Not Just a Number: A Young Adult Contemporary Novel

by Sara Michaels

  “I could not make it home fast enough today,” I wrote on the day after the breakup, the first time I had seen Brandon and Grace together. “The minute I was in the door, my head was in the toilet bowl, and the three French fries and bite of a cheeseburger I had managed at lunch came right up.” My stomach had felt like it was knotted into itself. My mom explained that this was a physical reaction to stress and anxiety, and offered to get me some herbal calming tablets. I declined. I would get through this myself, I decided. The tightness in my stomach lasted about a week. Just when I thought it was getting better, I would see the happy couple again, and it would be back. It made it uncomfortable to eat, so I picked at my meals. It felt like everything I ate sat in my throat because my stomach was so tense. I knew it would get better, and it eventually did, but by the time I started to feel more normal, I noticed my pants were a lot looser too.

  I could not remember a time in my life when I had worried about my weight. It had just never been on my radar. I had to admit that I had good genes in that department, with both my mom and sister being slim. It had just been this year that I really started to feel a little awkward about myself.

  Thinking about my figure took me back to the dress shop and Jen’s sad face when I had not looked nearly as good in the dress as the others had. The sales assistant had said that both Jen and I had pear shaped figures. Who the heck came up with that name? It could only have been a man that decided it was a good idea to designate the shape of a person’s figure by the names of fruit! I actually had no idea what “pear shaped” meant. Obviously, I knew what a pear looked like, it had a narrow top and a wide bottom, and I guess that pretty much described me if I was honest. It did not really describe Jen, though, so how was it possible that we could have the same shape?

  With a deep sigh, I looked in the full-length mirror that stood in the corner of the room. I remembered begging for it when I was thirteen, thinking about how I could pose in front of it, and it seemed such a grown-up thing to have in your bedroom. I avoided it a lot these days. At one point, I had thought about just throwing a sheet over it and being done with it so that I didn’t have to avert my eyes every time I passed it. As it was, I had moved it from its original position in my room so that I didn’t have to look at myself every time I opened my door.

  I was still dressed in the jeans and shirt I had worn to the fitting, and the mirror definitely showed a pear… or maybe a marshmallow. None of the women in my family had large breasts, and it had never really been something that had bothered me. All the girls at school with large breasts complained about backaches and how they couldn’t find shirts that fit them, so I had figured a long time ago that wasn’t a problem I wanted.

  My fingers traced the line of my collarbone, which did seem to be more prominent lately. I was probably just dehydrated. It’s not like you can lose weight in your neck, I thought.

  The shoulder seam on my shirt sat off the crest of my shoulder, and my shirt was baggy, but I knew that if I pulled it tight around me I would see a thick trunk leading down into thicker legs. I knew I had lost weight, I could not deny that, but I was beginning to wonder if I had been ignoring the fact that I was actually overweight my whole life, because despite the pounds I had shed in the last few months, my figure still seemed not quite right.

  There was definitely more work to be done.

  Tired of staring at myself, I fell back onto my bed. My diary poked into my back, and I pulled it out to flip through it again, turning onto my stomach.

  “I don’t know what it was about my outfit today, but tons of people at school commented that I looked good. I was just wearing leggings and a shirt. John McIlroy asked me what diet I was on, all while stuffing a greasy donut into his mouth. I wanted to tell him that I avoided junk food, but I figured that would be mean. He gets teased a lot about his weight. I actually felt uncomfortable at one point because every second person I walked past made a comment. I’m definitely not used to being the center of attention, but, if I’m honest, looking back on it, I felt a sense of pride at my achievement. If I could cause such a stir with unintentional weight loss, imagine what I could achieve if I actually set my mind to it. Kya and Ryan haven’t said much about my weight loss, but Kya called me ‘svelte’ today. What an amazing word! It made me think of a black panther striding through the jungle, powerful and dangerous.”

  Powerful and dangerous—both words that could never describe me in a million years. I remembered that day clearly, and the same sense of pride still welled up in me when I thought of it now. It had become important to me that others notice my weight loss, but the irony was that when they did, I felt cornered and embarrassed.

  That comment from Kya had actually meant more to me than any of the others because she was simply perfectly built in my opinion. Her love of track and dance from a young age had meant that she had developed into a lithe and supple young woman. She could be a sportswear model, and she ate whenever and whatever she wanted. I knew this because I used to eat all of that stuff with her. We had been about eight years old the first time we had actually eaten ourselves sick.

  I smiled at the memory.

  I had slept over at her house one night during the summer holidays, and even though her parents had fed us pizza for dinner, around midnight we had decided we wanted ice cream. When eight-year-olds want something, they make a plan to get it, and we did. We had crept downstairs, careful not to wake the rest of the family, and Kya had retrieved a gallon of Rocky Road from the freezer that her mom had just bought that afternoon. We were worried that getting bowls out would make too much noise, so we just grabbed spoons and started to eat. Her parents had found us the next morning still at the kitchen counter, fast asleep with our spoons in our hands. More than half of the enormous tub of ice cream was gone, and the rest had melted into a delicious swamp in the container.

  I have never felt so ill before. I had a pounding headache from all the sugar, Kya’s stomach ached, and we both threw up at least twice before Kya's mom eventually decided to drive me home and explain our dessert adventure to my mom, who was less than pleased. She made me buy a gallon of ice cream out of my pocket money and return it to Kya’s parents. It was a great memory of a time where nothing mattered except having fun, and everything was so simple.

  I shoved my diary back in my drawer and refocused my energy on cleaning my room. This was something I knew I could do properly. I had noticed some streaks on my mirror when I was looking at myself, so I tackled this next with the Windex and cloth, rubbing hard in perpendicular lines until every streak was gone. Maybe if the mirror was cleaner, it would give me a different reflection.

  It was too late at night for me to pull out the vacuum cleaner; the noise would only draw questions from my mom. Instead, I moved from one side of the room to the other on my hands and knees, picking small pieces of lint and other unidentifiable, almost microscopic foreign specks off the plush cream-colored carpet.

  I tackled my trophies next. They were such dust collectors that I did not actually even want them standing on the top of my chest of drawers, but my mom loved having them there. She thought it was important to celebrate one’s achievements. Science and math awards were dumb, though, I thought. They weren’t real achievements. Anyone can win the Mathlete of the Year award when everyone else in class hates math.

  I thought that one of the reasons I loved math and science so much was that there were a finite number of answers to the questions in those subjects. Nothing was left open to interpretation. You were either wrong or right. Fat or thin. Pretty or ugly. With math and science, there was no in between. It was a perfect world of obvious answers where nothing changed unless a better method was discovered.

  I glanced around my room, looking to see what might catch my eye as not being in place. My calendar was hanging slightly askew, and I got up to adjust it. I moved it in increments and then stepped back to check its straightness, moving it slightly again until I was satisfied.

  A mark on the calenda
r for this week caught my eye. My stomach sank as I realized that I should be on my period at that very moment, and there was also absolutely no sign of it coming any time soon. Yet another thing that was out of sync. I flipped through the months to where I last marked its arrival. Ryan gave me the calendar for last Christmas, and each page had a different picture of a puppy on it. I recalled my excitement at the gift when I had opened it. What had I got him for Christmas? I couldn’t even remember. Probably nothing because I was as bad a friend as I was a sister.

  Besides this month’s Labrador pup wearing a bow tie, I had to flip through last month's Shar Pei in a pumpkin and the previous month’s Yorkshire Terrier wearing a wig to find the day I had marked. A lump formed in my throat as it hit home that it had been three months since my last period. That seemed like a long time. Consciously, I knew that was not right and I probably should be worried, but I wasn’t too bothered. I did know that when girls are younger it can take some time for hormones to fall into place. It wasn’t like I was sexually active, so there was no concern about pregnancy. In fact, I was still a virgin, and I suspected that was another reason Brandon had dumped me.

  He had wanted us to have sex, and he had said so in no uncertain terms on more than one occasion. At one point, it had actually become uncomfortable and I felt under real pressure. I just wasn’t ready, though. He said it was okay and that he understood, but looking at the way he and Grace acted around each other, I knew that was a lie.

  The thing was that even though he said it was fine each time, he also continued to ask, like he thought maybe if he pressured me enough my mind would change. At the time, I had not thought much of it other than the fact that he really wanted to have sex, but I was starting to understand that probably meant that he didn’t really care about my reasons for not wanting to do it. When I had said I wasn’t ready, he would ask again like two weeks later which, thinking about it now, was ridiculous. Surely, he didn’t think that I would be more ready two weeks later.

  My mom had instinctively been concerned about me at the time, even though I had not shared with her that Brandon was pressuring me. I guess she had enough experience to read the dynamic between the two of us accurately.

  I didn’t think any less of Grace if she was sleeping with him. There was nothing wrong with it; I just did not personally feel like that was the right time for me. Or maybe I had felt like he was not the right person.

  I looked up at my ceiling fan and realized that it had been some time since I had last cleaned the blades. Let’s get that sorted, I thought, picturing myself switching it on when the weather warmed enough and thousands of particles of dirt being flung about my room.

  I tiptoed downstairs, being careful not to make any noise, and pulled the broom out the closet in the hallway. My room was the first as you came up the stairs. The bathroom was next door, and then my mom and sister’s rooms followed down the hall. The bottom level consisted of our living room, which you walked straight into when you opened the front door. We didn’t have a separate dining room, but Mom had created a separate area in the living room with the six-seater dining room table, and the glass cupboard that held my grandmother’s antique crystal glasses which we never used.

  It was the perfect location for the dining room table because the swing door that led to the kitchen was right beside it. Mom had renovated the kitchen a few years back. She had done a lot of the work herself to save money, and I remembered being impressed at her DIY skills. She had called professionals in only for the tiling and plumbing. The back door in the kitchen led out to a small backyard. Jen and I had spent many summers sunbathing there next to the small blow-up paddling pool Mom had bought for us. That pool hadn’t been out for years. It was empty, deflated, and packed away in the shed.

  Back upstairs, I wrapped a wet cloth around the bottom part of the broom, tied a loose knot to secure it, and used it to carefully wipe the tops of the blades. I moved around my bed at different angles to make sure I got everything. I then rinsed it out in the bathroom and repeated the same motion on the underside of the fan blades. Cleaning the cloth again, I wiped the tops of my cupboard doors and the cornice that surrounded my room.

  I leaned against the broom and stifled a yawn, realizing it was 11 pm already. Time to get some shut eye. I returned all the cleaning supplies to the hall cupboard and took the broom back downstairs.

  I pulled my pajamas out of my drawer and stripped off my jeans, shirt, and bra, then dumped them into my wash basket. I pulled my pajamas on and walked to shut the window on the other side of the room.

  As I passed the mirror, I saw with a bit of surprise that my pajamas were now really baggy. The bottom that had once snugly cupped my butt now hung like an empty potato sack. The pajamas had been a gift from Jen for my birthday last year. They were emblazoned with Snoopy character pictures as he was my favorite cartoon character as a kid. The pajama top hung loose on me too. I looked at myself from all angles in the mirror.

  If I was being honest, I didn’t mind it. The gaping material was comforting. I could be anyone behind those masses of flannel. No one could know that I was a marshmallow.

  Maybe I should wear pajamas to Jen’s wedding. I snickered to myself. If only I could wear pajamas all the time, I thought as I crawled into bed and switched off my bedside lamp.

  3

  The sounds of the cafeteria drifted around us as we sat at our usual table, tucked in the corner with a view of the football fields outside. The smell of cooking burgers mingled with the sounds. A few of the jocks had already wolfed down their burgers and headed out to toss a football around—a far better pastime for them than sitting in a stifling cafeteria. For them, it was like breathing. I could think of nothing more boring. Why didn’t they just give everyone a ball and get it over and done with?

  It was likely the same as most other high school cafeterias in America with each table housing a specific group or clique. We had a few in the school. The cheerleader table emptied out pretty quickly as they all wanted to go and sit at the edge of the football field on the bleachers and hope the guys would notice them. They had something to be noticed. At the very least, they would have a view of the muscled young men sweating it out and exerting themselves. That seemed to be their favorite pastime. It didn’t interest me in the slightest.

  I felt like we had a lot more different groups than most schools because our community was made up of a lot of different people. Many different types of families moved from all over the state to our neighborhood as it became one of the last strongholds of peace and quiet. This, of course, resulted in many different types of students at our high school.

  The arty types mostly had long hair regardless of gender and often wore clothes they had made themselves. Their hands were often stained with paint, and they smelled of thinners. Then there were individuals dotted across the cafeteria sitting on their own. They were the ones that didn’t fit in anywhere. For the most part, I tried to include those people at our table, but I had also figured out that didn’t always work.

  We’d had a few people come and go over the years, but I had eventually realized that people weren’t always sitting alone because they had no other choice. Sometimes they chose to be alone, and I had to respect that. Not everyone needed to be saved.

  If I didn’t have Kya and Ryan, I might be one of those people. I certainly didn’t fit seamlessly enough into any of the other groups at our high school. Kya and Ryan might fit into the art group or the math geek group, but I didn’t feel like I would. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to be a loner. I loved Ryan and Kya, but they asked so many questions.

  Burger Day at the cafeteria was always popular, and they catered to all tastes with chicken, beef, vegetarian, and vegan options. They had even tried to do a curried burger one week to cater to the students of Indian and Pakistani descent, but that stereotypical idea had not gone down well. Curried burger meat was not delicious.

  Kya had chosen a beef burger, Ryan had grabbed the vegetarian option, and I
had a bottle of water.

  “Not eating lunch with us again, Abby?” Ryan looked at me under his luxurious eyelashes.

  Here came the questions.

  Why did guys always get the most gorgeous eyelashes? They didn’t need them, but they always got them. Maybe it was because they weren’t always messing with their eyelashes like girls were, masking them in thick mascara, curling them, and gluing on fake ones.

  It wasn’t the first time he had commented about me not eating at lunch in the last few weeks, but the concern on his face now was clear.

  His honey-colored skin glistened in the light streaming through the large bay window beside us, and I considered how to approach his question this time. I had to maintain variety in my answers to encourage believability.

  “Oh, I had a huge breakfast. My mom always makes me eat like a pig before I leave the house.” I hadn’t meant to lie, and I instantly felt horrible. My face flushed as I continued to weave myself deeper into deception. “She still believes in the old ‘breakfast is the most important meal of the day’ story.”

  Ryan raised his eyebrows as he finished chewing a bite of his burger. That old adage had been proven not to be true, or at least that was what was touted by promoters of fasting regimes. Who really knew the truth anyway? Certainly not me.

  “That must be a new thing, because we have eaten lunch together for almost every day of the last four years and I don’t recall you ever saying you’d had a big breakfast.” Ryan wasn’t being rude or contrary. He didn’t have a mean bone in his body. He just had this habit of stating the facts quite plainly, but always from a place of love. He didn’t mince his words, and if you were on the receiving end and didn’t understand him, you might think he was being offensive.