“Then come here, little spoon.” She wrapped her arms around me and laid back in the bed. My body followed. She turned me to face away from her and wrapped her arms around me while holding on tight.

“This is spooning,” she whispered in my ear. “See? It’s not all that bad.”

It really wasn’t. Her magic filled my chest again, and I felt at ease. She began whispering all kinds of things to me, all of it nice, all of it wonderful. She might have been a hard-ass, but she was showing me her soft side. She didn’t show this side often, and when I got to see it, God, the only word I could think of was magic. Then she whispered to me, “Today, I wanted to tell your friend Donny that you were my boyfriend.”

My heart jumped five feet in the air. I never had anyone ask me to be their boyfriend before. I really dug the idea. I thought about it for a moment but not for too long. I told her, “I wanted to say that you were my girlfriend.”

“Then what was stopping you?” she asked.

“I didn’t want to go ahead without the okay from you.”

Mel paused. I couldn’t see her face, but I swore I could hear her smile.

“Look at you, being a gentleman.”

“Will you be my girlfriend?” I asked.

“Yes, you fool.” She squeezed me tightly. We cuddled for a long while, and she held on until I closed my eyes.

I woke up facing her. I could feel her breath tickling my face, and her body was against mine. Everything felt real. I kissed her forehead and she woke up. “Don’t kiss my forehead, you creep.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Don’t kiss me while I’m sleeping, you creep.”

She buried herself against me and held on. I held on for a while, too. She wrapped her legs around mine and said, “You’re really awesome.”

“I’m vaguely okay.”

She pushed my head back and made a face. “Take a compliment, asshat.”

My head was now facing my phone. I pressed the home button and the time said 8:53 p.m.

“Shit.” I sat up. “I missed kickboxing.”

“Oh no,” Mel said while rubbing her eyes. “That’s not that bad, though.”

It was. I had to burn off calories and fat. I began freaking out because of it. I got out of her bed.

“Where are you going, dude?”

“Uhh . . . I have to head home,” I lied. “It’s getting kind of late.”

“All right. Let me know when you get home, okay?”

“Okay.” I smiled at her. She got up and gave me a really big hug before I left.

I didn’t go home. I went for a jog. If I missed kickboxing, then I had to make up for it. I ran, and I ran, and I ran. I didn’t want to tell Mel because I didn’t want her to worry. She’d told me to take a break, but I couldn’t. I jogged all the way to our school and all the way back to my house. It took me little over an hour. When I got home, my parents were already asleep. So I did what I had done the last few nights. I took off my clothes, stepped on the scale, and waited. The zeros flashed and I stared at them until I got a new number. 270.5 pounds. It was lower. That was all that mattered to me. I had so much worry that Mel would get bored of me if I stayed fat. I don’t know why I was thinking about forever, but I knew I couldn’t stay fat for much longer. Mel was beautiful, but I wasn’t. What if she wanted a guy with six-pack abs, big arms, and who moved with confidence? That wasn’t me. I was the complete 180 of that. I knew I had to change. I had to change even if I had to hide my methods. I looked over to the toilet and thoughts starting racing through my head.