Mackler - The Universe Is Expanding and So Am I

To the memory of my friend Jhoanna Robledo Wade, who always appreciated a New York story

Also by Carolyn Mackler

The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things

Infinite in Between

Tangled

Guyaholic

Vegan Virgin Valentine

Love and Other Four-Letter Words

The Future of Us (coauthor)

Best Friend Next Door (for younger readers)

CONTENTS

Froggy Welsh the Fourth is trying to get inside my jeans.

That should be fine because hes my boyfriend and weve been publicly and officially together for five months and we were privately together for two months last fall and weve already made out and hes gone up my shirt and right now were locked in my bedroom on a sunny Wednesday afternoon in early June while my parents are at work and my brother is at the gym and my sister is thousands of miles from New York City, finishing her two-year stint in Africa.

But theres a big problem.

The problem is that Ive fallen out of like with Froggy. It was never love, but Froggy is my first boyfriend, and the fact that he wanted to be with me, publicly and officially, seemed like a miracle. So I was okay with like. I could deal with like.

To be clear, Im not saying that Froggy is the miracle. Hes a dorky-in-a-good-way sixteen-year-old guy. Hes medium height and skinny with fluffy hair, pinkish skin, and a stubby nose. Hes talented at trombone and graphic design, and not altogether unpopular in our tenth-grade class. Thats where the miracle comes in. While Im not altogether unpopular either and I have some attributes of my own, Im definitely not skinny. On good days, I consider myself curvy. On regular days, more like chunky. On bad days, Im plain old fat. In my prestigious private school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, there arent a lot of fat girls. And the few plus-size girls who amble apologetically around the hallways never score boyfriends.

So, yeah, Ive been super grateful to have Froggy, and Ive also liked the making-out and up-my-shirt aspects, especially kissing until our lips are numb and various quadrants of our bodies are wriggling with desire. But then yesterday, as we were making out on a bench in Central Park, a few blocks from school, I had this weird feeling that I was kissing a golden retriever. This was new. Not the kissing part, because weve done a lot of that. But the new sensation was that his tongue felt slobbery and long, like it was trying to retrieve a dog treat from behind my molars. After a few minutes, I wiped my face with my hand and made an excuse about how I forgot a final exam review sheet and had to run back to Brewster before our Global Studies teacher left for the day.

All last night I was stressed. I kept wondering why kissing Froggy had grossed me out. Was I not into him anymore? But how can that happen when nothing between us changed from Monday when we had a perfectly fine good-bye kiss in the empty stairwell near the computer cluster to Tuesdays slobberfest on the bench? Also, if I truly wasnt into Froggy anymore, what was I supposed to do about that? Is canine-kissing grounds for a breakup?

As I was tossing in bed I decided that the slobbery kiss had to be a fluke. And the fluke had to be because Froggy was stressed about the end of school and therefore not exercising proper tongue control. Mom is an adolescent psychologist, and she frequently says that academic stress hits everyone in different ways. In our case, there are six days left of sophomore year and teachers are slamming us with homework. I decided I needed to forget yesterday and give Froggy and his tongue another shot.

Thats why I invited him to my apartment today, and thats how we ended up making out in my room. But as soon as we closed my door, we sat on my bed and pressed our lips together and nope. No chemistry. Not even a spark of physics or just plain human biology. And thats when I knew thatgasp, gulp, crapIm not into Froggy anymore.

This is a bad thing to realize as were on my bed and hes sliding his hand across my stomach to the waistband of my jeans.

Virginia. Froggy sighs, pushing up my shirt.

I used to cringe at the thought of him seeing my belly region. That was back when we were secretly hooking up. Once we publicly and officially got together, fooling around felt so good that I didnt stop him. But now that Ive fallen out of like, I dont want to be doing this anymore. I glance longingly at my bedside table, at the cover of Fates and Furies. I wish I could be reading right now. Not only are the main characters, Lotto and Mathilde, the cutest couple ever, but they met at Vassar, which is where I want to go to college.

Froggy sweeps his hand south and starts fiddling with the button on my jeans.

Uhhhh, I mumble. I clasp my hand over his and drag him back up north. Froggy and I have never been inside each others jeans before, and Im definitely not ready to start now.

Hmmm? he asks.

I cough and, for lack of a more imaginative word, repeat my brilliant earlier statement. Uhhhh.

Despite the fact that Froggy and I have been together, on and off, since the beginning of sophomore year, we still suck at talking to each other about what our hands are doing.

Is everything ? Froggy pushes his hair out of his eyes.

I know hes asking if Im okay, if were okay. I dont know what to say because even though Ive fallen out of like with Froggy, I cant break up with him. That exact item is at the top of my current list. I often create lists in my head about important things in my life, and sometimes I even write them down. Heres rule number one of a list that Ive been thinking about this spring:

HOW TO MAKE SURE SKINNY GIRLS ARENT THE ONLY ONES WHO HAVE BOYFRIENDS, RULE #1:

Its no secret that the skinny girls score the bulk of the guys. Its not that I have anything against skinny girls as long astheyre not bitchy and they dont make fat girls feel like slovenly slobs. But its still not fair that skinny girls get first, second, third, fourth, and hundredth dibs on the pool of available guys. So if youre a chunky chick and you managed to get a nice boyfriend, dont ever let him go.

I know my lists tend toward the harsh, but whatever. There are very few places that girls, especially teen girls, especially fat teen girls, can be brutally honest. And my imagination is one of them.

Also, maybe it seems harsh when I call myself fat. The truth is that sometimes I feel harsh about it and I wish I were born into a skinny body with a kickass metabolism. The list I made up when Froggy and I first got together was called The Fat Girl Code of Conduct, and it smacked of low self-esteem. Ive come a long way since then. In general I dont hate my body as much as I used to. Ill never be a twig, but Ive learned to embrace my curves. Most days. Okay, some days.