Unlovable Read Online Free PDF Page B

about the aching hunger in the pit of my stomach. It was a
pocket-sized trailer consisting of an extremely small living
room-dining room-kitchen combination. The sparse mismatched
furnishings were tattered beyond repair.
    There was a brown couch that sagged
horribly in the middle, a blue armchair—minus an arm- and a rickety
kitchen table with two wobbly folding chairs  Toward the back
of the trailer was our micro-chip sized bathroom, and opposite the
bathroom, were two 9 by 7 foot bedrooms. My mother rarely used
hers, preferring to spend most of her days and nights passed out on
the couch.
    The floors throughout were a linoleum,
cold brown linoleum, and it was normally littered with an empty
booze bottle or two and a few stray tissues. The walls were painted
a blanched white and were bare and tedious, mostly because we
didn’t have the money to decorate them. I’d used thumbtacks to hang
some old beige pillowcases over the tall narrow windows to afford
us privacy.
    My frantic cleaning efforts were
rewarded. I found 83 cents under the chair’s flattened cushion. I
finished my housework and ran to the store to buy some day-old
bread.
     
    ***
     
    Most of my lunch hours were spent in
the library studying, that way I didn’t have to watch others eat,
but not today. I had a peanut butter sandwich, and I ate in the
cafeteria sitting alongside Melody who had asked me to sit with her
before anyone else did. On any given day, I battled hunger
headaches, this afternoon, however, it was a tension headache from
listening to Melody’s insipid gossiping. I made several attempts to
change the subject and finally gave up. The girl was like a dog
with a bone. I tried to chew loudly on my dry bread and crunchy
peanut butter, nevertheless, her voice still hacked through the
white noise.
    “ Hillary said you are riding
with Seth to CaL class now.” Melody adjusting her black polka dot
shirt as she spoke. “How many times did pretty boy fix his hair on
the ride over?” I shrugged my shoulders, dropping my head back down
to my lunch. “You’re trying to be nice by not saying anything, but
you know I’m right. Look at them. They’re the perfect
couple.”
    They were sitting a few tables away
from us, and I hoped they couldn’t hear her this time. I didn’t
dare look, and instead nodded silently and continued staring down
at my dehydrated bread.
    “ They sit there never
speaking to anyone who isn’t in their little clique. They think
they’re better than any of us because they’re rich and
good-looking.” She snorted loudly. “They’re totally self-absorbed,
it's as if the rest of us don’t exist.”
    I wiggled around uncomfortably in my
seat, debating whether to say something about Seth and the way he
loved the CaL kids, or that I had indeed seen him hanging out with
lots of different kids around school, not just the popular ones.
But I didn’t. Instead, I swallowed the last of my sandwich and
gathered up my things.
    “ I have to go, Melody.
Thanks for sitting with me today.” Some of what she said was
probably true, yet I couldn’t stop thinking about him yesterday
with the children. I rushed to culinary class, relieved to be away
from her.
    The advantage of a cooking class was
you got to eat what you created, and hungry as I was most of the
time, I’d even eat my cooking. The classroom was close to the
cafeteria, and with my hasty departure, I arrived ten minutes
early. I chose a desk in the far back corner and hoped the teacher
wasn’t one of those control freaks with a seating chart.
    The classroom was huge. On one side
were twelve two-person desks, and on the opposite end of the room
were twelve white stoves with small counters to the left of each,
along with four stainless steel refrigerators spaced out across the
back.
    Soon the class began filling up.
Several of my friends stopped at my desk to ask how my Christmas
was. Since everyone had already partnered up before coming in, I
was still sitting alone at my