Measuring Up by Nyrae Dawn Read Free Book Online

to believe he could really think I’m hot.
    I know I’m not ugl y. Really I do. Like I said, I know I have a decent face. I’m not the girl who sits around being down on herself all the time. But I’m also a realist; I don’t see flowers and rainbows where they aren’t. I know boys and I know what they think of as hot. I’m not their definition. Which is why the whole Billy situation pisses me off so much. Things weren’t how they seemed, but of course, I’m the one who came out looking like the desperate girl who thought a guy like him would want her.
    The difference here is, with Tegan, I had that second of wanting it to be true. A girl’s allowed a second of insanity, right? And to make sure it doesn’t become more than that second, I skip my next gym day and the one after that. I spend those hours being angry at myself. Can you say self-sabotaging behavior? I can, but it doesn’t stop me from doing it. Over and over again until it’s been a week since my last day at the gym and I’ve totally blown my eating plan. All that hard work is wasted. Sometimes I eat because I’m stressed. So sue me. 
    The chance to show Billy I’m not the girl he can torture anymore. To show Mom I can be what she wants. I’m blowing it all because of Tegan. All of it down the drain. I’ve never been as pissed at myself as I am now.
    I pull out my old roller blades and contemplate a trip around the park. That’s exercise. Not the same as what I do with Tegan, but it would be something.  Instead I toss them back in the closet. I text Em only to find out she’s in class. Without much of an idea as to where I’m going, I grab my keys. Mom’s going to be home early today and the thought of seeing her makes my chest feel tight with guilt.
    My feet take the stairs as quickly as they can. The house suddenly feels suffocating with all its memories on the walls and thoughts of dinners past with my parents at the table, the quiet little arguments they have over me like I'm not sitting three feet away.
    I jerk the door open and run outside, only to slam into something hard enough that I stumble backward. If it wasn’t for the hands that reach out for me, I’d be on my jean covered butt right now.
    “Slow down there, Rocky. You’re supposed to save that for the gym. If you hadn’t missed the past week, that is.”
    Tegan’s hands on me invoke all sorts of feelings I don’t want to discuss. Some of them anger, the others…not so much. I step out of his grasp, but all I come up with to say is, “Rocky?”
    “Yep. You have a killer hook. Though we’re going to have to work on your aim a bit. You were a little off target, but I think with some practice, you’ll be knocking people out rather than just giving little black eyes in no time.” Tegan looks at me, obviously amused.
    Without meaning to, I laugh. There’s something about his attitude that’s contagious. I want to trust everything he says, laugh at his jokes and even get a flash of myself running up and down those stairs like Sylvester Stallone did in one of the movies. I wonder if it’s real. If he’s really this happy and those glimpses I get of his secretive side are just that—little blips of time in his life. Or if that’s the real Tegan and he tries to hide it with his playfulness.
    My mind is spending way too much time on this guy. I realize I’m screwed, so I take another step backward and cross my arms. All it does is give me a better view of his deep brown penetrating eyes. There’s something so real about them. Even though he looks like all the Billy Masons out there, he might be different.
    Pretty boys have this power to make girls crazy and if I don’t stop thinking about the realness in his eyes, I have a feeling I’m heading to padded cell territory. “Whatever. Being smooth isn’t going to make this better.”
    Tegan holds his hands up. “You’re not going to hit me again, are you? I knew I should have grabbed an ice pack.”
    Damn him for