Chapter 26
“I just met the most beautiful girl.”
Cherry closed her laptop.
She lay on her back.
She realized she was crying when the tears ran into her ears and tickled.
Was it a joke?
Tom’s comics were usually driving toward a joke, though sometimes it took a while to get there. The main character’s thought
bubbles were always sardonic when they appeared.
Was that how Tom saw Cherry? Like someone put lipstick on the Michelin Man?
Was that how he saw her the first night they met? Like someone had taken a regular girl and inflated her to the point of popping?
Had he looked at her and seen someone who was already a caricature? An easy punchline?
(Did Tom’s friends read his comic? Had they laughed?)
A few other girls had appeared in the comic strip over the years. They were all busty. All a little Tex Avery. But not like
this—not like Cherry.
That was Cherry.
That cartoon.
A man had drawn a picture of her as a joke and posted it online. And Cherry had pursued him. She’d chased him. Was that what the next week’s strip would be about? That crazy-looking fat girl following Tom’s avatar around?
“I just met the most beautiful girl.”
Cherry knew what she looked like. She knew that no one would ever describe her that way, even generously.
But she wasn’t a joke. She wasn’t pathetic.
She didn’t deserve this.