It was true. I had curves for days. And days and days and days. I had years of curves and dressing them was a pain. Finding a pair of jeans that fit my tree-trunk thighs and bubble butt, yet still cinched in at the waist enough that I didn’t look ridiculous? Needle-in-a-haystack-worthy. T-shirts had to be a full size too big or my chest stretched out the screen print until it cracked and looked like painted barf.

I would have killed for Devi’s height and proportions. It was not my lot in life.

“Give me the Atari one,” I said. She flung it at me and I caught it midair to tug it over my head. “And I’ll have you know, Devorah, that the logo is the key to a successful T-shirt. It’s the first thing new people see. Atari says, ‘I’m fun and a little nerdy.’ Guinness says, ‘You probably like hockey or at least pretend you do.’ My Little Pony says, ‘I own at least one pair of glittery sneakers, which I do, and they’re awesome, but if I wore them tonight, you’d kill me.’”

“You’re seventeen, Serendipity,” she said, because my mother was the type of person that saddled a kid with a huge-ass name. At least it shortened to Sara pretty easily. “Glitter was out in second grade.” She pulled a Starbucks T-shirt from the pile and held it up to her chest. “What does this one say?”

“That I prefer burnt coffee?”

We shared a grin as I gathered up the T-shirts and threw them back into my dresser drawer. The moment I walked away from the bureau, Devi tsked and nudged me with her foot. “No yoga pants. White girl needs to be less cliché. Jeans.”

“...but they’re comfortable,” I whined. “I’m embracing my mother’s culture right now.”

“Yes, well, embrace whatever culture puts you in real pants. Those are pajamas.”

I rifled through the stacks of pants in the second drawer. I’m half Swedish, half Spanish, and by Devi’s decree, culturally confused. My mother raised me—she’s full Swede. From her I inherited my porcelain complexion and an appreciation for ärtsoppa because it’s delicious. My Spanish father isn’t in the picture. He and my mother were married until I was two, but he fell off the map when they divorced and my grandmother’s stories tell me I was better off without him. He was too free with his hands, she said, which made me grateful that all he left me was the last name Rodriguez, a mop of black curly hair and eyes so dark you can’t see the pupils.