by Jo Ramsey
“My spring wardrobe’s pretty much the same as my rest-of-the-year wardrobe,” I muttered.
“Yeah. Sweatshirts and baggy jeans.” Chastaine opened her closet door and started pulling stuff out. “You’re way too pretty to hide in your clothes, Holly. I keep telling you that.”
“I know you do.” She said the same thing to me probably three or four times a week. So far, I’d started wearing a few of the skirts and looser tops she’d given me, but that was about it. I hated how I looked in those clothes. I felt like ten pounds of potatoes in a five-pound bag, as my grandfather said.
Chastaine never listened when I said that to her, though. She claimed I looked just fine in whatever she gave me, and size didn’t matter because the clothes were made for everyone.
She tossed the stuff toward me. I caught most of it and put it on the bed. Since I wasn’t going to get away with not trying it on at all, I figured I might as well at least make sure it was in decent shape.
“There.” Chastaine finally stopped throwing things and closed the closet door. “Go ahead. Don’t worry, I’m not watching you change. I just want to see when you have the stuff on.”
My face got hot, and I turned away from her to start sorting through the clothes. We’d gone through this enough times that I shouldn’t have been surprised to hear her mention me being uncomfortable with her seeing me change clothes. But it bothered me to know she’d realized it. I didn’t want her to think I had a problem with her.
“It isn’t that you shouldn’t watch,” I said, then bit my lip. I didn’t know what I meant, which would make it really hard to say it to her. “Like, I mean, it isn’t you watching that bothers me. It’s you seeing me. Does that make any sense?”
“Not a bit.” She gave me a confused smile and sat on the bed beside the pile of clothes. “Try again. Or just start putting stuff on and forget about explaining.”
“Damn it.” I really sucked at talking sometimes, especially to someone who twisted my brain in knots the way Chastaine did. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing to her, not ever.
I walked over to the closet and looked at my chubby, curly-haired, glasses-wearing self in the full-length mirror. Over my reflected shoulder, I could see Chastaine, with her long black hair, gorgeous eyes, and fashion-model body.
It looked like she was looking in the mirror too. I hadn’t figured out yet why she even wanted to go out with me, let alone wanting to kiss me and stuff. As far as appearances went, I wasn’t even close to her league.
“You and I are together,” I said slowly, trying to figure out how to tell her what I wanted to say without completely screwing it up. “Like, we’re girlfriends.”
My train of thought went right off the tracks. I bit my lip again and turned to look at her.
She nodded. “Yeah, you’re my girlfriend. You’ve been twitchy about changing in front of me since the first time I invited you over to try things on, though.”
“Right.” I held up my hand. “This kind of doesn’t make any sense in my brain, and I’m trying to translate it to say it. I’m failing.”
“You don’t have to explain.” She held out her hand. “Come here.”
I sat beside her and took her hand. My hand was sweaty, of course, because why would it have been as cool and dry as hers? She was Chastaine Rollo. Always calm, cool, and collected, even when people called her names and talked behind her back. I was just Holly McCormack, the wallflower drama geek.
“Is it because you’re afraid I’ll see you naked and be overcome with lust?” Chastaine said.
I cracked up laughing, partly at the way she said it and partly at the idea she would lust after someone who looked like me. I didn’t actually know what kind of female bodies she liked. I hadn’t even known she was bisexual until a few weeks earlier. But I’d seen the guys she’d hooked up with. Most of them were athletes, which said enough about their bodies.
She grinned. “Good. Laughing is better than you sitting there looking like you’re about to be sucked down into quicksand or something. So is that it, or are you afraid I’ll see you naked and be repulsed?”
That killed my laughter right away. I looked down at our hands. “The second one.”
“That’s what I thought. Look at me.”
I did. She was frowning, but it looked more like concern than anger.
“You’re beautiful,” she said. “I keep telling you that, and you never believe it. You are not fat. You’re built different from me, but hell, if everyone had the same shape, this would be one boring world. You have curves. Curves are good.”
“Yeah, that’s why all the stores sell curvy clothes and all the models are overweight.” I shook my head. “You don’t get it. I walk around all the time seeing girls who look like you. Skinny, long straight hair, wearing clothes I absolutely love that the stores don’t carry in my size.”
She pressed her lips together, and I shut up before I said something that would really piss her off. The one thing she wouldn’t stand for from me was when I put myself down.
“You wear maybe a size or two larger than I do in most things,” she said. “I would ask how much you weigh, but you probably wouldn’t tell me, and the number on the scale doesn’t mean anything anyway. I want to show you something.”
She got up before I could say I didn’t want to see whatever it was. It would probably be a bunch of pictures in a magazine that she would claim proved her point about how all body shapes were beautiful, but it would only make me feel worse because all the women would be thin and gorgeous like Chastaine.
Sure enough, she took a magazine off the pile on her desk, flipped through it, and held it up. The page spread showed eight women, all wearing black T-shirts and jeans. For once, it wasn’t a bunch of skinny women. They were all different heights. Some were thin, but some weren’t. One of them even looked a little like me, curly hair and all, and judging from how she stood compared with the others, she was probably about my height too.
“So which of them do you think weighs the most?” Chastaine asked.
I went over to her so I could actually point to the picture. Ignoring the words under each woman, I pointed to the one who looked like me. “Probably her.”
Chastaine shook her head. “Now test your reading comprehension.”
I leaned forward and squinted at the tiny print under each woman. Their names, ages, occupations—and heights and weights.
The weights were the same. Every single woman on the page, thin or chubby, weighed the same, at least according to the magazine.
“See?” Chastaine said. “You keep looking at me like I’m crazy when I say you don’t weigh as much more than me as you think. All eight of them see the same number on the scale. But the one who’s five-two looks curvier than the one who’s five-eleven, because the taller you are, the more the weight spreads out.”
“You’re not that much taller than I am,” I said. “Maybe two or three inches.” The way Chastaine explained it made sense, just like it had made sense all the other times she’d said it. The magazine probably wouldn’t have printed those numbers if they weren’t accurate, and seeing it laid out like that made it more believable.
“Probably about three when we’re both barefoot,” she said. “And if we weighed ourselves, you might weigh a little more than me, but remember I pretty much didn’t eat for about three months. And it wasn’t because I was trying to lose weight or anything. I just plain couldn’t eat.”
“I know.”
“So yeah, maybe I weigh less than you, but that isn’t necessarily a good thing.” She closed the magazine and put it back on the pile. “You’re really hung up on the looks and scale numbers thing, and it kind of worries me, Holly. I mean, exercising and eating healthy is good. They’ve been telling us that in health class since elementary school. But if you’re doing it to be healthy, that’s one thing. If you’re doing it to be thin because you don’t like how you look, that’s different.”
“Yeah.” I didn’t want to talk
about this anymore. She’d been lecturing me about body positivity for almost a month, and I wasn’t sure I could hear any more right then without getting annoyed enough to say something crappy to her. I didn’t want to be a bitch when she was only trying to help, even if I didn’t agree with her.
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. I know you aren’t going to listen. But you’re cute. You’re sexy, even, whether you believe it or not. But it isn’t cute or sexy when all you do is complain about how fat you think you are, so I’d really like it if you knocked it off, okay?”
“I’ll try,” I muttered. She was starting to piss me off, and if she didn’t quit it, I would end up walking out on her. I had better things to do than being told for the zillionth time that I didn’t know what I was talking about when it came to my own body.
“Sure.” She sighed. “Now that I’ve been all ranty and shit, try on the clothes, would you? Mom took a look in my closet the other day and told me I have to get rid of more stuff, and I’d rather give it to you.”
“If it fits.” I held my tongue between my teeth so I wouldn’t get started again.
She sat at her desk and flipped through her magazines while I tried things on. A lot of her skirts and tops were kind of stretchy, so even though I was sure they’d be too small, they did fit. Some of them made me look bulgy in all the wrong places, and I didn’t even dare to look at myself in the mirror when I had those on. I was close enough to crying just looking down at myself.
But some of them fit me way better than I’d expected, and as long as I didn’t study my reflection too closely, I really did look good.
The way Chastaine smiled when she saw me in those clothes made me feel even better.
It took forever to try everything on. When I finally got to the last item in the pile, Chastaine took a couple of tote bags out of her closet and started putting my “yes” clothes into it. “I want to come over to your house tomorrow or Thursday,” she said. “Now that we’ve gone through my closet, I want to go through yours. I bet you have a lot of stuff you don’t need. All your baggy clothes? Those should go away. They don’t help your appearance a bit. You’ll need to make room for all the stuff I’ve given you, anyway.”
“Okay.” I cringed at the thought of her checking out my tiny closet. So far, all the times she’d come over, I’d kept the closet door and bureau drawers closed. I didn’t have enough room to hang up all the clothes she’d given me before, so a lot of them were piled in plastic crates on the closet floor. She would probably be pissed when she saw that. I would have to try to rearrange things before she came over.
“Good.” She paused, then held up a pair of skinny jeans—which I’d been positive wouldn’t fit me, but they did—and a low-cut blue top. “Do me a favor. Wear these to the mall.”
“Um.” I wasn’t sure if she wanted me to wear them so I would look and feel good, or because she was ashamed to be seen with me in the sweatshirt and jeans I’d been wearing.
“If people compliment you or check you out when you’re wearing these, you’ll know I’m right,” she said. “Consider it an experiment. You’re worried you’ll look too big or something in an outfit like this, and I’m going to prove you wrong.”
“Fine.” I hated the idea of anyone looking at me in the mall, because they would probably be thinking how fat and awful I looked. But again, there was no point in arguing with Chastaine when she got her mind set on something.
I put on the outfit, and she pulled me in front of the mirror. When I studied myself, I did see a few bulges where I would rather not have had any, but I didn’t look horrible. I just looked like I could stand to lose a few more pounds.
“You look fine,” Chastaine said. “I can see the way you’re looking at yourself. You aren’t seeing yourself the way I see you, or the way anyone else is going to see you. So please just trust me. You’re great in that outfit.”
She stepped between me and the mirror, and before I could come up with an answer, she kissed me.
I tensed up for a second, then relaxed. I really enjoyed kissing her. She was good at it, for one thing, and her lips and various other parts of her body were soft and nice to touch. Not that we did a whole lot of touching this time, but the kiss was good enough to make me feel like her hands were all over me, and I wouldn’t have minded a bit if they had been.
That made me nervous as hell, and I tensed again.
She pulled back and smiled. “See? That kiss ought to show you I don’t have a single problem with you. And no, that isn’t why I kissed you. You just looked too damn hot not to. Let’s go see if Marcus is home yet.”
She let go of me and opened the bedroom door. I ran my tongue over my upper lip, tasting her lipstick, which she’d layered on thick enough that she’d left some on my mouth. It wasn’t anything flavored, but the taste made me think of her, so I didn’t mind it.
“You think I’m hot?” I blurted.
“Oh, you have no idea,” she said. “One of these days, I hope you’ll be comfortable enough to go further, because kissing you makes me want more.”
“Yeah.” I hesitated. “Me too. But—”
“One of these days,” she repeated. “You haven’t had sex with anyone. I’ve never done it with another girl. So I’m cool with taking our time to figure it out. But we’re going to go downstairs now and see if Marcus is home, because otherwise I’m going to kiss you again, and he’ll end up going to the mall without us.”
I couldn’t really argue with that. My body wanted things my brain couldn’t make a decision about, so leaving the room where Chastaine and I were alone together was probably smart.
I followed her downstairs. Her brother Marcus was in the kitchen eating cold kids’ cereal out of the box with his hands. He put the box on the counter when we walked in. “Don’t tell Mom. You know how she gets about eating out of the container.”
“Yeah, well, the rest of us don’t want your germs.” Chastaine smacked his hand. “There. You’ve been punished. You’re giving Holly and me a ride to the mall, right?”
“Right.” Marcus looked at me, from head to toe. “Looking good, Holly.”
“Thanks.” I blushed. If I’d been interested in guys at all, Marcus would definitely have been right up there on my list. He had Chastaine’s looks in a male body, and the couple of times before when he’d gone to the mall with us, pretty much every girl we’d passed had watched him.
“Proof positive,” Chastaine said.
Marcus raised an eyebrow. “Of what?”
“Nothing,” I said quickly. “If we’re going to the mall, we should probably go. It’s almost lunchtime, so everyone’s going to be heading there to hit the food court.”
“More likely people are going to be leaving there to have lunch somewhere else, but whatever,” Chastaine said. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
The mall wasn’t even close to exciting. Since it was vacation week, pretty much every teenager in the area was hanging out there, and the place was so crowded it was hard to get to any of the stores Chastaine wanted to check out. She didn’t care about the other people; she just barged her way through the groups and down the corridors, and if people didn’t get out of her way, it was their problem.
I couldn’t be that confident. Not when half the people we walked past looked at me, and I couldn’t tell if they were glaring or approving. I didn’t want to wonder too much about it, either. I just wanted to finish shopping and go home.
We didn’t buy anything. Chastaine said her mom wouldn’t let her have any new clothes until she cut out at least a quarter of what was in her closet, and I didn’t have any money. In the two stores Chastaine liked the most, we pulled things off racks to put together outfits and tried those outfits on, but then we put back the clothes and left.
By the time we met up with Marcus to go home, I was shaky and my vision was a little blurry. Even though Chastaine had made me promise I would eat lunch, we hadn’t gone anywhere near the food court. I didn’t want to eat, anyway. Having all those pe
ople looking at me in the outfit Chastaine had made me wear didn’t have the effect she’d wanted. Instead of making me feel good about myself, all those eyes on me just made me more self-conscious and less confident.
I wouldn’t have been able to eat in the mall, because the whole time, I would have felt like people were judging me for eating anything at all.
As we walked through the parking lot to Marcus’s car, my knees buckled, and I stumbled. Marcus grabbed my arm. “Hey, careful. Are you all right?”
“Yeah. Must have stepped on some ice or something.” I pulled away from him fast and took a deep breath. I felt dizzy, but I damn sure wasn’t going to let them see it. “I’m fine.”
“Shit,” Chastaine said. “We didn’t have lunch. Marcus, take us somewhere to eat, please. She hasn’t had anything all day.”
“I’m fine!” I said louder than I meant to. “We can go back to your place. You have food there, don’t you?”
Chastaine narrowed her eyes. “You’re pale as hell, you’re tripping over nothing, and you’re breathing heavy. I’m way too familiar with what it looks and feels like when you need food.”
“Yeah, fine, I’m not saying I don’t need to eat. I’m just saying I’d rather eat at your place instead of a restaurant.” I tried to slow my breath down and focus on staying on my feet. “Why bother wasting money when you have a full kitchen?”
“Not to mention arguing about where to eat is taking time that we could be driving to someplace to eat,” Marcus said. “Cool it, Chastaine. There’s leftover lasagna at home. You guys can have that. It’ll make Mom happy.”
“Whatever.” She glared at me. “You’d better eat something, Holly. I mean it. Wanting to lose a few pounds, okay, fine. But starving yourself is not cool, and if you keep it up, we’re going to have a problem.”
“I’m not starving myself. I told you I’d eat lunch out here. We didn’t get to the food court.” I closed my eyes for a second, because the parking lot was spinning, then opened them and forced a smile. “I promise I’ll have some of your lasagna. It’s frigging cold out here, so can we please get in the car and go?”