LITMIR.BIZ

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a shiny strand of hair, a patch of soft skin. Nothing.

      In the car on the way home, Mom suggested maybe my day was so horrible because of my attitude going into it, my attitude toward myself, toward Kim.

      “Oh great!” I hollered from the passenger seat. “BLAME THE VICTIM!”

      “I don’t think that applies in this instance,” she said sharply, “but I do know that how we feel about ourselves can color every aspect of our existence. Surely you’ve picked up on that in the last couple years, no?”

      But I wasn’t having the discussion. Not then. Maybe not ever. Mom doesn’t have to go through school as Kim. If she did, she wouldn’t be peddling her “Big Is Beautiful” BS.

      So, after what was left of any lingering self-esteem was pummeled into a fine powder by the dressing room lighting and the repeated apologies of the shopgirls that they didn’t “carry my size,” I bought some black PF Flyers (can’t do Converse, there’s no arch support, I noticed for the first time) and six extra-large black T-shirts. Two pairs of stretchy black pants, tapered at the ankle, one pair of tight Lycra jeans which Mom basically forced me to buy because she said it “showed off my figure” and (paradoxically) made me look trimmer. Whatever. Most importantly, I got a bunch of jog-bras that held my shit in, tight. And some XXL waffle-knit cotton boxers, which were the most comfortable things I tried on the whole excursion.

      Looking at all this black crap sprawled out on my bed, it sinks in. This is really happening. I am happening. This is who I am now. A plus-sized street mime, apparently.

      I don’t feel like doing anything I’m supposed to do. Not reading and memorizing the Kim Cruz portfolio from the Changers Council, not organizing my binders for class, not playing a game, listening to music, nothing but flopping onto the bed and putting a pillow over my face to muffle the sensations and sounds of the world. But I can’t even get into bed because it’s covered with the trappings of Kim Cruz, and I don’t feel like putting any of these clothes away in my closet, because that would make it real. Kim would be moving in for good. Here to stay.

      I feel like disappearing. To a better time. I want to be Oryon again, the cool-nerd skater-boy in the band. The boy Audrey liked. Not Kim, the girl Audrey ignored, the sort of person I probably wouldn’t notice either. Or if I did, I’d feel a bit sorry for. Pity plus neglect. What’s worse than that?

      Meh.

      Meh meh meh meh . . .

      Skype is calling!

      Elyse’s ringtone. At least somebody still loves me. Only because she hasn’t yet laid eyes on me . . . I can’t get to my laptop quick enough to accept her video chat—can’t wait to see what V she got. Nor can I wait to talk to the only person I actually feel like talking to right now.

      “I can’t see you. Turn on video. Let me see you!” I hear, the second our audio is connected. The voice is a little deeper, but still sounds like a girl. I toggle my video on, and then suddenly her video snaps on, and there she is: I am gob-smacked. And instantly consumed by jealous rage. She looks exactly like Rihanna. But with pale blue eyes.

      “Ahhhhhhhh!” we scream at the exact same time.

      “Wow,” I start. Because I don’t know what there is to say; nothing will come out.

      “What do you think?” she asks, turning her face side to side.

      “Wow. I mean, what do you think?”

      “I think I lucked the hell out, is what I think,” she says, leaning into her camera, presumably to get a closer look at me, in my (strategically) dark room. “And . . . that you are probably hating life right now, and also hating me, because you’re thinking I won the V lottery, and you ended up with the booty end of the Cycle.”

      “Uh—”

      “It’s okay, I’d feel exactly the same way about you if the situation were reversed,” she says.

      “I—I . . .” I don’t know how to respond. Candor feels too treacherous, but then again, she’s asking me for it.

      “I mean it. I totally get it,” she prompts.

      “It’s just . . . you’re the first person who’s actually been straight with me about it. About what I am, you know? My mom, dad, Tracy. Nobody will admit that this V sucks.”

      “I feel ya,” she says. “Honestly, though?”

      I nod my head, move closer to the camera to give her the chance to see me in the light.

      “It’s nowhere near as bad as I know you think it is.”

      “You swear?”

      “I swear,” she says, completely sincerely, which makes me almost believe it. “What’s your name?”

      “Kim,” I say. “Kim Cruz.”

      “Like Tom or Penelope?” she asks.

      “Cruz like Penelope.”

      “Not bad,” she tries.

      “What’s your name?” I ask.

      “Destiny White.”

      “You’ve got to be kidding me. Who’s your manager?”

      “Ha ha. It’s Destiny with a y, but just to be annoying, I’m going to tell people it’s pronounced Desteeni, with an i, like in martini.”

      “Wow, that is annoying.”

      “But a girl this pretty?” she says, narrowing her eyes and flipping her hair like a diva.

      “You’re a bona fide trap queen.”

      “What’s good, Kim Cruz? What’s good?”

      We laugh for a few beats, and then she asks, “So, how’d it go?” and sits back in bed and listens to me complain about my morning, my day, my life for twenty minutes straight, after which I talk about Chase, again, and how meaningless everything feels, and how it all makes me feel even worse for still caring about meaningless stuff.

      “You can’t help it. The external will always exert itself on the internal,” she says kindly. Though, in truth, hearing Elyse’s perceptive brilliance coming out of Destiny’s mind-numbing gorgeousness is discombobulating. It’s like getting Freudian therapy from a lingerie supermodel.

      Even so, after unloading my baggage on Elyse/Desteeni/the luckiest girl in all of Tennessee, I feel the best I’ve felt all day. Not that I’m looking forward to tomorrow. I didn’t fall and get a head injury or anything. But I feel a little more accepting of what may happen, at least. Thank Gods for Desteeni.

      Change 3–Day 2

      When I arrived at school today I was informed that I’d been transferred to Mr. Crowell’s homeroom class. Tracy had decided it would be best to have an ally with eyes on me as much as possible, so she schmoopy-schmoopied her husband into working some behind-the-scenes clerical magic and presto change-o, I’m right back where I started with Chloe, Jerry, Audrey, and the rest of the gang.

      Mr. Crowell had also obviously been informed of what my new V was, because when I walked in with another (legitimate) transferred kid, he beamed as if he was seeing a double rainbow. “And you must be Kim Cruz!” he gushed, patting my upper arm a beat too long. An intimacy that did not go unnoticed by the rest of the class who, like all animals in the jungle, are sensitive to any whiff of disturbance in the status quo.

      “Why don’t you take that seat right in front? Or would you prefer the back row? Really, wherever you like. We want you to be as comfortable as possible here at Central and especially in our happy little homeroom. Right, class?”

      Nobody answered. They just stared at me like, Why is Chubbers getting special treatment? Mercifully, as I said, there was another transfer to the class, a guy named Kris who

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