Free Confessions of an Ugly Girl by Alice Wasser Page A

he showed up at my cubicle. “I’m taking you to lunch,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
    I wanted to go to lunch with him more than anything. He looked adorable today, even more so than usual, maybe because I hadn’t seen him much lately. We’re still at that phase in the relationship where just looking at him makes me tingle. He was wearing this slightly wrinkled blue shirt that brought out the color in his eyes, even behind his glasses. He wasn’t wearing a tie, as usual, and his top button was open, so I could see the tiniest hint of chest hair. It was really sexy. God, I wanted to see his chest. I hadn’t gone there yet, but I thought about it as I ran my hands over the fabric of his shirt. I could tell he wasn’t muscular under there and he once told me kind of apologetically that he didn’t have much muscle tone due to the paralysis, but it was still sexy because it was Sam.
    “I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t.” I gestured helplessly at my computer.
    He frowned. “You can’t take half an hour break the whole day?”
    “Rich is going to freak out,” I said.
    In fact, I was nervous that my boss Rich was going to see Sam at my cubicle and start prematurely freaking out. He had been hovering over me all damn day.
    Sure enough, within 30 seconds, Rich was racing over, looking very pale. I think he’s become balder in the last week and he looked like he was about to drop dead of a coronary. As much pressure as I’ve been under to get this report done, he’s under more.
    “Hi, Sam,” he said. He was trying to play it casual. “How are you doing?”
    Maybe it was my imagination, but I think Rich was a little patronizing in his interactions with Sam. Sam always seemed mildly annoyed, but took it better than other people would have.
    “I’m fine, Rich,” Sam said, using the same patronizing tone. “How are you?”
    “Been better,” Rich replied. He turned his attention to me. “What’s going on, Millie? Is your computer broken?”
    Right, because why else would Sam Webber, the computer expert, be at my cubicle? “No,” I said.
    “Oh,” Rich said, looking relieved. “Good.” He hovered there, waiting for me to answer his next, unspoken question: why the hell was Sam at my desk?
    Both men were staring at me, waiting for an answer. The whole office was staring at me. I wracked my brain, trying to think of a plausible excuse. Maybe he was here because he owed me money for Bess’s baby shower gift? No, he’s a man. Maybe he and I were on competing softball teams and he was here to arrange a time for the next game? Totally, Millie. Good one. “Um,” I said brilliantly. Hey, I’m an actuary—we don’t think fast on our feet.
    “Actually,” Sam said, “I’m here to take Millie out to lunch. Do you think you can spare her for half an hour?”
    Rich looked so confused, I almost laughed through my terror. His brows knitted together, trying to figure this one out. He’s kind of slow. But not that slow. “Oh! Um, yes, of course, Sam. Just try to bring her back in one piece.”
    I could have crawled under my desk. Rich didn’t even look as surprised as he could have. The ugliest girl in the office was going out with the crippled guy… guess it made some sense.
    I tried not to be, but I was pissed at Sam. Now everyone in the office, including my boss, knew that we were dating. Maybe I don’t think fast on my feet, but Sam does. He could have come up with some reasonable excuse for why he was at my cubicle. He didn’t even try.
    Once I was angry, it felt like everything he did was pissing me off. Like why did he always bring me to the same restaurant for lunch? Okay, maybe it was the closest one to work and it was very accessible, which is important, but it was too early in our relationship to be so monotonous. And we’d have a lot more time for lunch if he didn’t take so damn long to transfer in and out of his car. Well, I guess he was pretty fast at it, considering he can’t use