by Vera Hollins
I sniffed. “Dad, am I fat?”
“What? Of course not, sweetie.”
Resentment surged through my veins. “You’re lying! You’re only saying that because I’m your daughter!”
“That’s not true. You’re beautiful and normal-looking—”
I rushed into the house, refusing to hear another word. He was biased, so he couldn’t be telling the truth. I wasn’t normal-looking. I was fat, and there was no denying it.
I locked myself in the bathroom and sat on the floor, lowering my head between my knees. I rocked my body back and forth as the fresh tears burst out. I hated myself for looking this way. I hated the hideous balloon that was my stomach and the trunks that were my legs. I hated the number on the scale. Hate it, hate it, hate it.
The old urge to throw up reared its ugly head for the first time in several months. It came from the recesses of my mind that reminded me how disgusting I was for being this way.
I stood up on my shaky legs and looked at myself in the mirror, repulsed by what I saw. Each bite of the food I’d taken today created guilt and shame that pressed in on me from all sides. I felt like my heart pumped acid, and the pressure to relieve myself and get rid of the toxins in me prompted me to get down on my knees and empty the contents of my stomach into the toilet.
And I did that. I grabbed my hair to keep it from getting into my face as I hunched over the toilet and pushed my fingers deep into my mouth, making myself throw up until I was dry-heaving and my chest burned. I flushed the toilet and slumped against the wall, my whole body shaking and breaking out in sweat. I felt tired, but for a few moments, it didn’t matter, because I was overcome with peace. I felt good.
But, as always, the high was gone as quickly as it had come, and I was left with more shame, disgust, and disappointment. I’d promised my parents I wouldn’t do this again. I’d promised myself.
The knocks on my door ripped through my thoughts. No, no, no, no, no. Not now.
“Jess? Honey? Please open the door,” Mom said, rattling the handle.
I couldn’t let her see me like this. “No. Go away!”
She knocked harder. “I won’t go away, Jessica. Open the door.”
“Leave me alone!”
“Jessica Metts! I swear to you, if you don’t open this door right now, you’ll be grounded for a whole month!”
I pressed my forearm against my eyes, terribly ashamed. She’d caught me throwing up the first time I did it, and it had been one of the most humiliating experiences of my life.
I picked myself up and forced my unstable feet to carry me to the door. Shame hit me even harder as I unlocked the door and stepped aside. She barged in and took me in with a gasp, realizing immediately what I’d done.
“Sweet Jesus!” She wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into a firm embrace. “Oh Jess…oh dear…”
A fresh wave of pain washed over me, and I burst into tears. I wound my arms around her waist like I was drowning and she was my lifebelt. I might as well have been drowning because I couldn’t find the way out, and I didn’t know what to do with myself.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I said into her shoulder as I clutched her shirt in my hands. “I said I wouldn’t do it again…I’m so sorry.”
“Oh Jess. Don’t be, honey. Don’t be sorry for anything.” She leaned away and cupped my cheeks. Her eyes filled with tears. “Talk to me. You know you can always talk to me, especially when it gets this hard.”
“I know, but I…I don’t want to worry or disappoint you. Or Dad.”
Her eyes widened. “No, honey. Don’t ever say that. You can never disappoint us.” That’s not true, my inner voice said. You’re disappointed whenever I act the way I shouldn’t. “Please don’t hide things from us. Your dad and I are here to help you.” She put the toilet lid down and made me sit on it. She kneeled in front of me, taking my cold hands. “I know it’s hard, but you know you only hurt yourself by doing that.”
I nodded and sniffed. My eyes were swollen from crying.
“I understand how you feel because I’ve been there. I went through all kinds of things as a teenager with bulimia, and you know what happened in the end.”
I nodded again. A fear of dying, which I knew too well, seeped back into me. Mom had struggled with bulimia since her early teens. She’d binge-eaten and purged by vomiting, using diuretics, and exercising excessively for many years. These recurring cycles lasted until her first year in college, when she had a cardiac arrest and escaped death only by miracle.
After that, she made a fresh start and changed her life completely. She devoted herself to healthy living and balance, and when I began struggling with my body image after the incident at the end of sixth grade, she recognized it immediately and sent me to a therapist before my issues developed into an eating disorder.
However, even with therapy, I had moments like today when everything became too much and I just wanted relief from the pressure, allowing my brain to lead me into this.
“I know, Mom. I really know I put myself in danger by throwing up. I know I shouldn’t have done it.”
She caressed my hands, never taking her worried gaze off me. “You’ll get through this, sweetheart. I’m here. Don’t forget about that. You’re never alone.” She smiled at me and caressed my hair with slow moves. “You’re amazing and strong. So amazing.”
My gaze dropped to my lap. I wanted to believe her words, but it was so hard. “I don’t know. I feel so fat, and I don’t like it.”
“You aren’t fat, honey.”
“But look at me, Mom.” I opened my arms widely. “The mirror doesn’t lie.”
A few tears spilled out of her eyes. She palmed my cheek. “Oh, it does. The mirror lies, and do you know why? Because it all comes from here.” She tapped her head with her forefinger. “The way you see yourself defines that image in the mirror.” She stood up and kissed my forehead. “So instead of telling yourself you’re fat, tell yourself you’re the most gorgeous girl. You’ll see. In time, the image in the mirror will change. It will be better.”
This was hard because I couldn’t feel it inside. Words weren’t enough, but I repeated them anyway, hoping one day I would accept myself.
“Everything about you is beautiful.” She smiled a watery smile. “Every single thing, including your flaws. Your flaws make you you. No matter how much you weigh, you’ll always be this special girl with a heart bigger than her body will ever get.” She tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear with her trembling hand. “And at the end of the day, that is the only thing that matters.”
I sniffed. “Thanks, Mom.”
“It’s the truth. Just make sure you talk to Susan about this, okay? She’ll be able to help you overcome it.”
I picked at my nail polish. “I will. I have a session with her this Friday.”
“That’s good. And honey?” I raised my head to look at her. “I love you.”
A bit of warmth returned to my body. I managed to smile at her. “I love you too.”
Tomorrow was a new day. So the next morning, I got up, closed all my negative feelings and thoughts in a box, and went to school with a renewed determination to not let Blake mess with my mind. Sarah’s inner strength must have rubbed off on me at some point because I was able to bounce back from my low more quickly than usual and keep going.
My second period was psychology, which I shared with Mel. We sat closer to the back of the classroom, talking with each other in hushed whispers whenever our teacher turned to write something on the blackboard. Masen was also in this class, and Mel didn’t hide how much she disliked that fact even though he hardly paid any attention to us.
Today, he flirted with a pink-haired girl sitting next to him in the second row, who giggled almost every time he said something, and Mel’s eyes were plastered to them.
My lips curled up at the corner. “You look like you’re about to go ballistic,” I told her.
“I am going to go ballistic. Shreya Wilkins—you kno
w, one of the student council members and the president of the math club—had a nervous breakdown right in the middle of our meeting yesterday, and we didn’t manage to discuss anything because she was crying like the apocalypse is coming! She cried so much she could’ve flooded a desert!”
Since the desks in this classroom were very close to each other, it was easy for Masen to place his hand on the girl’s thigh as he leaned over to whisper something in her ear. Mel clenched her fists under her desk, grimacing.
“Shreya is soooo madly in love with Barbie, but apparently, he doesn’t give a flying fuck about her feelings. He just used her for sex last weekend and hasn’t looked twice at her since.”
I shrugged my shoulders. There was nothing new about that. It was known that Masen never, ever dated. For him, girls were pieces of meat, and he never slept with a girl more than once, or so the rumors said.
“To be fair, I think she knew what she was getting into,” I said. “I mean, it’s not a secret that he isn’t looking for a girlfriend.”
“But that doesn’t give him the right to treat her like she’s worth no more than the shit in his toilet.” I gave her a sidelong glance, surprised by the amount of venom in her words. “That’s why I despise guys,” she gritted out. “They’re disgusting pigs who only use girls for sex.”
I gaped at her. I was confused as to where all this aversion came from. I wanted to ask her if that was the reason why she didn’t want to date anyone, as she’d mentioned on numerous occasions, but I couldn’t, because the teacher turned to face us, so we had to stay quiet. I focused on my textbook as she held forth on Pavlov’s experiments.
The moment she turned to the blackboard, Mel leaned toward me. “Looking on the bright side—I managed to propose our dearest council set up booths manned by psychologists who can counsel victims of bullying during the festival.”
Mel was fired up about the festival, and she was working like a beaver to make it successful. “Now that’s brilliant,” I told her. “Maybe some victims will feel less reluctant to seek help if they have this option.”
She played with the edges of her textbook. “True. I was also thinking about what Haydee Bumblebee said on Monday.”
I rolled my eyes at her nickname for Hayden. “What’s up with you and those nicknames? You have one for everyone except for Steven.”
“Hey! I have many nicknames for Steven! I call him idiot, moron, pea-brain, imbecile, annoying poop—”
“Okay, okay. I get it.”
“Anyway, Haydee Bumblebee actually said something I could agree with. Hallelujah!” I chuckled, shaking my head at her. “The psychologists can also help bullies—that is, if those bullies are willing to open up to them and cleanse their minds of their evil ways.”
“You’re being overdramatic,” I told her, and she stuck her tongue out at me. “Maybe they would open up more often if all of society didn’t look at them as if they had a contagious disease.”
“Whaddaya mean?”
I glanced at our teacher, who went overboard with scribbling on the board. No one was going to write all of that down anyway.
“I guess it’s hard to come out and admit you’re a bully because that means immediate public shunning or worse.”
She looked at me like I was out of my mind. “And what do you think they deserve? A big round of applause for their heroic efforts in destroying other people’s lives?”
“I think they deserve a second chance. If they want to change, of course.”
She snorted loudly, attracting the attention of two girls in front of us. They glared over their shoulders at her. “What?” she mouthed at them with a raised eyebrow. “Our teacher is that way.” She pointed. “Eyes to the front.”
The girl in front of me whipped her head back around, red with shame, but the other girl gave Melissa a dirty look. “So rude,” she sneered.
“Says the girl who keeps staring at me. Didn’t your mommy teach you that staring is rude?” Mel said.
Realizing she couldn’t go up against Mel, the girl grimaced and looked back to the front.
“That’s a huuuge if,” Mel said as she turned to me, returning to our topic. “Look at my idiotic brother—a freakin’ bully! Do you know how many times I’ve told that nuthead to get his act together?”
A small frown formed on my face. One thing was certain: Steven was spiraling. Rapidly. He and Mel were arguing more often these days, and I could see it was wearing her down. She never showed it, her happy, energetic mode turned on at all times, but I saw the real her in the moments when she thought no one was watching. She worried about Steven, and for very good reason.
These days, he didn’t look well. Previously extremely muscular, his 6’5” body was rapidly becoming gaunt. His dark blue eyes were often unfocused, his jet-black hair was straggly, and his clothes were rumpled. He acted like he was angry at the whole world, skipping a lot of classes and hanging out with other junkies in the school’s back yard. I was worried about him too because if he continued walking down this dangerous path, it wasn’t going to end well.
“Is he still not sleeping at home?”
“Still not sleeping at home? He doesn’t even know where his home is these days! Ever since our mom bought us a house and we moved from our grandparents’ place to what I call a Cruella de Vil mansion, he’s MIA.”
I was unable to contain a chuckle at her description of her new house. She often repeated that her mom had gone overboard with the new property, seeing that the house had nine rooms, a huge indoor pool, and a botanical garden, which was more suitable for a president than a single mom with two teenagers.
“Some women cut or dye their hair after a breakup,” Mel had said a few days earlier. “My mom buys a ridiculously extravagant mansion that costs an arm and a leg.”
Both Mel and Steven were unhappy with their mom’s drastic decisions. In addition to that, Mel wasn’t coping well with the divorce of her parents.
“How about your dad?” I asked her subtly as I glanced at our teacher. She’d returned to her desk and could look our way at any moment.
“Too busy with his work to care. I got sick of only speaking to his assistant, so I left him two voicemails yesterday. He didn’t call me back.”
Mel’s dad was a lawyer like mine, but I couldn’t imagine my dad working to the point of not seeing our family. Even when he worked his fingers to the bone, we were his top priority. He was always there for me.
When class ended, Masen placed his hand on the small of the girl’s back and led her out of the classroom, keeping her close to him. Mel couldn’t resist throwing a jibe at him as we passed them in the hall.
“Barbie, wrap your willy. You don’t want that poor girl to get an STD.”
The girl gasped, her eyes darting between Masen and Mel, while Masen looked at Melissa with animosity that was almost palpable.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he said to the girl in his naturally raspy voice. He sounded laidback, but I could discern the anger hidden beneath the surface. “Satan is just jealous because she wanted to suck me off last night, but I told her I’m not desperate enough to get it on with Shrek’s doppelgänger.”
Mel placed her hands on her hips with a chuckle and looked sweetly at the girl. “Honey, he’s lying. He wanted it so badly, but he totally couldn’t keep it up.” She extended her pinky and bent it, mimicking a deflating dick, and pointed at it. “He’s that small, yes.”
I grasped her arm and pulled her away from them. “Okay, Mel. Leave them alone. You’ll be late for your next class at this rate.”
Laughing under her breath, she let me drag her until we got around the corner and out of their sight.
“Did you see his face?” She erupted into another fit of laughter and smacked her thigh. “If someone ever makes him a wax sculpture at Madame Tussauds, they better capture that expression!”
I shook my head at her with a smile and went on my way, heading to the restroom to pee before I picked up what I needed for my nex
t class from my locker. I passed next to the staircase in an almost empty hallway and froze when I heard Blake’s voice nearby. My good mood evaporated into thin air, my pulse accelerating at once.
“Is Isaac sure he’s the new racer?” he asked, and I looked all around me, trying to determine where his voice was coming from so I could escape in the other direction. “That means I may be closer to them than I’ve thought,” he said, and I realized he stood behind the staircase and wasn’t able to see me from that spot. There was no answer, which could only mean he was on the phone. “No. Don’t do anything. Let’s see if they’ll show their faces at the track.”
I moved slowly, planning to tiptoe until I was a safe distance away from him.
“Don’t worry.” His hushed voice drifted to me. “I’ve had this planned for a long time, so I won’t mess it up.”
The hairs on my neck stood up. Mess what up?
My Vans skidded soundlessly across the polished floor as I picked up my pace and rushed around the corner. With a sigh of relief, I allowed myself to run, stopping only when I reached the restroom.
Heaving, I leaned against the wall and placed my hands on my knees. I was disappointed with myself. I shouldn’t have cared about his affairs or cryptic conversations, yet my heart beat faster because the conversation was about something that was obviously extremely important to him.
I should’ve been better than this. I always followed my heart, but this time, I had to stop being that hopeless romantic who believed in happy endings. There were no happy endings here. Blake would only ruin me, and if I kept obsessing over the hidden side of him, I would only get burned. Badly.
So, I had to be smarter than this.
I had a hunch, however, that my heart wouldn’t get the memo.
Blake wasn’t in the cafeteria during lunch, and by the end of last period, the rumors spread like the wind. One of them said Blake was necking some girl in an empty classroom. Another said he was banging her. And then there was the one saying he’d been caught in the act with a teacher.