him, which I ABSOLUTELY am not. And now his nutso ex-girlfriend is going to be stalking me too.

6

Bee-friended

I was
so freaked out by Brian confronting me in the cafeteria that I decided to avoid it entirely. I had no one to eat out with, so I ordered in. After a while, all the delivery guys knew me. And that, my friends, is how I gained the famous freshman fifteen—plus ten more, for good measure.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been there, but being depressed is VERY TIRING work. I needed to eat for sustenance. It was like there was a great big hole inside me and it was sucking up everything: my ability to get out of bed, the energy it took to shower, the brain cells I needed to study. Eating, planning my meals, and going out for snacks kept me going.

I was way, way over my monthly food budget, so I just started charging everything. I used my plastic at the bodega, at Rite Aid, at H&H Bagels, and of course at Ollie’s Noodle Shop. It’s not like I sat down and ate a whole pizza by myself in one sitting. But let’s just say, when Dad got the credit card bill, the Victoria’s Secret charge was going to be nothing compared to how much I was spending on food.

The thing is that I never felt overweight. The scale was creeping up, but I didn’t feel fat. Six inches around your waist doesn’t actually feel like a tire, no matter what the infomercials say. It feels like your belly goes from flat to soft, like every day is the day after Thanksgiving and someone has been stuffing your jeans with pillow feathers at night when you sleep.

I never wear panty hose, but I knew I was gaining weight when tights started being a problem. When you go to school in New York, a pair of warm, wool tights can be your very best friend. My old tights wouldn’t stay up. They kept slipping down around my butt and I was always adjusting them. It wasn’t until I was in the locker room at school and this girl saw me pulling them up around my thighs one day and said, “You might want to go up to the next size,” did it occur to me that my legs—never toothpick thin to begin with—had taken on a greater proportion.

My face might have been chubbier, but I never noticed it. When I woke up in the morning, washed my face, and brushed my teeth, it was the same sleepy eyes that greeted me, the same crinkly smile when I heard Pharrell start to sing, “You’re beautiful. And I love you. You’re my favorite girl.”

In high school, my teachers were constantly saying, “You just wait until you get to college; all these silly distinctions and cliques will fall away.” Then I got to college and found out that even at a brainiac school like Columbia, it’s still a lot like high school. There’s still the prettiest girl, the smartest girl, the most eccentric, and the most talented. I wanted to be the smartest or the prettiest or even just the weird chick who wore one sock as a fashion statement and did art installations involving Chia pets. But that’s just not me. I’m too weird to be cool but too vanilla to be weird in an interesting way.

Then when I met Brian, all of a sudden, I wasn’t just this blob. I was his girlfriend, and together we did all kinds of cool things I would have never done by myself. But now he didn’t want to see me anymore, and it was all because I was a virgin. If I was experienced, if I’d rocked that Victoria’s Secret lingerie like a supermodel, shown him I know what I’m doing in a relationship, then I’d still have Brian and everything would be okay.

I was waiting for the Ollie’s delivery guy to show up; it was a weeknight, so it would probably be Dewei. The doorbell rang, then rang again three times before I could get over to the intercom. Definitely Dewei: he loved to lean on the horn. I buzzed him in. But when I opened the door, it wasn’t Dewei, it was Consuela. Brian’s ex-girlfriend.

“Hey, chica, how are you?” She walked in as if she’d been over a thousand times before.

“Hey,” I said, both annoyed that she’d shown up uninvited and relieved that I hadn’t buzzed in some serial killer.

What was I supposed to say to her? “You know when Brian kisses you right behind your ear and you feel like you’re going to melt right on the spot, isn’t that the best?” We had nothing, I mean nothing, to talk about. But here she was, and I had to admit that even though I guessed that she’d ridden into town on the crazy train, I was kinda happy for the company.

I walked over to the fridge and took out two diet sodas. “I’m fine,” I said, offering her one.

“Nah, I never drink that diet stuff,” she said.

I thought, Of course not. Consuela was curvy but curvy thin, like Salma Hayek, which I think is the cruelest anatomical joke of all. How can someone have boobs and hips like Jessica Simpson and still fit into a size-six dress? It’s like all the fat cells in their bodies automatically mutate to the right places.

“I came by because I’m going salsa dancing at the Copa. Want to come?”

“Uh, no,” I said.

“Why not?”

What I should have said was, “Because you’re a crazy stalker girl.” But instead, I replied, “It’s Tuesday night; I’ve got to study.”

“Well, just come for an hour. It would be good for you to get out.”

“I just ordered Chinese food.”

“MSG, baby. It’ll keep.”

“Why are you being so insistent?”

“Because I told you, we should be friends.”

“But you didn’t tell me why.”

“Just a feeling.”

The doorbell rang, then rang again. Definitely Dewei. I buzzed him in.

Consuela looked at me and said, “You know, this is New York, snowflake. You should really ask who is it before you buzz somebody in.”

I opened the door and breathed a sigh of relief again that it wasn’t an ax murderer.

Dewei said, “Oh, tonight, you have company. It’s very good for Bee to make friends.”

Consuela raised an eyebrow.

I paid Dewei with Dad’s credit card and signed the receipt. It was all I could do not to stiff him on his tip. Nice of him to let Consuela know that I had no friends and ordered in every night.

The minute he was out the door, Consuela stood up. “Even the delivery guy knows how sad and pathetic you are. You’re definitely coming with me. Let’s go look at your clothes.”

“I haven’t had any dinner. I’m hungry, Consuela,” I said. I was whining like a baby, but I didn’t care.

“First of all, everyone calls me Chela,” she said. She took the bag of food away from me and looked inside. “You can’t be this damn hungry,” she said. She handed me an egg roll and left the rest of the food on the counter. “Eat this,” she said.

“So now you’re putting me on a diet?”

“Nah, Bee,” Chela said. “I’m putting you on the clock. Ladies get in free before nine p.m., so we gotta roll. Where’s your closet?”

I showed her.

She decisively reached for a black tank top and a red skirt. “Put these on,” she said, tossing them at me. “You got some black pumps?”

I nodded.

“Good.”

An hour later, we were on the dance floor. Chela said the old guys were the best ones to dance with and quickly found us a pair of grandpas. I was a little dubious of the five-foot-two man in the immaculately pressed black suit, but the minute we started dancing, he put one arm on my shoulder, one arm on the small of my back, and that was it. He made it seem like I’d been dancing salsa my entire life.

“Just follow me,
cariña
,” he said. “ I’ll take good care of you.”

We danced song after song until my forehead and back were dripping with sweat.