Read Size 12 Is Not Fat for Free Online Page A

time ago.”
    Then I excuse myself to go search for a soda, hoping a combined jolt of caffeine and artificial sweeteners might make me feel less like causing there to be yet another death among the building’s student population.

4
    ----
    Don’t Tell
    I’m begging you
    It’s a secret and if you
    Don’t Tell
    I’ll make you glad
    You didn’t

    Don’t Tell
    No one knows
    I’ve exposed my soul
    To you
    So don’t tell
    “Don’t Tell”
Performed by Heather Wells
Composed by Valdez/Caputo
From the album Sugar Rush
Cartwright Records
----
    The closest soda machine is located in the TV lounge, where all of the college’s crisis management people are congregated. I don’t want to risk asking Magda for a free one from the caf when she’s already in trouble with her boss.
    I only recognize a few of the many administrators in the lounge, and then only from being interviewed by them when I’d applied for my job. One of them, Dr. Jessup, the head of the housing department, detaches himself from another administrator’s side when he notices me, and comes over, looking very different in his weekend wear of Izod shirt and Dockers than he did in his usual charcoal suits.
    “Heather,” Dr. Jessup says, his deep voice gruff. “How’s it going?”
    “Okay,” I reply. I’ve already jammed a dollar into the machine, so it’s too late to run away—though I’d like to, since everyone in the room is staring at me, like, Who is that girl? Don’t I know her from somewhere? And what’s she doing here ?
    Instead of running, I make a selection. The sound of the can hitting the slot at the bottom of the machine is loud in the TV lounge, where conversation is muted out of respect for both the deceased and the grieving, and where the TV, which normally blasts MTV 2 24/7, has been turned off.
    I retrieve my can from the machine and hold it in my hands, afraid to open it and attract more undue attention to myself by making noise.
    “How do the kids seem to you?” Dr. Jessup wants to know. “In general?”
    “I just got here,” I say. “But everybody seems pretty shaken up. Which is, you know, understandable, considering the fact that there’s a dead girl at the bottom of the elevator shaft.”
    Dr. Jessup widens his eyes and motions for me to keep my voice down, even though I hadn’t been speaking above a whisper. I look around, and realize there are some administrative bigwigs in the TV lounge. Dr. Jessup is hypersensitive about his department being perceived as a caring, student-oriented one. He prides himself on his ability to relate to the younger generation. I realized this during my first interview, when he’d narrowed his gray eyes at me and asked the inevitable question, the one that makes me want to throw things, but that I can’t seem to escape: “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”
    Everyone thinks they’ve seen me somewhere before. Theyjust can’t ever figure out where. I get “Didn’t you go to the prom with my brother?” a lot. Also, “Weren’t you and I in one of the same classes in college?”
    Which is especially weird, because I never attended a single prom, much less college.
    “I used to be a singer” was what I’d said to Dr. Jessup, the day of my job interview. “A, um, pop singer. When I was, you know. A teenager.”
    “Ah, yes,” Dr. Jessup had said. “‘Sugar Rush.’ That’s what I thought, but I wasn’t sure. Can I ask you a question?”
    I’d twisted uncomfortably in my seat, knowing what was coming. “Sure.”
    “Why are you applying for a job in a residence hall?”
    I’d cleared my throat.
    I wish VH1 would do a Behind the Music on me. Because then I wouldn’t have to. Explain to people, I mean.
    But it’s not like I’m Behind the Music material. I was never famous enough for that. I was never a Britney or a Christina. I was barely even an Avril. I was just a teenager with a healthy set of lungs on her, who was in the right place at the right time.
    Dr. Jessup had