So naturally I didn’t. I hadn’t ordered a dessert of my own, after all. It was just a bite, and that one bite wouldn’t kill me. But the minute that chocolate sauce slid across my tongue, I knew I was in trouble.
Because it did feel better – it did make me happier, almost instantly. That warm, sweet mouthful was a loving hug from a lifelong comforter. When Shelby offered me an extra spoon, claiming she couldn’t possibly eat the whole dessert by herself, I made every excuse I could in my head to justify each bite thereafter.
I watched Maggie out of my peripheral vision, to see if she would judge me by the way I indulged myself on the dessert. There was, as always, no judgment there. But when she placed her spoon in the plate, indicating she had had enough, I mirrored it quickly.
The long minutes we all sat chatting afterwards were torture. All I could think about were the various plates around the table and all the half-eaten treats. If I had been by myself, each plate would be clean, starting with the divine chocolate creation in front of me. I tried not to look at it, I even scooted it away. Instead I cradled my water glass in my hand, refilling it three times before we all parted ways for the night.
Eddie said nothing as I resumed my spot on the makeshift pallet on the hardwood floor. It was uncomfortable, but I sort of felt I deserved it after caving at the restaurant. I was up and down at least four times from all the water I drank during dinner, which made the hard wood even more unforgiving as I tried to go back to sleep.
By the time dawn peeked through the blinds, I had given up on sleep entirely. Eddie was asleep on the bed, and I considered momentarily balancing on the available edge to get some more sleep. But I could tell he was naked and it made me sick to think of being that close to him. You might as well have asked me to sleep in a pit full of snakes.
So I showered and got dressed for the day. It was just as well I was up early. We had a radio interview that morning and dress rehearsal that afternoon. I puttered around the kitchen to scare up a suitable breakfast, but Eddie’s diet was very Midwest. He had lots of higher-fat protein items like eggs, bacon, sausages, meats and dairy, with very little fruit or grain to round out his starchy vegetable selection.
The breakfast that finally roused the other occupants of my house ended up being much higher in fat than I had allowed myself in months past, but everyone seemed overjoyed by the fried eggs and bacon that I served alongside French toast.
“This is so yummy,” Shelby gushed as she plowed through her plate, matching Eddie’s hungry-man appetite bite for bite. “I didn’t know you could cook.”
“My Jordi’s a great cook,” Eddie responded. His eyes slid over me as he added, “Obviously.”
I bit back any retort. It wasn’t worth it. With my busy schedule for the day, the sooner I could shake Eddie free, the sooner I could finally spend time with Jace.
I so needed to spend time with Jace.
But Eddie had other ideas. He insisted that he tag along with us. “I’ve missed you so much,” he’d croon as he wrapped his arms around me. “I want to make up for lost time while you’re home.”
I glared at him. “But I’ll be way too busy to give you any attention, sweetheart.”
Shelby propped her head up on her hand. “That doesn’t matter when you’re in love,” she said with a dreamy smile. “When you’re in love, all you want is to be close to that special someone.”
I knew she was thinking about Jace, which was convenient… so was I.
Eddie attached himself to my side like the parasitic leech that he was, finding any and all reasons to keep his hands on my body, to tell the world – or at least Jace – that I was legally taken. I could see Jace’s jaw set in a clenched, tight line. I knew he was fighting all his instincts not to intervene. I tried to plead with him with my eyes, to remind him this was only a few days and then we would be back out on the road, free to be together and love one another again.
Shelby seemed blissfully unaware of any tension as she sat ever closer to Jace.
Inexplicably this pissed Eddie off, too.
By the time we made it to the arena for dress rehearsal, his hands were rough and angry when they clutched me to him. Finally, when we got a rare minute alone, I spun on him with outrage. “I don’t want you touching me!” I hissed through clenched teeth.
He grabbed my arm and roughly pulled me closer. “Too bad, honey. That ring on your finger says I can touch you all I want.”
With that he planted another hateful kiss on my unwilling mouth. I wrenched so violently away from him that I felt something tweak violently in my back. It was so strong it took my breath away, but I fought through it and stalked as far away from Eddie as I could get.
The pain, though, did not subside. It was a lingering ache that grew worse every time I moved slightly to the left. By the time I went up for my songs, I was in agony. It took Jace’s intro to do me in. That was the song I was all over the stage, stalking it with a powerful performance that demanded a certain amount of dramatic flair.
The minute I bent down, it was over. The microphone toppled loudly to the floor. Everyone on stage rushed to where I was doubled over. I couldn’t have straightened my spine if I wanted to. They eased me onto the floor, where I gasped through every painful spasm. Jace raced out to join me, which, of course, meant Eddie hopped on the stage and ran to get in between us.
“I got it, Chief,” he said dismissively as he leaned toward me, blocking Jace from my view. I couldn’t argue. I could barely breathe. I gasped for air as tears poured down my face.
The stage director called for an EMT and I was inevitably taken to the local hospital. When the examining doctor touched my back, I nearly sailed right off the other side of the table. Finally the nurses iced me down until I could straighten out, and by then the medication had kicked in. Thanks to a cocktail of anti-inflammatories, a muscle relaxer and a strong dose of hydrocodone, I was sucked into dreamland in my private room.
Maggie roused me as soon as she arrived at the hospital. She wanted to examine me, to see what the problem may have been. As a physical therapist by trade, she had some ideas of what may have happened. The X-rays showed no ruptured disc in my spine, which had been the first concern. Maggie was certain it was muscular, especially as her nimble fingers dug deep into the cushy muscles of my backside to find the source of the problem.
“You’re pretty knotted up back here,” she informed me as I gritted through her examination.
“Then shouldn’t a massage feel good?” I muttered as I gripped the handles on the side of the bed until my knuckles turned white.
“Not necessarily,” she said wryly. “Your muscles are clenched tightly thanks to these muscle spasms. No doubt they caught a nerve in there.” She dug even deeper into my left buttock. “Massage the muscle, unclench the nerve. But it’s deep, Jordi. It’s not going to be an easy fix.”
She withdrew a tiny electronic machine from her bag. On the end were two sticky pads that she affixed to my bare hip. She then set the machine to send electronic pulses into the pads to stimulate the muscle. That felt much better than the manual massage, as did the ultrasound machine she brought into the room about twenty minutes later. By then I was nearly unconscious again with the pills.
Thanks to the heavy narcotics, I was able to sleep through most of the pain. By morning, both Maggie and Graham were there to speak with the doctor, who basically told us everything that the back pain wasn’t.
He snapped the x-ray onto the light box on the wall. “As you can see,” he said to Maggie, whom he knew had a medical background, “there is no sign of a slipped or ruptured disc in her spine. I would recommend an MRI to properly pinpoint the source of her pain.”
“It’s muscular,” Maggie informed him as she studied the x-ray.
“Have you ever had an episode like this before, Jordi?” the doctor asked, and I shook my head. “Have you changed your activity level lately?”
Again, I shook my head. “Just preparing for the concert.”
“I wouldn’t recommend performing tonight,” he said as he glanced over my report. “You’re going to need a day or two of complete rest, then Nurse Fowler here can set you on a PT regimen to get you back on your feet.”
“I can’t perform?” I asked, crestfallen.
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t advise it, at least for the next few days. This was a pretty severe back spasm. Your body is telling you it needs a break. Listen to it.” He made more notes on his clipboard. “We’ll give you a steroid injection to help bring down the inflammation; that should get you mobile enough to continue with the tour.”
Within an hour I was discharged. Graham and Maggie insisted I go to their house to recover, but Eddie put his foot down. He wanted to take care of me. I personally would have rather gone with Graham and Maggie, but I plastered on my fake smile and told them I’d be fine.
Eddie was quiet all the way back to the house. Anticipating his reaction to my new ordeal was almost more painful than my back.
Most painful of all was that I couldn’t join my tour family on stage. Despite my better judgment, I finally asked, “So who is doing Jace’s intro?”
“Shelby,” he said tersely, as if he wasn’t any happier about it than I was.
I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the window.
Eddie helped me into the house, gently this time, and guided me toward the bedroom. He pulled down the covers and eased me onto the mattress. Though I didn’t want to sleep with him, I couldn’t even pretend to be stubborn enough to insist on the floor.
Wordlessly, he fluffed every pillow and then eased the covers up over my legs. I watched him as he brought me the remote control for the wall-mounted TV, then head back out for the kitchen. Within minutes he brought me some juice and a bottle of water. “I have to go out and fill your prescriptions,” he said. “Is there anything you want while I’m out?”
I studied him suspiciously. He was almost human. “Maybe some yogurt and granola,” I finally said. “Some fresh fruit, maybe.”
He nodded, and then made sure my cell phone was on the nightstand next to the bed. “Call me if you need me. Don’t try to get up or anything until you have someone here to help you.”
“Okay,” I said softly. I was confused by his behavior, but it was a welcome relief from the asshole suit he usually wore.
After I heard the car pull out of the drive, I turned on the TV to pass the time. Daytime TV had become a burying ground for sitcom reruns, and that was as mindless as I wanted to get. When I skipped over the news, however, I saw a photo of myself larger than life on the screen. I flipped back.
“Sources say that Jordi Hemphill, one of the finalists of last year’s hit reality show, Fierce, was taken to the hospital yesterday after she collapsed onstage. Many viewers remember how Hemphill collapsed during a live show last summer. A second health scare for the young singer has once again raised questions about the message that the show and its producers are delivering. Critics say it is an irresponsible message to today’s youth – by promoting unhealthy lifestyles like obesity without encouraging their contestants to address these issues. Joining us is Pilar Forrester, one such vocal critic. Ms. Forrester is a celebrity trainer was once hired by Hemphill’s family to address her health crisis. Welcome, Ms. Forrester. Thank you for joining us.”
My gut tightened as the screen switched over to Pilar’s smiling face. “Hello, Tom. Thanks for having me.”
“What do you think is behind this second health scare?”
“They haven’t released any details, but then again, they wouldn’t, would they? It’s bad press if Jordi’s own behavior caused her once again to collapse while doing the very thing they hired her to do.”
“And what is that?” the interviewer persisted.
“To be rebelliously fat. Jordi’s got a great voice, but so do many other hopefuls out there. She was brought in to brand an image, one that appeals to today’s youth. It says you don’t have to change bad behavior to be accepted. But that’s not how our society works. Our society has standards for a reason. It is to make us, as a species, stronger. If we don’t hold people like Jordi to a higher standard, we lower these standards for ourselves. It’s like giving a trophy to every kid that plays, rather than the higher award won through effort, skill and training. We are redefining excellence, and the consequence of that is that we’re killing people like Jordi, who is clearly in medical crisis as an obese young woman.”
Every word hit me like a bolt of lightning, but I was rooted to the spot. The remote was in my hand but I couldn’t manage to press the up or down button, or most importantly – the mute button.
“Jordi is in your face and mine, every time we pass by a billboard or turn on a TV. It reinforces this idea of mediocrity that lets so many people off the hook. There’s no impetus to change, so they never do. They continue to eat the same bad food; they continue to sit on their big butts in front of the TV. There’s no place else to end up by the emergency room, where you and I foot the bill for their medical expenses. The health care costs for the overweight and the obese is upwards of 300 million dollars here and in Canada. It’s an epidemic for a reason. The last thing it needs is some beloved poster girl.”
A tear I didn’t even realize had escaped splattered on my chest, shocking me out of the catatonic state that seeing Pilar and hearing Pilar had bound me in. I hit the channel button, which landed on a weight loss commercial. A girl who looked perfectly thin to me announced she was going to try a new weight loss supplement to battle those extra inches between her and perfection. The next clip showed her dancing in a sexy slip of a dress, so happy that she’d lost those terrifying twenty pounds.
Even as I swallowed I could feel my double chin against my chest. I flipped the channel again, this time landing on a fast food commercial. All those thin fuckers looked so happy digging into massive hamburgers I never even allowed myself to eat anymore.
I had changed my diet, I had done everything right… yet my obesity was still the focus because my weight still gave the world scads to talk about. No one gave a shit that I had lost thirty pounds and two dress sizes, just that I still needed to be photoshopped and I was about to drop over dead because of my scary, scary weight.
Another channel, another commercial. This one offered a stomach surgery for those of us who had no willpower to fight off the beast of hunger. Another commercial showed a handy chocolate bar to ease hunger pangs and help keep everyone on track, because one simply couldn’t function when hungry.
Shakes, gummies, chocolate covered “protein” bars… every single station I landed on had something to sell. Each commercial used women who didn’t look like they needed to lose any weight at all hocking these products for the masses. I would have traded bodies with any one of them in a minute, much like the rest of their demographic.
My stomach growled at me. I had oatmeal at the hospital, along with dry toast and juice, but it had been bland and heavy so I barely ate half. Now I was paying for it. I glanced out the window to see if Eddie had returned, but of course he hadn’t.
With a sigh I flipped off the TV and threw the covers off my legs. Gingerly I swung around toward my left to get out of bed. That was the side that had seized up before, and it let me know it hadn’t quite forgotten. Pain shot through my hip and down my left leg, causing my toes to tingle. I took a deep breath, braced both hands on either side of me on the edge of the bed, and hoisted myself gently into a somewhat standing position.
I couldn’t straighten totally, but I felt confident I could walk, unattended, to the kitchen. I pocketed my cell phone just in case, then hobbled around the bed and out the door into the living room. I was moving slow, keeping my balance on every piece of furniture from the bedroom to the kitchen. It actually worked in my favor that our accommodations were so cramped and tiny.
Once I made it to the refrigerator, I realized it was all the same junk from the day before, and nothing looked worth the effort to cook. I wanted something easy
, something I could just open and eat. But I already knew that was the unhealthiest food I could choose.
I reached for my cell phone and called my best friend, and total health nut, Corey.
“Girl, I’ve been going crazy!” he exclaimed when he answered on the first ring. “I just heard on the news that you collapsed yesterday. Why didn’t you call?”
“We didn’t know what was wrong,” I said. “Plus Maggie and Graham were there.”
Corey snickered. “What about Captain Douche Bag, the Wonder Husband?”
“He was there, too,” I admitted sheepishly. Corey knew instantly that was why I hadn’t called. There was no love lost between homophobic Eddie and my gay besties.
“So where are you now?”
“Home,” I said, though the word rolled around on my tongue like it didn’t belong there. This has never really been my home; it was more a staging area.
“Put your dog on a leash,” he instructed. “I’m coming over.”
I worried the entire half-hour wait for Corey to make it to my front door that Eddie would beat him there, but Eddie texted that he had to run to the studio. Shelby had forgotten something in the car and he needed to make a pit stop before he came home.
I didn’t even have to ask Corey to bring me something healthy to eat, my forward-thinking friend had a basket of goodies for me filled to the brim with fresh fruit, bags of nuts and baked snacks with whole grain goodness. He also brought me a vegetarian dish that he promptly heated in the microwave for me while I rested on the sofa.
The spicy smell of roasted veggies filled the air, and my mouth was watering as he brought it over. The bowl was overflowing with cauliflower, brussel sprouts, carrots and squash. It smelled sweet and spicy all at the same time.
“Maple and ginger,” he said as he set a napkin across my lap. “Ginger is a natural anti-inflammatory. I eat it almost exclusively when I have muscle spasms.”
Unstoppable (Fierce) Page 7