Then Everything Happens at Once, page 1
Dedication
This one is for all the girls, but most especially the girls like me and the ones like Miss Beckie. ❤
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Eight
Thirty-Nine
Forty
Forty-One
Forty-Two
Forty-Three
Forty-Four
Forty-Five
Forty-Six
Forty-Seven
Forty-Eight
Forty-Nine
Fifty
Fifty-One
Fifty-Two
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Books by M-E Girard
Back Ad
Copyright
About the Publisher
One
Sometimes, I can imagine exactly what it’s like to be other girls—girls with sugary little souls tucked into sparkling bodies. I close my eyes, and I’m there, lit up from all angles. It makes every movement, from tucking a leg under me to raising an eyebrow, feel like some graceful motion worthy of the entire universe’s attention. When I’ve got a proper hold on that feeling—that feeling of being 100 percent grounded in my body, in a moment—I’m so completely on board with the idea that my whole self is a work of art, and it seems inevitable that someone would be at my feet in complete awe and devotion. Maybe even multiple someones—I mean, why not, right?
It’s never long before that feeling goes poof, and then I’m back in the real world and feeling supremely foolish for even thinking such shittery.
Freddie is three feet away from me, and even though my eyes have blurred from staring at his whole self, triggering sparks and foolish thoughts within, he’d never look back at me. Not in a way that goes beyond eyeballs and sight, anyway.
Have I met a guy or girl—or anyone—in real life who would look at a fat girl like me and think she’s worth looking at? Not yet. Not ever, maybe.
Freddie is no exception.
I am standing in his garage on a frigid February Friday night, helping him work on his car, because my plans with my best friend, Lara, fell through when she decided to ditch our movie night to spend the evening either fighting with Trey or making out with him—it could plausibly be either. Trey is Freddie’s best friend and the rightful car-fixing wingperson who should be at Freddie’s side right now, which means the Lara and Trey drama, once again, brought Freddie and me together.
Am I crushed that this is my Friday-night backup plan? I should be because, well, who likes to constantly get ditched by their best friend? But I’m here, alone with Freddie. So I guess I still win.
Is it ridiculous to know within yourself that you have zero chance of something happening, yet you still do everything you can in case there is a chance? Maybe a little, but my reality is ridiculous, I guess. I feel like I’m always positioned between two opposing forces—feelings, realities, qualities, circumstances—and I’m just living in that space of contradiction. To be honest, I’m totally at home in the awkwardness of it all.
This is my life, and nothing really happens in it. My life is about watching things happen to other people and daydreaming about what it would be like if I was the star—what it will be like, I should say. I’m not a total pessimist.
I’m just really, really tired of watching.
The small but mighty heater hums from the corner of the garage, but still, I keep my red peacoat on because it looks perfect with my shiny black leggings and the black suede ankle boots on my feet. Freddie’s phone rests on the workbench behind his car, and we are both standing in front of it, watching a YouTube video on replacing the transmission of an older Mustang. There is nothing the guy in the video is saying that sounds like English to my ears, so it’s back to staring at Freddie. I start with the thick dark locks of hair he combs in a subtle quiff style, to his torso, which is currently obscured by a sleeveless puffer jacket but that I know is lean and defined underneath from the weights he started lifting a few years ago, and also genetics. My eyes then move to his hands, to the one bringing his vape up to his lips, and I lick my own.
The details of Freddie are sometimes this close to throwing me over the edge.
“You got that?” he asks.
“Totally,” I say. “I was paying full attention. I could probably do it by myself if you want to simply sit and watch.”
“Just guide me, and I’ll tell you what I need,” Freddie says as he reaches for this flat thing with wheels he calls a “creeper.”
“So, like, how sure are you that this car won’t fall and crush you to death?”
“Bay, do you seriously think I’d be working under my car if it wasn’t a hundred percent safe?” Freddie says matter-of-factly. “My dad and I were meticulous. The Shitbox is on four jack stands, plus the wheels are propped on wood blocks, and they’re all chocked. It hasn’t moved a hair in over six months.”
“If you say so.”
“Okay, so we’re at the clutch cable part.”
I watch that part of the video again.
“It looks like he puts the long thing through a hole, and then there’s a clip that slides in there?” I say. Then I laugh, thinking about the words that just came out of my mouth.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Guess it makes sense I’m the only one whose mind is not on car stuff right now. The reality is this: there is more sexual tension between Freddie and a clutch cable than there is between him and me. Still, you have to be “primed and ready for life,” according to my mother. She’s always told me that you can’t force things to happen in life, but you can put yourself in a position where they could.
She was talking about setting yourself up for success by being not only a hard worker but a smart worker too, the way she was about the piece of land she inherited when my grandpa died and the decision she made to put a drive-through coffee place on it. I choose to apply this advice differently. I put myself right there in Freddie’s path in Grade Seven, literally, on the sidewalk.
The moment I saw him, I was hooked. His face, his body, his mannerisms, his voice, his smile—I was thirteen years old, and I knew exactly what was going on. It was a full-on physical, magnet-type sensation.
At that point, one of the guys in his friend group had been asking me out every single morning, just so his friends could laugh. Every single day for all of Grade Seven, Hey, Baylee, wanna go on a date?
Freddie didn’t laugh. He would just look away, act like it wasn’t happening. Doesn’t sound all that thoughtful and considerate, but back then, you were either the one laughing or you were the one disengaging, walking away. Not having to lock eyes with him while I got roasted by some of the idiots he hung out with was actually . . . kind of sweet.
So naturally, I liked Freddie even more. I started talking to him as we walked home from school, headed in the same direction. At first it was about homework. Then it was about books we were reading. Pretty soon, we were talking at school, too. So here I am, such good friends with a guy who makes me want to do things he’s only interested in doing with other girls—any girl except for me, it seems like. Friendship-wise, though, no other girl has been where I am, so there is that.
[Rianne] Ditched AGAIN?! If I wasn’t working right now, I’d totally crash your movie thing. I miss out on everything.
[Baylee] I have to get a job. My mom keeps talking about me starting a couple nights a week at her store.
[Rianne] So DO it! You’d be the girl whose mother is her boss. You’d get away with everything!
How do I tell Rianne I’ve been dodging my mother’s offers to hire me as a part-time barista at her drive-through coffee shop because the uniform dress code requires you to tuck in your shirt? I have my own dress code, and it is forbidden to wear my clothes in a way that basically screams at people to look at how fat my stomach is. I don’t think I’m capable of tucking in my shirt—my arms wouldn’t even cooperate with the tuckage.
[Baylee] She’d probably make me do all the worst jobs. No thanks. But Bookworm Café might be a cool place to work.
[Rianne] Yes! You should totally apply. So what are you doing now, then?
[Baylee] I’m at Freddie’s to help replace his transmission.
[Rianne] Since when do you know how to fix cars?!
[Baylee] Since never. I have no idea what’s going on. He said all I had to do was hand him stuff and like, supervise.
[Rianne] That sounds SO boring.
Rianne is my second-closes
[Baylee] So boring but it was that or sit at home by myself.
She does not know about my massive feelings for my third-closest friend.
Freddie lies on the creeper, about to slide under the Shitbox. I head over, Freddie’s phone and the almighty YouTube video in my hand. I tighten the waist ties of my coat, leaning my butt against the stool set up by the car, anchoring a foot in a bar of the stool by the pointy heel of my shoe. It occurs to me that I’m being viewed from an angle that no doubt showcases my second chin, so I suck everything in as much as I can, barely breathing, smoothing out my chins by cocking my head to the side and bringing my thick brown waves over a shoulder. It feels like it’s actually working, like clenching my abdominal muscles has made everything from head to toe tighter and super attractive. I am almost able to ignore the reminder that it’s all an illusion, that there is no way both my butt cheeks would even fit on this stool if I tried sitting on it.
These are the details of being a fat girl that knock you back down when you think for a moment that you’re rocking it.
“I know we can do this,” Freddie says. “We just have to follow what the guy does.”
“As long as I don’t break a nail in the process.” I wag my shiny red nails so I can admire my fresh shellac manicure.
“I’m not promising that, but I guess I could buy you a fake nail replacement if you break one?”
“That’s supersweet but also not even acceptable,” I say. “These are real. A fake one would be so obvious.”
Freddie is nearly invisible as he rolls under the car, so I grab my phone. My latest text to Lara went unanswered. No surprise there, and I’m not even mad. Freddie’s presence keeps me zen, I guess. Or maybe it’s just a layer of zen over a mess of agony, but whatever. It works.
I scroll through videos of winged eyeliner techniques for hooded eyes on TikTok for a while, then switch to Instagram so I can play this game where I mindlessly flick my thumb against the screen, making my IG feed page go faster and faster. Then I leave a comment on whatever post it stops on. The first time I do it, it’s an ad for cold medicine, but I don’t scroll again. I leave a comment, because that’s the rule of the game. Rules must be followed, even if they don’t make sense. Even if they’re stupid.
[Baylee] This looks great. I can’t wait to have a cold again so I can try this! ❤
I’m fairly certain my phone is spying on me, because just earlier, I was talking to Freddie about this news article my mother sent me about this new virus in China, and all of a sudden, there are ads for cold medicines coming up.
I play the game again, and this time, it’s a bright photo of a new blended coffee drink at Bookworm Café. Now I’m sure my phone is spying. I love that place, not only because of the amazing drinks and delicious sweets, but also because it’s nestled inside a huge bookstore. The colorful chalkboard sign behind the new drink reads, How Oreo doin’?
[Baylee] Whoever photographs your products is doing a stellar job. 👍
Freddie asks me for clarification on something, and I realize his phone’s gone dark because I’ve been busy on mine.
“Oops,” I say. “Can you unlock your phone?”
I hold it low to the ground, and he taps in his code to unlock it.
“Can you hold this?” Freddie asks, his hand coming out from under the car, some dirty metal thing in it.
“Um, hang on,” I say, my eyes searching the garage and falling on a pair of men’s gloves on the workbench. I slip a hand inside one of them and reach for the gross thing Freddie’s handing over, then dump everything on the workbench, including the gloves.
An Instagram DM alert comes through minutes later from someone I don’t know.
[Alex] Hey. I don’t mean for this to come off as creepy, but I’m the Bookworm photographer. TY for the comment. It’s going to make me look good to my bosses. 😎
Well, that’s interesting and totally unexpected.
I click over to this Alex person’s profile. Loyal friend—romantic—hard worker—partial high school dropout—lover of vintage things. Three hundred followers and fewer than twenty posts. His page is made up of shots of different angles of an old car, vinyl records, a beat-up old leather jacket. No face shown in any post. Just a few blurry, shadowy partial body shots of some skinny young guy angled away from the camera. There’s a little spark in my belly, a tiny indicator that lets me know I will form a crush if I keep looking. At this point, I could probably form a crush on an inanimate object without trying.
“Are you going through my phone?”
“I wasn’t going to,” I say, but now it’s the only thing I can think of doing, so I pull up his texts. “Who’s Natasha?”
“Hey! My privacy,” he says.
“You’re the one who gave me the idea!” I say. My thumb settles on a name. “You’re still talking to Jess?” It takes everything in me not to open the conversation and snoop more deeply. I highly dislike Jess—the older, supercool, most cliché-attractive girl ever. The whole time they dated last summer, I barely got to hang out with him. Her moving away in September was a precious gift from the universe.
“Sometimes,” he says.
“Then who’s Natasha?”
“Just a girl I also sometimes talk to.”
Our text convo is near the top, but he’s got me listed as Baylee Kunkel. The formality makes no sense to me until I get lower down the list and find another text convo with a Baylee.
“You’re talking to some other girl named Baylee?”
“Am I?”
“Yes,” I say. “Last thing you said to her was ‘I don’t know—depends on the day,’ when she asked what you do for fun. Stellar conversation, by the way.”
“Oh, that girl. She was from the mall. Kind of weird.”
“So now she gets to be Baylee in your phone, and I’m Baylee Kunkel.”
“Change yours to Bay, then, and delete her altogether.”
I delete the fake Baylee and consider deleting Jess. But instead, I pick myself as contact and change my name to Ms. Baylee Marie Kunkel, Friend & Classmate.
Nothing more.
“And Alice—who’s that?” I ask. “She sounds old.”
“She’s not,” he says.
“You can talk to that many people at once?”
“Yeah. Why not?”
“But you’re like, trying to hook up with all of them?”
“Not really. I’m just feeling them out, seeing who might be interesting. Different.”
Different from what?
His arm comes out from under the car. “Here, take this, too.”
I slip on the glove and offer my hand again.
“Those are my good leather gloves,” Freddie says.
“Yes, well, these are my flawless, clean hands.”
He reaches over with his grease-streaked hand and brushes a finger against my exposed ankle, leaving a grayish smudge.
I stare at my ankle with my mouth hanging open. I should be very irritated right now. This is disgusting car grease.
Freddie rolls partially out from under the car. “What? Are you seriously mad?”
“I need to go home now and shower.”
“No, you cannot,” Freddie says. “I need assistance. You are staying.”
“Fine,” I say. “But you need to clean this.”
He reaches for a dirty rag and starts to wipe at my ankle, but it’s not skin on skin, so it’s not that exciting.
“Never mind,” I say, and I head over to the couch to fetch a makeup wipe from my purse. When I right myself, one of my boobs wastes no time wedging itself under its underwire, and my underwear rolls down my belly. I’ve gotten skilled at dealing with my wardrobe malfunctions in a way that goes unnoticed, but I still live in perpetual fear of Freddie’s face registering just how much of an awkward ogre I sometimes am when I get up. When I do anything, really. But knowing him, he’d just look away, pretend he hadn’t noticed, preserving my dignity.
