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“Where’s the food?”
    “There’s a grilled chicken salad from the airport in the back,” said her mother.
    “Where’s the rest of the food?”
    “No one is ever going to love you if you stay fat,” said her mother.
    The cool air of the refrigerator melted against Fat Angie’s fiery flushed cheeks. It had taken less than two minutes for the fat digs to emerge from her mother’s mouth. Fat Angie headed for the stairs, but not fast enough.
    “I’m not done talking,” said her mother. “Another fight.”
    Wang had no doubt been honest about selling her out. This reaffirmed his position as King of the Jerkfaces.
    “I didn’t technically start it,” Fat Angie said.
    “Technically?” asked her mother.
    “There’s this girl in my gym class,” Fat Angie struggled to explain. “She — she was talking about her and —”
    “We agreed you would stay on the medication,” said her mother, in a calculated deflection of any and all talk of Angie’s sister.
    “I am,” said Fat Angie.
    “Then?”
    Fat Angie did not like confrontation.
    She especially did not like confrontation with her corporate lawyer mother.
    “What do you want, Angie? Attention?” asked her mother.
    Fat Angie felt her large self begin to shrink. It was an incredibly uncomfortable feeling. More uncomfortable than her too-tight jeans.
    “You get into fights. You skip therapy. They bill us whether you go or not. You understand?”
    Angie gripped the railing and made a feeble attempt at straightening her posture.
    “You have to start being normal,” said her mother. “Give people the chance to forget about . . . I don’t even know what to say. Do you know what I’m supposed to say to you?”
    Fat Angie’s chin doubled in her defeated stance.
    “Don’t you want to be happy?” asked her mother.
    And there it was. The million-and-three-dollar question. Angie honestly did not know. Not in the absolute way that she thought she should know. There was too much pressure for a quick response. Plus, she thought she might have to pee.
    “Just go,” said her couldn’t-be-bothered mother.
    Cheeks burning red, Fat Angie trotted up the stairs only to find Wang sitting cross-legged in her room.
    “Get out,” she said.
    “Look, I didn’t know she’d be a complete bitch.”
    “Quit lying.”
    “You better go to the baby shower or she’ll have them up your dose of Paxil —”
    “Leave,” she said.
    But Fat Angie made a fatal error in raising her palm. The beautifully inked-on numbers were now in clear view of Wang.
    “Angie’s got a boyfriend.”
    Wang reached for her hand. She flailed.
    “Cut it out,” she said.
    Wang was more than a stink-breath bomb; he was
The Flash
fast. He snapped onto her wrist, almost making out the numbers when she yanked it back. The ink smeared.
    Fat Angie heaved one of those big chest-swelling breaths. Then again. Then —
    “Get out or I’ll tell Mom you’ve been masturbating to her Martha Stewart magazines.”
    “Whatever. Like I care.”
    “Gross! You really are?” she asked.
    “No.” He laughed. “But I’d love to see you tell her ’cause then she’d really up your meds.”
    He peeled out of her room. ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” soon swelled from Wang’s stolen surround-sound stereo system. Stolen even though he had the money to buy it.
    Fat Angie studied her hand. Her predictably miserable existence had in fact become:
    1. Less predictable
    2. Potentially not as miserable
    An equation formed in her number-deficient mind. She reached for a scrap of paper and a mini IKEA pencil.
    Less Predictable + Not As Miserable = KC Romance
    KC Romance had been inserted into the equation of her life.
    OMG!
    Fat Angie held up her hand to admire it and to prove the day actually had happened when the most daunting reality set in. Two of the numbers were missing. Smudged from her sweaty palm, two of the numbers had been erased.
    Panic panged her. She held her hand as near to the desk lamp as possible