Annie smiles, says, “I can’t wait to see it printed.”
For the first time in forever, I don’t struggle to say anything. “I can show it to you later,” I say. I’m talking too loud. “I’ll get a hardcopy for you.”
Melanie brushes near and says, “Hey, Sarah. Annie. Getting something for the team?”
Then she’s off. Gone on down the hall with the crowd.
annie
fat
freak
ugly
you used to be
you were so
i remember when
stop eating
stop moving like that
you made me
you’re responsible
not my fault
not another bite
don’t wear that
don’t show that
how could you
diet
pig
whale
sarah
Oh.” My voice travels down the hall, thin and high.
Side by side, in the reflection of glass, with the two of us together, I can see Annie’s alone. Even with Melanie speaking in a kind way, even with me standing right here beside. I almost see Annie think the words.
Food is my friend.
Does she think I’m her friend too?
sarah
Tommy Jones still asks me to go out with him,” Annie says.
The hall is clearing. Annie buys a cupcake for me. Pale pink with silver sprinkles. One for her, dark chocolate with mocha icing.
“I didn’t know that.”
“He’s been asking me out for more than a year.”
He’s in my sign class. His parents are deaf, I think, and he assists Miss Saunders by chatting with her so we can try to reverse interpret conversations.
I feel sick to my stomach. “I didn’t know he was such a jerk.”
Before it used to be the guys just showed up at the house. Annie knew they were coming, of course. But I never did. Sometimes, on Saturdays or Sundays, she might even go out with more than one guy. You know, one for lunch, another for dinner. But I haven’t seen Annie go out with anyone for a while.
“Why’s he so rude?” I want to say I hate him, but that’s an immature response, so I just think it. Though I’ll never look at him the same in class again.
“I won’t go with him.” She smiles at me. It’s weird. Like fake. No warmth there. “Not my type.”
Is she hurt by his words? Is she used to this name calling? Just like that, I’m sure he put that note in her locker. I know he did it.
A couple of freshmen come over to the table, one pulling money from her pocket. “I’ll hurry,” she says, “so we’re not late.”
“Go ahead of me,” Annie says.
“Thanks,” the girl with to-the-butt red hair says, “I have to have the one with M&M’s.” She speaks to Annie, who smiles at her. She hands over the money, takes a couple of M&M brownies, then both freshmen run off down the hall.
I watch them go.
“And his two buddies, the fullback and the safety?” Annie says, like the girls were never here. Three cheerleaders behind the table are all on their phones. One looks up every now and then to see if maybe we want to buy more.
The guys have headed in the opposite direction of the freshmen. I have no idea what she’s talking about, but I nod anyway.
“They trapped me by the gym so Tommy could kiss me. Held me so I couldn’t get away.” Annie still has that smile on her face.
“Annie!” I raise my fingers to my lips. There’s icing by my fingernail. “Are you serious?”
Her face goes red in two round spots. Like too much blush. Outside, the afternoon sky looks like almost-night. I feel sick to my stomach.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I touch Annie on the jacket, but of course she doesn’t seem to notice.
She shrugs. “I took care of it. Screamed like nothing else and kicked him hard in his . . .” She hesitates. “Manhood. Or lack thereof. Talked to someone at the office. All three of them were suspended.”
I feel dizzy, like I’ve been spinning too long. “But . . .”
How could I not know? I thought we were connected. Knew things about each other. Felt each other’s pain.
“I didn’t tell anyone at home. I spoke up at the office only because the principal said she wouldn’t tell you all.”
“You should have told me.”
But it’s like Annie doesn’t hear me. “You understand, Sarah,” she says, peeling the cupcake wrapper free and dropping it in the garbage can. We ease toward the science wing, where I know she has Earth Sciences. “This weight is something I choose.”
“Did you ever tell Mom or Dad?” The cupcake feels too heavy. Like it gained weight sitting in my hand.
I should tell. Right now. Text our parents. But I feel helpless all the way to my fingertips. “When?”
“Doesn’t matter now.”
“It does matter, Annie.” There’s a pain building behind my eyes.
“I made a formal complaint,” she says. “And Mom and Dad found out. Didn’t matter that I said not to tell anyone. Jones was suspended, and he’ll never bother me again.”
“Not physically, you mean,” I say. “But he called you . . . he said those awful . . . words.”
She nibbles at the edge of the cupcake. Eats off a bit of icing. This is delicate eating. Not the kind of intake that makes someone gain so much weight the way she has. “And I think he’s doing the notes. Pretty sure of it.”
I nod. I am right.
People holler, and my head hurts like I’ve held my breath too long. There’s an announcement over the intercom for teachers to turn in midterm grades by four p.m.
An adult coming in from outside bumps into me, says nothing, and continues on down the hall like I’m not here. And when I look into the glass for my reflection, I see it’s gone, like I’ve disappeared with Annie’s confession.
sarah
Melanie, Alison, Maeve, Emily, Georgia, Taylor, Brooklyn. And Annie.
Not one of the girls who used to come to our house to do their hair and makeup, who would pose this way and that, who tried on their dresses then promenaded down the stairs, crowns on heads held high — not one of them visits Annie anymore.
Her weight gain has changed so much for her.
But not chased the horrible guys away.
Those girls and her, they used to walk like something from a movie, in two lines. Annie leading the pack. Now she roams the hall alone — I’m beginning to wonder if this choice is hers.
Like me.
But different.
Of course, different.
She talks to people, yes. Makes pleasant conversation. She talks to someone now, as she leaves me there in the hall. But then she moves off and walks solo. Her back straight, her head high, like one of her tiaras is still there.
sarah
It’s freezing outside. I’ve come to the car to warm it, and I’m waiting for Annie, watching people pass. I know lots of these kids from Before, when my sister was thin and chose to be popular.
No one speaks to me. No one waves at me. Notices me in the car. And just like that, I know why.
“I’m responsible,” I say out loud. “For this. For being alone.” I roll the words around on my tongue. Taste them. Think about how I have, as Mom would say, made my bed.
My never talking to anyone, never answering in class, having few friends, has made me just what I wanted to be — invisible. For a moment the thought is unnerving.
This is the place I have settled, I realize, as I wait while listening to Bach. This is the place I feel comfortable. Maybe like Annie, used-to-be-thin Annie, and her fat?
Do I like it?
Yes. And no. I would rather not be so afraid. I’ve been afraid since third grade. And since third grade, I’ve been doing what I can to be alone.
“It’ll get better,” people said. A therapist. Neighbors. Extended family. “Give her time.”
&
nbsp; “Well,” I say, hands clasped in my lap, people walking past. “I’ve done it. I’ve succeeded.”
Am I proud of who I’ve become?
Melanie leaves the building, skipping through the parking lot, flashing past our car. She slips on ice. I watch to see if she might fall. Hope she will.
She doesn’t.
The sun tries to pierce the heavy clouds. Breaks through with watery light. The Sirius Radio announcer talks about the piece just played. The windows fog up.
Can I change who I am? Fight the panic? Do what Mom’s always wanted?
Melanie walks over to a girl I know is on student council. I turn on the seat warmers. Close my eyes. Wonder.
Is Melanie dating Garret? I’ve only seen them in the lunchroom. A little around school, nothing more. No more hints than her European air kisses.
Does he like her? Think of her?
I want to know. I don’t want to know. Why do I care?
Is he with someone else? Someone I don’t know?
Does Garret King remember our moments together?
I gaze at the sun that’s weak and giving up the battle with the afternoon storm pushing toward us.
Alex Henry pops into my head and I blush.
Is his mom like Garret’s?
Oh the breaking up.
I’ve not told anyone. Have hardly let myself think of it.
I try to settle in the car. Try to stop my face from heating up from the event.
She told him to take it easy and so he did.
She said we were kissing too much, spending too much time together wrapped in each other’s arms. She told him to cool it. I blamed her for the first few weeks.
But Garret listened.
“I’m a single mother,” she said. “I don’t want to end up a single grandmother. I’ve made our money, and I don’t plan on sharing with a girl who gets pregnant too young.”
“We haven’t done anything wrong,” I said when he told me. “We never had sex.”
Garret looked away. We were on my front porch, and when he peered in the direction of his house I got the uncomfortable feeling that maybe his mother watched us.
“I told her that,” Garret said. “But she wants me to keep dating.”
“We are,” I said. “We are dating.”
He looked at his hands then. “Dating other people,” he said. “Seeing who else is out there.”
He couldn’t tell me why. But I knew the reason. Somehow, I wasn’t good enough.
The sky is darker now. Pewter.
Maybe it wasn’t me.
Maybe it was her.
Maybe, maybe he just didn’t stand up to her and let her know how he felt.
By the time Annie is opening the car door, I wonder if maybe Garret and I loved each other too fast, too hard.
sarah
Dad stops me and Annie when we come in from school and asks us to be sure to have a musical number prepared for Saturday night.
“Sure,” Annie says.
I say nothing. Feel my mouth go dry. Some irony that I’m wondering if I want solitude and then Dad asks us this.
My violin brings me great joy.
When I hit that high note, perfect a song, press my chin into the rest and hold the bow like it’s a part of me.
But playing for Dad’s party makes my afternoon cupcake feel like a chunk of ice.
I hurry up the stairs, giving no answer to my father. And once in my room, I decide to take Annie’s suggestion to heart. I’ll not stay stuck in my ex-boyfriend’s memories. I’ll be a free woman.
My room is dark and cool, and I hear the murmurs of Mom talking to Dad somewhere downstairs.
The shade’s drawn so I can’t see his house, and down the hall, Annie’s singing. She has an awful voice, but she doesn’t care. She belts out old-timey show tunes at the top of her lungs. I have to smile.
This room is filled with Garret mementoes. I decide I can break away. I can do it a bit at a time. And I can start here.
I set to gathering all the stuff that reminds me of him. His sweatshirt I kept one night when he walked me home in the rain. The shoebox filled with handwritten notes he stuck in my locker last year, sometimes two or three a day. (Sweet notes. Make-me-blush notes. Not like what Annie got.) The collage of photos of us I stuck up around my mirror, on a corkboard, on the closet door. So many photos of us, happy in every one.
I pack everything in a box that I tape shut and put on the top shelf of my walk-in closet. When it doesn’t hurt so much to try to stop caring, I’ll throw it away.
Then I wander to my window and let the shade up, exhausted. Who knew feeling could do this to a person. Wear them out. Break them up. I fall onto my bed and cry for a good half hour into my pillow, because this is the end.
annie
Has Sarah heard me cry?
The late nights
in the showers
in my closet?
I hear her now.
Weeping.
I stand at her door
and listen.
Does she need me
or will this cry
set her
free?
sarah
When I am cried out, when my nose is stuffy and my eyes swollen, I lie on my back in bed and remember. A sort of final thinking — intentional remembering — like at a funeral when people talk of their best memories of the one who’s died.
The last time Garret was in this room the aurora borealis colored the sky. A phenomenon, Dad said earlier when we all went to stare at the view. Garret snuck in late by climbing up on the roof and into my window like Romeo had for Juliet.
I greeted him with a kiss, my arms around his neck. Not one bit of shy at all. We’d talked, lying in my bed on top of the covers, then I’d slept snuggled against him till his phone woke us. It was three a.m. by then, and it was his mom calling, wondering where he was and then, believe it or not, a few minutes later my mom knocked on the door.
“Sarah? Sarah? Why is the door locked?”
Garret didn’t have time to do anything more than fall to the floor.
“I’m sleeping, Mom,” I’d said, but I’d opened the door still wearing the clothes I’d had on that day. Not realizing until it was too late.
Mom looked me up and down. She said, “What’s up?”
Dim light fell in from I-don’t-know-where and the window screen was right there against the wall, and my boyfriend lay on the floor, sort of hidden. Nervous laughter filled my throat. There were so many clues.
“Annabelle King is on the phone.” Mom stood there. Her hair looked like she’d run a brush through it. How? When I wake up, I wonder if rats have made nests.
“Why?” I blurted the word out.
“You tell me,” Mom said.
We stared at each other.
“You woke me.” The almost truth.
She nodded. Turned and headed off down the hall, waving her hand at me. “That better be all,” she’d said. “And that woman better not call here again.”
I closed the door, on fire for so many reasons, and Garret sat up. “Doesn’t sound like your mom likes my mom very much.”
I shrugged, then fell across the bed, kissing him as he sat there, putting my hands on his face. He tasted like spearmint, even this late at night. I kissed him once more out the window, leaning onto the roof to murmur my goodbye.
We did that a lot. Spent the nights together. Talking. Dreaming. Kissing.
If I’d slept with him, if he had asked, if we hadn’t decided early on we’d wait until marriage, would he have stayed? No matter what his mother said?
annie
In my drawer I hide essentials.
Things to get me through the night
If I cannot sleep.
Snickerskitkatsm&m’srolosbighunks
Lay’spotatochipsgrandma’schocolatechipcookies-
jalepeñocheeto’s
Gummywormschocolatecoveredcinnamonbearsseafoam
Doubledippedchocolatealmondstwiz
zlers
skittlesstarburstsreecespeanutbuttercups
My secrets.
When the dream comes
sometimes
I wake up eating
Eating
in my sleep.
annie
he stands at the foot of the bed
the ghost
I
recognize
sarah
Girls,” Mom calls. “I need help with dinner.”
I take a deep breath, meet my sister in the hall, who hugs me (!!!), and we go downstairs to cook.
“Oh, Annie, have you . . .” Mom says when we come into the kitchen.
I feel Annie tense up next to me.
Mom pauses. When she talks it’s like she’s in pain. “That outfit is not becoming at all.” The room seems to go darker, even though outside the storm slides past with a rainy slush. So weird how Mom notices this one thing. Not that I’ve been crying or that I didn’t come out of my room after we talked with Dad or that I’m feeling sad.
Now the late afternoon sun shines on the snow and tries to slip into this part of the house.
Our mother hands me the makings for a salad. I don’t have to hide my eyes because she’s doesn’t look at me. She shakes her head. Tsks.
“When our guests arrive, you make sure to put on a black dress,” she says to my sister. “It’s slimming. I can’t believe how much we still have to do. You know Daddy’s clients are coming in from the city for a couple of days. You know we have to be ready.”
“I’ll be ready,” Annie says. Cold like outside.
But Mom doesn’t seem to hear. She has her head down. Pulls plates from the cabinets. Grabs silverware. She is not happy.
I want to say, “What does a black dress have to do with anything?” but I don’t get the chance because Mom says, “Not too many onions, Sarah.” She doesn’t wait for my, “Yes ma’am.”
And she doesn’t see Annie give her the finger.