by Jo Ramsey
Chastaine got up and went over to her jacket. She took the tiny purse she usually carried out of the pocket and opened it. “I can pay for all of it this time,” she said. “You guys can do it next time. It’s all good.”
“Thanks.” Evan took the money she held out. “They said it’s going to be like forty-five minutes. Their delivery driver just got in, and they’re backlogged.”
“Figures.” Chastaine sat down again. “I love their food, but they aren’t always great at the business part. We were talking about the support group. You’re going to be in it, right, Evan?”
“Yeah. Anything I can do to help.” He frowned. “People do too many shitty things to people. I kind of hate the universe sometimes.”
“It isn’t the universe’s fault.” I tried to fold my legs like Chastaine’s, but the chair was too small and I was nowhere near flexible enough, so I gave up and sat sideways with my legs over one arm of the chair. “It’s people’s faults, because they’re people and idiots.”
“Or something.” Evan joined Chastaine on the couch.
I probably should have been the one sitting there, and I hadn’t even thought of it. She was my girlfriend. Evan knew it, so I wouldn’t have given anything away if I’d sat with her.
I was still getting the hang of the whole girlfriend thing, and I was so used to hiding it from most people that when I was around someone I didn’t have to hide from, I usually forgot I could be open.
“Anyway.” I wanted to get the conversation back on track so my brain wouldn’t go off on a spiral somewhere. “We’re going to have the first meeting at Chastaine’s house. We figured everyone in the group could take turns hosting, assuming their parents will let them.”
“And assuming they’re comfortable having the group meet at their house,” Evan said. “Some people might not want to risk meeting around their families because their families don’t know what happened. And some people just might not want a bunch of random people in their house.”
“Good point,” Chastaine said. “And the part about families not knowing is exactly what I said. That’s why you’re in on this. You understand. We have a few people we want to get in touch with to ask if they’ll join, but first, we should figure out what the group is for. I mean, we know it’s a support group, but is it just a place where we can talk? Are we going to try to raise awareness? We should decide that so we can explain it to everyone, and we definitely need to be able to tell them when we’re going to meet.”
I held up my hand so they’d be quiet and let me think. Evan wasn’t usually good at not talking, but he knew enough to try to keep his mouth shut when I made that gesture.
“I don’t think we actually need to figure out what it’s for right now,” I said finally. “I mean, obviously we’re going to tell them it’s a group for people who’ve been assaulted and people who want to be supportive, but I don’t think we should do more than that before the first meeting. If everyone else is going to be part of it, we should let them have a say.”
“Another good point.” Chastaine smiled. “This is why you’re the best one to organize this, Holly. You take everything into account. You’re really good at this kind of thing.”
I shrugged. “Thanks. It just kind of makes sense.”
“You should be running the drama club or something,” she said. “Like, you have leadership skills, the way they’re always saying we should try to develop.”
I’d been trying not to blush, but now I couldn’t help it. “For someone to be a leader, people have to be willing to follow them. I don’t know of anyone willing to follow me. Most of them ignore me.”
“Not true,” Evan said. “Your friends all listen to you. The drama club listens to you. You just don’t believe in yourself enough.”
“Thanks for the lecture.” I glared at him. “Okay, so some people listen. That doesn’t mean I should lead anything. Except maybe the two of you so we can take care of this. I mean, Chastaine, you and I talked about meeting during vacation, so we kind of have to get moving on it. It’s Wednesday already.”
She took out her phone. “I’m going to call Tracie and El-Al right now. We should do it Friday. Then it isn’t as short notice. At noon, maybe? We can order pizza so people will show up.”
“Bribe them with food. Good idea.” Evan took out his phone too. “I’ll call Moe. He wanted to be in the group too if you guys ever got it off the ground. Anyone else I can call?”
“Chastaine’s covering Tracie and Eleanor Alice. I’m going to call Natalia Borovsky.” I hesitated. “We wanted to ask Xan and Alyssa to join, but the only way I can get hold of Alyssa this week is on Facebook, and she might not see the message. She isn’t on there much.”
“I have Xan’s number,” Evan said. “She and I’ve been giving each other hair dye tips.”
“Figures,” I said. His hair was neon pink this week. He’d told me it was temporary, because even he wouldn’t go to school with something quite that blatant. He usually changed the color once or twice a month anyway, for the same reason he wore nail polish. He liked to give people something pretty to look at.
I went back into my room to get my phone and figured I might as well call Natalia while I was there. She answered pretty quickly. “Hello, Holly.”
“Hi, Natalia.” I reminded myself to speak slowly. Natalia wasn’t stupid or anything, but she’d told me sometimes when people talked too fast, she had trouble getting the words from her ears into her brain. That was how she’d put it. “Are you having a good vacation?”
“It would be better if we had school,” she said.
That would have defeated the whole purpose of vacation, and I barely managed to keep myself from saying so. “Okay, well, remember a while ago you told me someone did something to hurt you, almost like what happened to Chastaine?”
“Yeah.” She sniffled. “I don’t want to think about it.”
“Okay,” I said quickly. “Well, anyway, you know you aren’t the only one something like that happened to. We’re starting a group where people who have had bad things happen can talk to each other and help each other. And even people who haven’t had things happen but want to help.”
“I don’t like to talk to groups,” she said. “There are too many people.”
“I know, but you did it at the rally last spring, right?” For some reason, it was suddenly very important to me that Natalia join our group. Maybe because out of everyone we’d thought of, she was the one who was least likely to have anyone else to talk to. Plus it was bad enough when anyone was victimized, but when it was someone like the Houseman kids, it seriously pissed me off, and I wanted to do something about it.
“I didn’t like that,” she said.
I hesitated. I didn’t know Natalia very well, but I knew if I pushed her, she would get irked and hang up on me. She was stubborn, and when someone got pushy, she pushed back. I’d seen it happen at lunch and in gym class a few times. That was probably why the guy who’d tried to assault her hadn’t succeeded.
After thinking it over, I realized she hadn’t actually said she didn’t want to join. She’d only said she didn’t like talking to groups. Which gave me a loophole.
“You won’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” I said. “You can just listen to what other people are saying.”
“They won’t get mad if I don’t talk?”
“No one will get mad. I promise.” I would have to make sure anyone else who showed up understood what Natalia’s issues were. That wouldn’t be too difficult. Pretty much everyone at school knew the kids in Mr. Houseman’s class and the Life Skills class, and most of us tried to be kind and patient with them. “If they get mad, I won’t let them stay in the group.”
I wouldn’t have the power to just kick someone out. I didn’t even know why I’d said it. But it was important for anyone who joined to feel safe, and I wanted Natalia to believe we would make sure that happened.
“Maybe,” she said.
“If you want to jo
in, come to Chastaine’s house at noon on Friday.” I paused. I might have given her too much information too fast, and I wasn’t sure how to ask without sounding like I thought she was stupid.
“Chastaine doesn’t like me,” Natalia said.
“Chastaine wants you to be in the group. She likes you.” Chastaine didn’t know Natalia as well as I did. Definitely not enough to like or dislike her. “Should I text you the time and the address for the meeting?”
“Okay. I might not go.”
“It’s okay if you don’t.”
“Okay,” she said again. “I’m hanging up now. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye,” I said, but she’d already hung up.
I texted her with Chastaine’s address and the day and time we were going to meet, then went back to the living room. Chastaine was on her phone. Evan was watching cartoons.
Chastaine hung up a couple of seconds later. “Tracie isn’t sure she wants to talk to anyone else. El-Al is in. She asked if she could bring Gina. I told her Gina isn’t welcome in my home.”
“Gina isn’t exactly supportive, either,” Evan said. “At least, she hasn’t been supportive of you. She vandalized your locker, for crying out loud.”
“Yeah, well, I think something happened to her somewhere along the line.” Chastaine set her phone on the coffee table. “She won’t talk about it, and I don’t really care enough to try to find out, but the way she’s been acting, I’m pretty sure. Not with Jim, though. That’s one of her issues with me. She went out with him before he and I hooked up, but nothing happened to her.”
“She’s jealous because he hurt you and not her?” I sat in the armchair again, because I couldn’t figure out how to ask Evan to move without making it obvious I wanted to sit with Chastaine.
The doorbell rang. Evan went to the door, and I moved over to his seat on the couch.
“Gina’s got issues,” Chastaine said. “I don’t know what she’s jealous of exactly. But with Jim, it’s more that she doesn’t believe he did anything to me or Maryellen because he didn’t do anything to her.”
“You’re saying his name a lot lately.” I hadn’t even realized it until now. For a while after she reported Jim, Chastaine hadn’t been able to say his name. Or at least she hadn’t wanted to. Evan was the same way; he referred to Jim as “F-one” and to Ray Ferreira as “F-two.”
“Kendra and I talked about it,” she said. “Names have power, according to her. So using his name gives me power to stop letting him get to me.”
“I guess that makes sense.”
Evan came back with the bag of food and narrowed his eyes. “You’re in my seat, Holly.”
“It’s my seat now.” I grinned. We’d been having the same kind of argument for as long as we’d been able to talk. Even when Evan’s parents were still married and they’d lived on the far side of Boston from us, we’d spent a lot of time together. Most of the time, I considered him more my brother than my cousin.
He was only teasing about the seat thing this time, though. As soon as I answered, he laughed. “Yeah. Fine. Should I leave this here and get plates, or take it into the kitchen?”
“Kitchen.” My parents didn’t like food in the living room. “We’re going to have to eat in there. Mom and Dad are getting irked about the house being messy, and if they spot one piece of food on the floor in here, I’m dead.”
“Your house isn’t that messy.” Chastaine stood. “Okay. Let’s finally eat. I was getting ready to start chewing on the couch.”
I followed her and Evan into the kitchen. We’d gotten too much food, and all of it looked and smelled amazing. Before I’d decided to stop being a hog, I would have filled a plate, eaten it all, and gone back for seconds. Maybe even thirds if Mom and Dad had left anything.
I couldn’t do that this time. Even though we had most of my favorite foods sitting there, I knew better than to think I could overeat “just this once.” I had to stick to my plan. I was already losing weight, according to the scale, and I wanted to keep the scale numbers going down.
I didn’t have enough willpower to not eat anything, plus Chastaine and Evan would have noticed, but I only took a little bit of the things I wanted. There was a lot of space left on my plate, which made me happy. That proved I was being careful about how much I put in my stomach.
“Are you sure that’s enough?” Evan asked when I sat down at the table. “You usually like Chinese food.”
“I want to be healthier. I keep telling you that.” In the past few weeks, he’d also asked me why I wasn’t eating my entire school lunch or buying lattes and pastries at the donut shop where we usually met before school.
He shrugged. “Fine. As long as you’re being healthy and not starving.”
“I’m fine.” I bit off a piece of chicken finger to prove it and hoped he would drop the subject.
Fortunately, he did.
Chapter 4
FRIDAY MORNING, I woke up with my stomach churning. I was afraid maybe I’d come down with something, which would have sucked because I would have had to miss the group meeting. After I took my shower, I felt better, so I figured it was just nerves. I still wasn’t entirely sure whether the support group was a good idea, and I was a little worried about finding out.
When I left the bathroom after showering and dressing, I smelled something very unfamiliar. Bacon and pancakes. No one ever cooked breakfast in our house. Mom and Dad were always running just a little late for work, and even when I’d stuffed my face on a daily basis, I hadn’t seen any point in taking the time to make breakfast. That was what cold cereal and microwavable stuff was for.
But when I walked into the kitchen, Mom was standing at the stove trying to flip a pancake in the frying pan. “Sit down, Holly,” she said without turning around. “We’re going to have a family breakfast.”
“Um, okay.” I didn’t like the sound of that. Supper was the only meal we ever ate as a family, and even that didn’t happen every day.
I didn’t have much choice, though. If I argued with Mom, she would get pissed off, which would mean she would have a bad day at work and be in a worse mood when she got home. I couldn’t figure out why she’d decided all of a sudden that the three of us had to sit down for a homemade breakfast, but I didn’t ask. I joined Dad at the table, which was already set with plates, silverware, and glasses of juice.
“Drink some juice,” Dad said, pointing at the glass of orange juice beside my seat.
“Um….” I looked at him.
He looked worried. Not angry or anything. Just worried.
I took a tiny sip of juice to make him happy. “What’s going on?”
“We’ll talk when your mother sits down.”
“Breakfast is almost ready,” Mom said in the fake cheerful voice she used when she was so frustrated she wanted to throw something.
That wasn’t much of a surprise. She didn’t enjoy cooking, and when she did it, she often messed things up. Judging from how much trouble she was having with the pancake, I guessed she hadn’t had a whole lot of luck with breakfast in general.
Which gave me even more of a reason to wonder why she was cooking, especially on a weekday when she and Dad would have to leave soon to catch the train into the city for work.
She finally finished attempting to cook and set a plate of pancakes and one of bacon in the center of the table. “Dig in. We don’t have much time. Holly, your dad and I wanted to talk to you, and we thought it would be better to take care of it right away rather than wait until the weekend.”
“Oh.” That sounded even more ominous. My heart sped up a little, and my stomach started rolling again. “What are we taking care of?”
“You’ve lost quite a bit of weight lately.” Dad took a couple of pancakes and dumped syrup on them. “Losing weight isn’t a bad thing, but it’s happened very fast.”
“And you don’t eat,” Mom said. “You argue with me when I make supper, and I come home and there’s the same amount of food in the cupboards and fr
idge as when I left, which makes me think you aren’t eating during the day.”
“What do you do, take inventory?” I rolled my eyes, trying to act like I had no clue what their problem was.
But my chest was tight, and I couldn’t look at either of them. They’d figured out what was going on. I couldn’t let them know they were right, or they would force me to eat or something. Maybe they would actually start taking inventory.
They would make me stop losing weight, and I couldn’t let that happen. When I’d tried on my clothes the other day, some of the things Chastaine had given me that were too tight at first had fit a lot better, and some of the things I’d wanted to hold on to had been way too big. I liked that. It was proof that even if I only saw a fat girl in the mirror, I was actually making progress.
“No, I don’t take inventory,” Mom said impatiently. “But I do notice if food hasn’t moved, or if the same pizza’s been in the freezer for a week and a half. And I notice when you stand here telling me you won’t eat spaghetti because it has too many carbs. What’s going on, Holly? You’re getting thinner too fast, in my opinion, and we’re worried.”
“So you’re staging a pancake intervention.” I took one pancake and one piece of bacon, and started eating the pancake without putting anything on it. It tasted like slightly flavored cardboard, but I didn’t want the extra calories from butter or syrup, so I dealt with it.
“We want to find out what’s happening,” Dad said. “Like right now. You love pancakes and bacon, but you’re barely eating anything.”
“I’m fat.” I blurted it out without thinking and immediately regretted it when Mom looked like she wanted to cry and Dad frowned.
“You aren’t fat,” Mom said quietly. “You’re beautiful. You always have been.”
This time I chose my words more carefully. “I’ve always been overweight. I’m the chubby comic relief in all the plays at school. People call me names in the hall and especially in the school cafeteria. They might not think I hear them, but it’s kind of hard to miss crap like ‘thunder thighs’ and ‘earthquake.’”