Author’s Note: Sorry for the slight delay, but I’m so caught up in my other story that I didn’t work on this until I did. Which was just recently. :P
Also, I would like to thank Aquamarine101 for offering to be my beta! Being a beta is a pretty shweet job. :D
Oh…my…gosh. Don’t you hate when you feel like you have to sneeze and you tilt your head back but NO SNEEZE COMES OUT?! GAH! So then I’m about to sneeze and my friend goes, “Did you know that the pleasure of a sneeze equals one-fifth of an orgasm’s?” And I pretty much burst out laughing. Hil-ar-i-ous!
Now all you have to do is read, review, and enjoy!

THE BLOCK ESTATE
MASSIE’S ROOM
Saturday, June 23
5:35 PM

“Massie, time for dinner,” Kendra’s voice sounded through the intercom.

Massie heaved an over-dramatic, dreary sigh and pulled herself out of bed, where she had been crying for the past five hours. She walked over to her floor-length mirror and surveyed her appearance.

Perfect.

Her eyes had that swollen, I-just-cried-my-poor-little-heart-out look and her cheeks were only lightly flushed, not splotchy. Her parents would be able to tell that she had, in fact, been crying her heart out without a doubt.

Massie walked into the dining room and slumped into one of their just-polished wood chairs, making sure her posture was equal to that of Claire’s brother, Todd’s. Meaning her chin just barely reached the tabletop because she had slid so far down in her seat.

Kendra gave an impatient sigh. “Massie, sit up straight.”

She slid down further.

“Massie, for God’s sake, sit up straight! You’re almost fifteen, not seven.”

Massie obeyed but threw in an eye roll, something she knew would piss off her mother.

Sure enough, Kendra snapped, “Massie Block, you will not disrespect me like that. Look, I’m sorry you’ll have to leave your friends and start over in a whole new school but you’ll just have to accept that and move on. If you want, we can move to West Virginia instead. I wouldn’t mind driving to their country area and renting a nice piece of farmland.”

“But moth-errrr, it’s not fair. You’re expecting me to make friends with kids who think Target is the equivalent to Neiman’s!”

“Dear,” Kendra said, “that’s being entirely superficial. I think it would be a nice change, making friends with people who are a bit different than you.”

Massie scoffed. “A bit different? That’s the understatement of the year. A bit different is like Coach and Louis Vuitton. A bit different is wearing a mini with beaded flip-flops instead of Kenneth Cole flats. But wearing farming overalls? That’s not just a bit different, that’s wrong.”

Kendra looked over at her husband for support but he was strangely engrossed with a wine stain on the table.

“Look, Massie, I don’t expect you to like this at first, but we’re moving and you will just have to deal with it. Regardless of your personal beliefs that everyone you meet will be a farmer when, in fact, we’re moving to the suburbs.”

“If I get drawn into farm labor I am so suing you.” Massie glared across the table.

Kendra Block had had enough.

“Massie, go to your room right this instant or I am grounding you for the rest of the summer.”

“Buh-lieve me,” Massie said, “moving to Farm Town is the same as being grounded. I guess I’m grounded for the rest of my life, then.”

Kendra shot Massie a go-or-you’re-dead look and Massie decided to comply. After all, she had gotten the last word. Technically.

“This conversation bores me. I’m off to my room,” she announced, sitting up. Massie did a sharp turn on her heel and strode out of the room before they could scold her or, even worse, see her cry.

THE MARVIL ESTATE
DYLAN’S ROOM
Saturday, June 23
5:56 PM

“Dylan, dah-ling, hurry to the table before your rice gets cold!” Merri-Lee, Dylan’s mother, called from the dining room.

“I’m coming. Gawd,” Dylan snapped as she walked into the room. She plopped down into a chair and wasted no time in shoveling forkfuls of wheat rice into her mouth, purposely ignoring her mother’s wide-eyed looks at her daughter eating like a pig.

“Um…dear? Don’t you think it’s best if you slow down?” Merri-Lee gave her daughter a nervous smile.

“Why?” Dylan asked, showing everything in her mouth. She almost smirked when her mother flinched.

“It’s unhealthy. You’ll get sick to your stomach and…”

Dylan waited for it.

Merri-Lee mother shifted in her chair, wishing Dylan would be smart enough off to finish off her sentence for her. But it was no use; she would have to say it herself.

“Your stomach won’t have enough time to digest all your little food particles and then you’ll get fat–” She stopped her self from adding “er” just in time. “And I can’t have a fat daughter on my TV show,” she said instead. “Bad public image. You know.” She added a wink to show she was only kidding, even though she wasn’t. Well, not really.

Dylan could tell. “Sorry I embarrass you, mother, but I don’t care what you or anybody else thinks. If I want to be fat, I will. I just don’t care.”

Only, she did. A lot.

“Dylan, don’t be such a grumpy-face.”

“Why don’t you – oh, forget it. I’m not hungry anymore.” Dylan stomped to her bedroom and slammed the door shut. Seconds later, her cell phone blared out the tune to Irreplaceable by Beyonce. She checked the screen; it was Massie.

“Hi, Mass,” Dylan said.

“Ehmagawd, I have the worst news in the world.”

“What–”

“Hold on, let me get the others.” Dylan waited – rather impatiently – as her friend dialed their other friends’ numbers.

“I’m here,” Kristen said.

“Same,” Alicia and Claire said in unison.

“Apple-C!” Claire shouted, causing all girls to hold the phone away from their ear.

Claire’s response was greeted with silence. That is, until Massie spoke.

“Guys, I have horrible–” Here she added a loud sniffle. “News. It’s heart-breaking.”

“What is it?” Claire asked, eager to cover up her faux pas. Not that she’d known it was a faux pas or anything, because just a couple months ago she was ridiculed for not saying just that. But whatever.

“I…I…” Massie emitted a miserable sigh, and this time she wasn’t even acting. “I’m moving.”

She immediately received a round of collective gasps and couldn’t help but smile. Wherever she went, she would always have her three – well, four – best friends. They cared about her.

“Ehmagawd, no way.”

“But we’re going to miss you so much!”

“That sucks so bad.”

“Where are you going that’s so much better than here?”

“Yes way, I’m going to miss you all so much, this does suck, and I’m moving to…Virginia.”

More gasps.

“But…but Virginia is infested with farms!” Alicia said, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

“Actually,” Kristen corrected, “Virginia is mostly comprised of suburbs.”

“Whatever. It’s still bad and my life is over.” Massie huffed.

“Maybe you should look on the bright side of things,” Dylan said, “rather than get all upset over something.” That was a strange thing for her to say; she was usually the pessimistic one.

“Oh, like you’re one to talk, being all obsessed with your obesity,” Massie retorted.

Dylan was shocked into silence. Massie had never said anything so cruel to her before, and she was really hurt.

“Yeah, well, I have to go,” she lied. “Mom’s calling me. Sorry, Mass.”

Not bothering to wait for a reply, she quickly pushed the End button and flung the cell phone onto the floor.

That really hurt. A lot. Massie knew better than to comment on her weight because Dylan had always been super sensitive about it. Deep down inside she knew she wasn’t really overweight – at least, not by medical standards; Hollywood might beg to differ – but it was the only thing that her mother really wanted: for her daughter to be thin and beautiful. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, Dylan wanted to please her mother. Really, she did. But every time a diet failed, she would only stuff her face until her mother called her in for her monthly weighing session and noticed that she had gained – oh my god – five pounds, thus beginning a new and “improved” diet.

Dylan went over to her Crate & Barrel desk and opened a drawer to retrieve her “feel-better” food: Hershey Kisses. She always kept a full bag just in case she was having a bad day, and today was no exception.

Ten minutes later, all that remained were dozens of wrappers. Dylan felt a wave of nausea wash over her – not from the heavy chocolate settling in her stomach, but from the Gawd-awful amount she had eaten. A whole bag. Horrified, she ran to her adjoining bathroom, knelt over the porcelain toilet, and stuck her fist down her throat.

It was like she had never eaten the Hershey Kisses.