Chapter 31: Chapter 31

"Did you only need seventeen minutes, Julianna?" Piper calls out before I've even taken two steps into the hall. "I thought you'd want all of them." I can hear her laugh, so I take a deep breath, stand up straight, and walk to the end of the hall and into the kitchen.

"Are you all set?" I ask while pulling my hair off my shoulder and watching Piper's cocky smile fade, Kyle trip into the pony wall by the front door while putting on his shoes, and Mark spit his beer on Chloe.

"Ew!" She screams and gets up to go to the kitchen to get a piece of paper towel. I feel like there are seven sets of eyes on me because of this silence.

"Oh, so it works, huh?" Mark coughs, and when I ask, he gives me a thumbs-up. "That's great, let's try it at the frat house." Everyone stands up and gets their coats and shoes when I smile. Kent doesn't get up right away, and it seems like we just stare at each other for a few seconds before I say something and he stands up.

Kent and I walked there. I didn't like this plan. In fact, it all depended on how hot or cold I was, so the odds were pretty much against me from the beginning.

"What do you want to do?" In a soft voice, he asks, and I look up at him.

"Do you think this is right?" He gives me a smirk when I ask him with a smile.

"When Piper wins, I don't like it." He shakes his head. "That's especially true if the bet is about how you look."

"What do you mean?" I want him to say more, so I ask. We move a little bit away from the other people in the group, and he clears his throat.

"I mean, she wants you for stupid reasons," he said. He says in a soft voice. "And she's making you feel bad about how you look, even though there isn't a guy in the world who wouldn't let you into a frat." He says it in a quiet, awkward way that makes my heart beat faster.

Is that a good thing to say all the time? "You look beautiful tonight, Julianna" and "Any creepy finance-bro frat guy would let you into a sweaty party" are two very different things. But if Kent's praise was all that mattered, then it might as well have been that.

"I guess that's fine." When I speak slowly, he nods. "Look, you and I don't really like each other, but we have to act like we do if we want this to work."

"True." I understand why he sighed. "What do you think we should do?" I'm not looking for a date.

"I don't either." I'm happy and laughing. "I'd rather put out a campfire with my face." He really laughs at that, and I can't help but laugh a little, too. "Why don't you just talk about yourself?" What I say makes him laugh. She said, "I don't feel like I know anything about you."

"Fine." He sighs and tries to come up with an idea. "Brown was my second choice when I was looking for schools."

"Really?" I ask, and he nods.

She said, "Dartmouth wasn't my first choice." He says, "As soon as you asked, I had an answer." " At first, I was going to get a sports scholarship to go to Michigan State.

Wow, that's pretty amazing.

"Where? "

"Football." He shakes his head. "I was the running back my senior year of high school, and because of who my dad was, I was always getting scouted. They were willing to pay for everything, and I was able to persuade my dad that this was a good compromise. He talks, and I nod and keep listening. It didn't bother me that we were moving away from everyone. What we talked about was interesting to me.

"Why didn't you go?" He sighs when I ask.

"I broke my back." I turn my head to look at him when he says it quietly. "Really, after a bad tackle in one of my last games, I lost feeling in my toes. I didn't think I'd be able to walk again." When he says it, I feel sorry for Kent for the first time in my life. "I was going to be in rehab for more than a year, and my doctors told me that playing would make it worse if I kept doing it. So I made a change."

"Oh my god!" He laughs and shakes his head as I mumble. "How are you doing now?"

"Yeah, I just can't play contact sports like that anymore. Too likely that my back will hurt again." I understand why he sighed.

"Your plan to take a year off is starting to make more sense." He laughs when I just shrug.

"Yeah, I'm here because of that. It was a long way from my home, and that was all that mattered to me." I look at him funny when he mumbles.

"First of all, where are you from?" I ask, realizing I had no idea.

"The Big Apple." I just nod when he says something. I thought Kent had a nice life in New York. White people's parties in the Hamptons and all of that. "Tell me about yourself right now." I have to think hard when he makes jokes. I thought he knew most of what he needed to know about me already, so I had to think a lot.

"Is it silly or important?" He smiles when I ask him.

"I'm sure you have lots of funny stories, but tell me one that's as bad as me telling you I broke my back." I take a tight breath when he says something.

"Okay." I nod and take a deep breath. "I was told I had polycystic ovary syndrome at the beginning of the summer." I just shake my head and say yes.

"What's that?" I sigh when he asks.

"It means that when my ovaries are supposed to release an egg, a cyst grows on the outside of them instead." I let out a quiet sigh, knowing that Kent's understanding of how women's bodies work had changed a lot because of what I had said.

"Everything all right?" He asks with worry, and I laugh softly.

"Yes, they're sleeping now." I promise him. "It happens because my hormones don't work right, so I started taking a new drug. I used to weigh a lot more because of it."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I'd say at least three sizes bigger in jeans." I admit. "I'm not Piper or Abby, and I hope I don't look like either of them. I feel much better about myself because of it." I shrug, seeing we were getting close. "I know it's not the same as being in a wheelchair for the rest of your life, but it's important to me. I don't tell anyone because most of the people I know now didn't know me when I was big. So, I don't want those who don't need to know to find out."

He told her, "Julianna, I'm sorry for what she said about your weight." When he mutters, I shake my head.

"That's fine." I try to make him feel better and give him a gentle push on the arm. He smiles. "You didn't see Mark spit out his beer, did you? If anything, this is a great sign that Piper is lying."

"You're right." He chuckles. "I think if I had to put all my money on one girl to get me into a frat for free, I would put it on you." When he tells me, my cheeks get hot. It was probably the nicest thing he'd ever said to me, and it made me feel differently about him. Not because he drove me to work or lowered the car windows. Because he was the first person to make me feel good about myself.

"The more plans you make, the better!" From the front, Piper yells at the group. "I hope you do well!" She shouts and points forward. When we look, we see a busy step on Greek Row.

The house was already packed, and there was a long line to get in. We'd have to come up with a great plan if we wanted this to work.

But it looked like Kent and I might finally be able to work together. When he told me that after we talked about it, I felt differently. It made a lot of sense why Kent was the way he was.

"Ready?" I nod and clear my throat when he asks.

I can do this well.