The Football Star's Plus Size Obsession

Chapter 2: Easy

Dylan's POV

Everyone thinks my life is easy and most days I don't argue with them because from the outside, I guess it looks that way.

I've been starting quarterback since sophomore year, I have a girlfriend everyone seems to talk about, people say my name in the hallway like it means something.

My dad reminds me all the time how lucky I am, how other guys would kill for what I've got, he's not wrong, I just don't know how to tell him that easy isn't the same as good.

"You're doing that face again," Trevor says, bumping my shoulder as we walk to first period.

"What face?"

"The one where you look like you're doing math in your head, It's homeroom, man, Relax."

I laugh because that's what I do. I don't explain because it's too early for that, It's not math, It's just something I can't name, sitting behind my ribs since sophomore year and I've gotten really good at ignoring it.

Madison's waiting by my locker, arms crossed, already talking before I'm close enough to hear the start of the sentence, something about the bonfire this weekend, who's invited, who's not, and why. Brooke's next to her, phone up like always, filming Madison mid-sentence.

"You're not even listening," Madison says.

"I'm listening, Bonfire's Saturday and you're not inviting the Hendersons."

"I'm not un-inviting them. I'm just saying they've been acting really weird lately." She laughs and Brooke laughs with her, right on cue, I laugh too, because it's easier than not laughing. That's the part of easy nobody talks about: how much of it is just agreeing fast enough that no one notices you didn't mean it.

The bell rings and Madison heads to class, already back in conversation with Brooke. I go the other way, toward English, where I do something I've quietly been doing for about a year now.

I look for Mia Carter.

I couldn't tell you when it started, no big moment, I just started noticing small things like she never raises her hand even when she clearly knows the answer, tightening her jaw like she's holding the words back on purpose. She takes up as little space as a person can take up in a room built for thirty desks.

Today she's already in her seat when I walk in, head down, a book open she isn't really reading, her eyes haven't moved down the page once since I sat down.

Mr. Alvarez starts reading off group assignments and when he gets to mine (Carter, Ellison, Reyes, Hayes), I watch her go still, the kind of still most people wouldn't notice unless they'd spent a year quietly noticing things about her.

I don't know why I look at her right then. She glances up for a second, like she didn't mean to, something in her face catches me off guard, not the blankness I usually see from her when people look her way, something sharper, maybe wary, like she's trying to figure out if I'm about to make her day harder.

I look away first, which is strange, because I'm usually not the one who looks away first.

Reyes leans back in his chair a couple seats down. "You get put in a group yet?"

"Yeah. You?"

"Same one, apparently. Ellison, Carter, you and me." He shrugs like it's no big deal, because for him it isn't, "Should be fine, Carter actually does the reading."

"Good to know."

"Better than getting stuck with someone who makes you do everything." He says it easily, already moving on to something else and I nod along, even though my mind's still caught on the sound of her name in his mouth like it's just an ordinary name and not something I've apparently been paying attention to for longer than I want to admit.

At lunch, Madison tells a story about someone's i********: post. Brooke laughs on cue, Trevor's half paying attention to the table, half to his phone, I sit in the middle of it doing what I usually do, which is exist a few inches outside my own body and watch everyone else have a good time.

"Earth to Dylan," Madison says, snapping her fingers near my face. "Where do you keep going?"

"Nowhere. Just tired."

She studies me for a second, not quite buying it, then lets it go, that's how we work, we let things go instead of asking the real question and it's worked fine for two years because neither of us has actually wanted the real answer.

Across the cafeteria, at a table nobody fights over, I catch a glimpse of dark hair. It's Mia, head bent over a notebook and Ines is next to her doing most of the talking, Mia doesn't look up, not even once, she doesn't need to because I already know where she sits and what time she gets to lunch, I even know how she always leaves five minutes before the bell so she doesn't get caught in the crowd at the door.

I don't know why I know all of that, I try not to think about it too hard.

But there's a project now, two weeks, one table, no more pretending I haven't noticed her and something about that thought sits differently than it should for a guy who has, by every measure that matters here, absolutely nothing to complain about.

After school, Trevor catches up with me by the field. "You coming to the bonfire this weekend?"

"Probably."

"You don't sound sure."

"I'm sure. Just thinking about the project thing for English."

"The one with Carter?" He says it like it's nothing, like it doesn't mean anything and it shouldn't. "Reyes said you guys are meeting at the library this week."

"Yeah, haven't started yet, though.

"Cool. Whatever." He shrugs and changes the subject to practice, to Saturday, to something easier and I let him because I don't actually know what I'd say if he asked me the real question, I don't know it myself yet at least not all the way. Just enough to know it's there, quietly and stubbornly waiting for me to catch up to it.