The Keepers of Secrets

Seven | K-I-S-S-I-N-G

Jory ignored his brother, his eyes tracking a plane in the sky as he walked with his hands tucked into his pants. "I'm not a nerd."

"Right, 'cause you're a big football star now," Clyde teased. "Now you're just a dumb jock."

"A dumb jock who gets good grades," Jory shot back.

Clyde frowned. "Still a dumb jock."

"Quit being jealous, Clyde. It's not a good look for you."

Sally Jean glanced over her shoulder, catching Clyde's red face as he pressed his lips together and looked down at his feet in anger.

He had changed over the years, losing some of the baby fat in his face. Though he'd grown taller, he wasn't as tall as Sally Jean.

Sally Jean had hit a growth spurt over the summer, coming to stand as tall as most adults she came across. Unfortunately, that was the only place she had grown. She was still as flat-chested as a boy and had long, awkward limbs that she thought were too skinny.

She didn't look like the pretty girls in the magazines that she liked, with their soft bodies that filled out dresses and pants in ways Sally Jean couldn't.

Mrs. Mayberry said she would grow into her looks one day, and Sally Jean kept hoping that day was sooner rather than later.

"Well, looks like we got here in the nick of time," Paulie commented as they came upon the bus stop, kids already standing around it as the yellow bus clambered down the dirt road.

The two oldest Mayberrys broke off from the group, Paulie heading to join a group of older boys he liked to laugh and make jokes with, and Jory heading straight for his girlfriend.

Maude Parker.

Maude Parker was in Jory's grade and could've been in print along with the pretty girls in Sally Jean's magazines.

She was easily the prettiest and most popular girl in school, despite only being a sophomore. Her hair was perfectly curled and pretty and blonde, and her skin was lightly tanned and completely unblemished.

She didn't have the ugly freckles that dusted Sally Jean's nose and cheekbones and was the opposite of Sally Jean in her figure as well. Where Sally Jean was tall and lanky, Maude was short and perfectly plump in all the right places.

Sally Jean envied her something fierce, but not just because of her looks.

But because she had Jory as well.

Standing next to Jory, they looked like the perfect couple. If Maude was the prettiest girl in school, then Jory stood opposite her as the most handsome boy.

His hair was a warm brown color, almost matching his tanned skin, and his eyes were the brightest blue she'd ever seen. Like the color of a robin's egg.

He stood almost as tall as his daddy, with wide shoulders and arms filled with lean muscle to match.

He was as handsome as a boy could ever be and reigned in Sally Jean's head as her supreme thought.

Jealousy burned like a bonfire in her chest when she saw him with Maude. It hurt, so she turned around to face Clyde.

"They're so nasty together," she complained. "Always touchin' on each other and stuff." It always felt good to speak ill of them. Warmed her aching heart.