Chubby Chaser Read Online Free Page A

it, but she could feel beads of sweat forming on her forehead, partly from the heat and partly from nervousness, and she wanted to get the hell out of there before the beads started to drip far more than she wanted to confront Andy. She had a phobia about sweating in front of other people: from kindergarten until she had started high school, her classmates had taunted her for sweating through her clothes during the first couple of months of school—when the weather was still warm—and during the last couple of months—when the warm weather returned after winter hibernation—from doing absolutely nothing but sitting at a desk. A teacher had even gotten in on the fun once, remarking a few weeks into the beginning of the school year, “You got sweat all over this!” in a disgusted tone, after a thirteen-year-old Sara had handed in a worksheet dappled with perspiration. The entire class had howled with laughter, and Sara—shoulders up, head down—had lumbered back to her seat. She now carried a hand towel and a change of clothes at all times during the spring, summer, and fall, but she didn’t feel comfortable pulling her towel out at the moment: she didn’t like sweating in front of other people, but she didn’t like to wipe the sweat away in front of them, either; it only called more attention to her problem.
    Andy handed her the last of her groceries before stating, “That’ll be thirty-two dollars, even.” Sara handed him two twenties, and he gave her back a five and three ones, along with her receipt. “Thank you, have a good day.”
    Sara walked away without replying. She heard chuckling once she got a few steps away.
     
    The ground beef sizzled in the frying pan as Sara moved it around with the spatula. She pushed and flipped the meat until it was dark brown. She scooped it into the four hard taco shells she had on her plate and sprinkled the toppings she had gotten from the store on it.
    Moving from the kitchen and into the living room, Sara set her plate and drink (Mexican Coke) on the coffee table. She pressed play on the remote control to the blu-ray player. The first horror film up was Scream , Sara’s favorite. It had been a tradition since sixth grade for her to watch horror films and pig out on Mexican food the weekend before school started. Her mom had done it with her when she was alive, because Sara didn’t have any friends, and Sara had been doing it alone since then.
    Her mom had passed three years ago on May twenty-first. Sara was about to graduate from junior high and would turn fourteen in a month. Her mother had been battling B-cell prolymphocytic leukemi a for two years at that point, and she had suffered through chemotherapy and multiple trips to the hospital for drug administration before the illness finally took her. The morning of her mother’s passing, Sara had awoken early to make her mom’s favorite breakfast: blueberry pancakes with turkey sausage links and eggs over easy. Her dad, disheveled from the previous night’s sleep and distraught from his recent discovery, came into the kitchen while she was whipping the pancake batter and told her that her mother was gone.
    Sara didn’t believe him at first; she couldn’t afford to. If her mom had truly passed, who would go with her to the mall and make her feel pretty while she tried on hideous plus-size clothing? Who would look at her artwork and praise it? Who would she talk to, as in, really talk to ? Who would she admire and look up to? Who would be her friend?
    By the time of her mother’s funeral, her mother’s death still hadn’t sunk in; Sara hadn’t even cried yet. She thought something was wrong with her. How could she not shed a single tear for her mother? How could she not shed a single tear for her only friend? It wasn’t until it came time to go back-to-school shopping that it hit her: She was trying on a pair of jeans in Lane Bryant, and she wanted to ask her mom whether they made her look like a hippo. But she