Free Reel Life Starring Us by Lisa Greenwald

it seemed like nothing had really changed at all.
    Until mid-September. It was like he flicked a switch, or someone flicked a switch for him. That’s when he started working out for hours and staying in his workout clothes all day and making every day feel like every other day.
    These are the cues I hate, the cues that tell me things are bad and getting worse, and they make me wonder how bad things will end up getting. I wonder what rock bottom is and when we’ll hit it. And I’m scared of what will happen when we do.
    I was happy to be sleeping at Kendall’s on Saturday night just so I could get away from it, but even though I wasn’t home, all the feelings were still there. They were stuck at the back of my brain, and as hard as I tried to get rid of them, they stayed stuck.
    Even all the talk about Ross Grunner wasn’t getting my mind off of things at home. And it was good talk, too. Molly and Kendall convinced me that Ross really does like me, and they tried to convince me that I really like him, too.
    So I called him and we talked for forty-one minutes, and it was a good conversation that flowed normally. We decided we’d hang out one day after school, and he even offered tohelp with the video. He’s good with that kind of stuff. And truthfully, it would be good to have some help and to have another person to work with us. Being one-on-one with Dina for that long can make you crazy after a while.
    There were even parts of the night when I felt like I could maybe open up to them about stuff, and maybe it wouldn’t be so weird. They were my friends, after all, and they liked me, so they’d understand.
    But then they’d say something like how sad it was that AJ Marcuzzi had to move away because his house was going into foreclosure. But they didn’t say it like they were sad and they felt bad for them—they talked about it more in a gossipy way. I know for sure they heard their parents gossiping about it just the same way.
    And I joined in on the conversation saying, yeah, it was sad and all of that. Because as long as they didn’t know the truth about me, then I was just like them, the way I always was.
    And at least they didn’t bring up the carrot video again.
    So now it’s Monday morning and I’m sitting in homeroom, feeling tired and thinking too hard. All my friends and I are in the same homeroom this year. At first, I thought this was a good thing, but now I’m beginning to think it’s not. They surround me.
    â€œChels, you seemed so quiet on Saturday,” Molly says. “We all want to talk to you about it.”
    And Kendall says, “We’re very worried about you. You have to talk to us.”
    â€œGuys, I’m fine.” I laugh a little to prove my point.
    â€œYeah, right,” Kendall says. “You didn’t even freak out about Ross Grunner.”
    â€œGuys,” I say again, looking around to make sure he’s not listening to us. “I mean, what’s there to say? We’ll see what happens.”
    He’s sitting in the back of the room, wearing a gray button-down and dark jeans. His hair’s always a little messed up on top, but I know he tries to get it to look that way. Some girls think that’s cute. I’m not sure.
    â€œOkay, quiet, quiet, quiet,” Mrs. Feder says, already sounding annoyed as she walks into the classroom. “Attendance, and then silent homeroom. It’s way too early for all this noise.”
    She says this every morning. Homeroom is always the same time, so it’s obviously
always
too early for all that noise. But today I’m actually thankful for Mrs. Feder because it means I don’t have to talk to my friends.
    Which is kind of sad, actually.
    After homeroom I’m walking to math when I spot Dina. Idon’t know what to do. Should I say anything about how she called my house? My dad told me about it when I got home on Sunday. He’s