Page 4 of Rescuing Brinley

“Seriously,” Cypress said, sounding put out. “You’ve got awesome curls in your hair, and those freckles are adorable. And your eyes…they’re huge! Like princess eyes. And their color’s like the green water at the beach in the Caribbean.”

Brinley was shocked. Princess eyes? No one had ever said anything like that to her before either.

“I’ve just got this boring brown hair and brown eyes. I’m a dime a dozen, I look like everyone else. Ick. You’re unique, Brinley, and if I didn’t already like you so much, I’d be jealous.”

Before Brinley could respond, the bell rang, indicating the end of recess.

Cypress linked her arm through Brinley’s. “Lead on, bestie. I wonder what we’re going to do for science today. Hopefully it won’t be a repeat of what I already learned in my old school.”

They walked arm in arm toward the door, and Brinley felt as if she was floating on air. She had a friend. A best friend! She had no idea how long it would last, but she’d enjoy it while she could. Because if there was one thing she’d learned over the years, it was that once people realized how ugly she was, they eventually distanced themselves. Made excuses not to be around her.

It had happened time and time again in the last few years of school. When any new kid realized just how much she was disliked by everyone else, how none of her classmates wanted to be around her, they decided she wasn’t worth the risk of befriending.

Cypress seemed pretty different. She was outgoing and talkative, and seemed to not care what anyone else thought. And she liked Brinley’s hair. And freckles. And thought she had princess eyes! It was too good to be true, but for the first time in years, Brinley allowed herself to hope that her new friend might be the exception to everyone else.

Junior Year

Brinley stood against the wall in the high school gym, trying not to fidget as she waited for her date to finish up in the restroom. Tommy Goeller had asked her to the Homecoming dance, and it was a dream come true for Brinley. She’d never been asked to a dance before. Not once. Tommy was in the band and played the trumpet. He was tall and good-looking, and she’d been shocked when he’d come up to her after school one day and asked her to the dance.

It was pathetic that she was a junior and hadn’t ever been on a date. Not surprising, but pathetic all the same. So she’d been excited to say yes and had looked forward to the night for weeks.

Even the fact that her sister had been asked to the high school dance, when she was only in seventh grade, wasn’t enough to get her down. Cypress had come over and helped her do her hair, and she’d put on some makeup for the very first time, and the result actually wasn’t bad. Her freckles were muted under the foundation. Even if it felt as if she were wearing a mask, she didn’t mind putting up with it because she felt as if she wasn’t totally hideous.

Using what she’d learned from accompanying her mom and sister to so many beauty pageants, she’d picked a forest-green sheath dress that ended just above her knees. Her normally frizzy hair was pulled back into an elaborate upsweep, and she wore a pair of heels that she had to practice walking in for a few days before the dance.

Tommy was thirty minutes late picking her up, and he’d driven them straight to the high school. Her sister was going out for dinner first, and their mom had taken what seemed like hundreds of pictures of her and her date when he came to the house an hour before Tommy had arrived. There weren’t any pictures taken of Brinley and her date, but that was all right because she didn’t like being in photos anyway. But Cypress had taken a few of her, and of course, they’d taken a bunch of selfies as she was getting ready.

Cypress wasn’t attending the dance. She’d told Brinley in no uncertain terms that she still considered most boys “icky,” and she didn’t like anyone enough to suffer through an entire dance. It wasn’t that she wasn’t attracted to guys; she was. It was more that she was too focused on her studies because she wanted to get into a good college and major in atmospheric science.

That…and because of what had happened to her when she was young. Which wasn’t something Cypress talked about much.

Brinley smiled at people who looked her way as she stood next to the wall and did her best not to glance at her phone again to see how long Tommy had been gone. He’d told her that he needed to pee when they arrived, and she’d said she’d wait for him just inside the gym.

Just when she was starting to get worried, and began looking around for a teacher to go check on him, she finally spotted him walking into the gym with a big group of his friends. They were laughing, and he didn’t look around to find her.

In fact, he had his arm around a girl’s shoulders.

Brinley was confused. He’d asked her to the dance…why was he with someone else?

Then it hit her.

The whole thing was a joke.

Tommy never meant to actually hang out with her at the dance at all.

That being the case, she had no idea why he’d actually picked her up and gone through the trouble of this whole charade.

Cypress warned her. Had told her that she didn’t like Tommy and didn’t trust him. But Brinley had been too excited to listen, thrilled to finally be asked out by a boy. She didn’t take her friend’s warning to heart.

She wanted to slink out of the gym. Didn’t want to face the scorn and pity she knew the other kids probably felt for her. Then she thought about what Cypress would do. She was strong. Didn’t put up with shit from anyone. And she wanted to be more like her best friend.

Taking a deep breath, Brinley walked toward Tommy and the group he was with, mentally preparing to tell him off.

As she got close, she saw a couple of the boys handing Tommy some money.

“Never thought you’d go through with it! She looks better, but still gross. You win, bro. Good job.”

“I would’ve thrown up that dinner we had earlier, before heading to her place, if I actually had to go through the farce of taking her on an entire date.”