My Ideal Boyfriend Is a Croissant

by Laura Dockrill

  “You don’t deserve this. I’m sorry.”

  I look at Dove. Even trapped in a chair she’s more free than I am. I keep seeing her over and over again, launching off into the air, letting go of everything like she had nothing to lose. She shovels a few chips in her mouth through a brave smile. But I know she’s pretending to be strong about all of this. She doesn’t need to be a hero.

  “I do love you, Dove. I think you’re so amazing.”

  “I love you too,” she says. “But seriously, don’t treat me any differently, will you?”

  She lets a tear run down her soft face, her eyes watery and thick, blurred in the confusion of this challenge that she has to conquer in her own gentle way. “I’m sorry for crying,” she says. “I just love how we were.”

  Dropping my fork with a clang, I hold her hand tightly, wiping my own tears away. “We weren’t anything, Dove,” I say. “I love how we are.”

  Where THE HELL have I been?

  “Wanna go get some air?” I ask.

  CREAM CRACKERS

  “Where is everybody?”

  “I think we’re the last ones here.”

  “So you didn’t need to wear those sunglasses that make you look like a rich woman who just found out her movie star husband has died.”

  “Guess not.” I take the sunglasses off.

  “I thought you didn’t care about your exam results anyway?” Dove opens up the packet of crackers we’ve just got from the newsagents, along with the ice poles, but we already ate them.

  “I don’t.”

  “Well, why are we here, then?”

  “I just wanted to find out. Curiosity. That’s all.”

  “Do you want a cracker?”

  “Yeah, ’K.”

  Dove places one in my hand. The sun is beating down on our bare shoulders.

  “God, they’re so dry, they’re making me thirsty.” My tongue feels like sand.

  “Do what I do,” Dove suggests.

  “What do you do? Do I even want to know?”

  “Eat a cracker, chew it up and everything like normal, leave it in the back of your throat, then you can make a pâté-type thing by regurgitating the sick bit onto the next cracker, like how a bird would feed its baby, like a little hors d’oeuvre…?”

  “You are a frigging gross genius. But I’m not gonna do it.”

  I crumble up my cracker and leave it for the pigeons. Dove’s made me feel sick. She happily munches away and says, “Imagine if you’ve done really well in, like, maths or something and then you decide to become a…Wait…why do people need to learn maths? Like, what job does being good at maths get you?”

  “Accountant? Errr…newsreader?”

  “You don’t need maths for reading the news.”

  “Maybe if you want to be a maths teacher?”

  “Why would you ever?”

  We take our time. London in the summertime offers us a man hosing his front garden, two toddlers plonked in a paddling pool by his feet, giggling and splashing. A guy a bit older than me clearly scrubbing his first-ever brand-new car. There are two twelve-year-olds linking arms, sharing headphones; they look at Dove and then look away. There’s a couple with a white fluffy dog taking photographs of the trees in the sun and two men with loads of dangerous-looking chopped-up wood strapped rather unsafely to the roof of their dad-car, blaring guitar music out of the window and singing along.

  And there it is. School.

  “Go on, then….Let’s see if you’d secretly make a great newsreader….”

  GUM SHIELD

  That night, my thirteen-year-old self haunts me. I’m angry at her for being immature. She wasn’t like Dove. She was so insecure it went full circle and made her vain. Always looking in. Always comparing. Self-conscious. Unconfident. She remembers an older, pretty girl with skin the colour of a leather handbag, called Charlene, scaring her and a group of her friends in the toilets with the thrilling advantages of sticking her fingers down her throat. How good it felt to see screwed-up little Zs of pasta bows floating in the toilet bowl. She said the trick wasn’t just to ram your fingers down; you had to moonwalk them on your tonsils—that would trigger the vomit in a second. All the girls thought Charlene was so cool. We loved her nose piercing and the way she ate chocolate bars and cheese melts all day. We all promised that after school we’d go home and try it.

  I remember eating everything I could find at dinner. I had chicken and mushroom pie: a crusty, flaky top with buttery, golden sides that cascaded over the pie dish like Sleeping Beauty’s hair. Crimped by Dad with a fork. The inside was silky, creamy, shiny, perfectly seasoned. It erupted out of the hole in the top of the pie, volcanic, whispering secrets of a warm winter’s comfort. The chicken was so tender it would fall apart into shreds when you tagged it with your tongue. The mushrooms were woody and smoky. Little bombs of forest forage. Dad whips egg into our mash, butter, pepper, milk and snowflakes of salty crystals. The sauce floods the mashed potato Mountain of Dreams. And, of course, peas.

  After that I ate anything I could find in the hatter-mad house that I live in. Half a tub of old (not even enjoyable) strawberry shortcake ice cream, a bowl of stale Shreddies, some ham that was meant for the dogs, crackers and cheese, a bag of Wotsits for Dove’s packed lunch, toast with peanut butter and butter, cashew nuts, some tuna and mayonnaise in a bowl, a luxurious cherry yoghurt and some old Halloween pumpkin chocolates that I remembered being in a drawer in Dove’s room. They tasted like hard dust. Still, I sat, and de-shelled all twelve of those smiling pumpkin moons. Just cos. Just cos it was eating everything day and soon I’d be sicking it all up. I was like the Very Hungry Caterpillar leaving a stream of food-shaped watercolour holes in my wake. I had a new skill that meant I could eat everything and nothing mattered. I was Binge-Girl, the all-time favourite eating disorder superhero. I was so full I couldn’t even remember the swelling loveliness of Dad’s wonderful pie anymore. It was just temporarily filling another hole on my scaled tongue. That would all go to waste.

  When my family were snuggled down watching a TV programme I ran upstairs to the bathroom. I sprayed the room with a cheap girly deodorant Mum had recently left by my door with some sanitary towels and tampons, just in case. I think I’d only ever been sick four times in my whole life. Once on a ferry from seasickness, once from bad chicken kievs, once from bad lasagne and then the first time I smelt smoked haddock. I wasn’t a sickly girl. Sick smelt disgusting and had to be masked. Or maybe it was my shame that reeked so bad this time.

  I laid a towel down. I used my school swimming towel because I didn’t want to involve anybody else in this horror. Dove would have been ten. I didn’t want her getting out of the bath and wrapping herself in something that had seen what I’d done to myself.

  Then I tied my long thick dark hair into a hairband.

  The bathroom felt echoey. All my actions were clanging and loud. Muffled by the churn of my own guts, twisting.

  I stooped over the toilet bowl and tried the moonwalking thing. No good. I tried again. Gagging. I panicked. Flushed the toilet really quick to drown the sound. Coughing, spitting. I tried again. Walk, walk, walk, tickle, tickle, come on, come on, just like Charlene said…More retching, some rice from lunch maybe but…nothing.

  I could hear the wretched stupid girls from school. I knew they were talking rubbish but it didn’t stop me from wanting to push a little harder.

  And then I hear it, the ugly mean loud voice in my head that interrupts me when I’m at my most weak. The one that prods me in the belly, barking in its evil voice like some wretched twisted mantra:

  YOU HAVE ASTHMA BECAUSE YOU ARE FAT.

  YOU HAVE ASTHMA BECAUSE YOU ARE FAT.

  THAT IS WHY YOU CAN’T BORROW OUR CLOTHES OR COME ON HOLIDAY WITH US IN THE FUTURE. BECAUSE YOU ARE FAT. AND WE CAN’T HAVE ANYBODY THAT LOOKS LIKE YOU IN OUR PHOTO
GRAPHS. YOU WILL RUIN THEM. YOU WILL BRING OUR FRIENDSHIP GROUP BEAUTY STATUS DOWN. WE CAN’T BE HAVING THAT. YOU ARE FAT. AND THAT MEANS YOU HAVE NO SELF-CONTROL. AND THAT MEANS YOU HAVE NO SELF-WORTH. AND THAT MEANS YOU HAVE NO SELF-RESPECT. AND THAT MEANS NOBODY WILL EVER LOOK UP TO YOU AND RESPECT YOU BACK. AND THAT MEANS NOBODY WILL EVER CARE WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY IN PUBLIC. OR THINK OF YOU. OR TRULY LOVE YOU.

  AND THAT MAKES YOU DISGUSTING.

  I turn the volume down on it. It’s not real. It’s trying to trip me up.

  And then I remember the last time I kept a diary. And why it ended so badly.

  * * *

  —

  My eyes begin to water. I’m panicking now. Charlene said this would be easy, but it’s not; it’s terrible. More tears. Sweat. I’m so clammy. My knees hurt from being on the towel, little wormy imprints on my chubby kneecaps. I can’t do it. I’m a failure. I can’t even be sick. I’m not a proper, real girl. Real girls have control of their bodies. Discipline. And now I’ve gone and eaten all this crap that I didn’t even want for no good reason whatsoever. It will stick to me, the new fat, calories clinging to my face like hamster cheeks. I have to get it out. I flush the toilet again, to seem convincing, on the off-chance any member of my family is sad enough to think, “Oh, let’s listen out for Bluebelle making herself sick.”

  And I leap into my room with an idea. I have to get this vomit out, NOW. I can’t sit there in front of my friends and Charlene at break time tomorrow and listen to them all purr on, grey-toothed and greasy-eyed, exhausted from their icky evening of triumph, while I sit there, a plump embarrassment. Chewing my hair.

  Even if I lie. It isn’t the real thing. I know. I can feel the weight in my rolls of fat that I pinch sometimes until it bruises.

  I reach for a coat hanger. In my wardrobe. It has to be the metal one, from the dry cleaners, not the posh wooden ones. We only get those ones by accident anyway, when clothes swap around; they are really for Mum’s and Dad’s clothes. Then I bend the hanger, turning it into a boomerang shape, twisting the hook bit down. It is the shape of a gun. Then I lock myself in the bathroom again, run towards the toilet, urgently shoving the hanger down my throat so fast I don’t even notice how it feels.

  Except for cold. Mean. Not right. An intruder. Painful.

  * * *

  —

  The sick was disappointing. A few Wotsits. Some little squares of Shreddies. Brown smudges from un-chewed chocolate. I’d violated myself. I just cried so hard. I couldn’t even tell Mum because she’d just cry too. Or Dad because he’d cry even more. My teeth touched the basin with a clink. Never had I wished I could undo an action so quickly. It was like blurting out a secret at a sleepover.

  I began to tidy my room so that I could throw the hanger away without it seeming obvious. This was the kind of sly, dodgy behaviour girls my age save for their first cigarette.

  I couldn’t wait to see the back of the hanger. It felt like a murder weapon. I already felt like it wouldn’t be the last time I’d ever see it; it would show up again in a plastic sandwich bag, grinning at me, in the courtroom of shame as evidence.

  I want to hug the young me.

  But I left her behind.

  * * *

  —

  The next morning I wake feeling like a warmed-up corpse. I ground my teeth so badly my jaw is locked. The hinges around my face are tight. My teeth push against themselves. I could snap them off. Packed too tight. I just feel so grateful that my body didn’t sink to the same level as my mind had. Good old Big Bones, refusing to throw up. To give me what I wanted. Sometimes it isn’t mind over matter. Sometimes your body knows what’s best.

  * * *

  —

  That’s why I listen to it, that’s why I eat what I fancy. And respect it.

  I didn’t hang around with those girls anymore after that day. I didn’t really hang around with anybody at school after that day. I just put my head down and got on with it. I wasn’t disliked. I waited for the rumours and abuse to start, but I thought that if any one of those girls tried what I did, regardless of whether they got results, they’d feel just as ugly about themselves as I did about myself. And they wouldn’t want to speak about it again anyway.

  I just got on.

  The grinding of my teeth didn’t stop. Mum got me a gum shield. I had it fitted in a dentist’s room with weird pictures of armadillos made out of beads on the wall. The dentist said teeth-grinding can be caused by anxiety. My parents splitting up for the first time may have been the cause of it. Little did I know I’d get used to that.

  My mouth was filled with an overwhelmingly minty plaster, which I actually quite liked—the suffocation of freshness was a new sensation. It was like chewing on a bouncy ball. I felt like the dogs. A week later we went to pick up the clear shield. A jelly waxwork mould of my mouth. My bottom teeth splayed out like a fan.

  At first the ridges cut and gnawed fresh gills into the insides of my red cheeks and I think actually made me grind more. Like I was chewing on those fish-bone clothes tags. I think I was scared of swallowing it by accident in the night and choking to death on it. I guess it couldn’t have been worse than the coat hanger. But then I got used to it. Bit it down. The clear plastic became frosted and scratched, chewed so hard I made holes in the molars and my teeth would just clamp and grit against each other like rocks. Turning my teeth to sand.

  Luckily I met Cam at Planet Coffee. She calls her trial shift there not a trial for a job but a trial for a friendship. Planet Coffee was just the right setting for two weirdo aliens to become friends. She says.

  Once I met Cam, I didn’t need to use the gum shield anymore….

  But I feel like I have to wear it tonight.

  I got an A+ in art.

  The rest was mostly Cs, Ds, 4s and 5s and actually one B.

  An A+ for my charcoal mess.

  SCRAMBLED EGGS

  I wake up and head downstairs, to see Dove at the stove.

  “What you doing? You’re not cooking, are you?” I accuse her sleepily. The counter is way too high for her.

  “Course I’m cooking. I’m allowed to cook, you know.”

  “Sorry. Sorry. Course you are.”

  “So annoying. Don’t baby me like that.”

  I want to defend myself but there’s nothing to say. My jaw is tender. My gums are sore.

  “Mum made me a drawer down here. Look, it has pots and pans and utensils, and I can reach the two front burners.”

  “OK, that’s good.”

  “So pop the toast up, then.”

  “Ah, you made some for me?”

  “Yeah, I made some for you. I’ve been waiting for you to wake up and I knew the smell of food would do it.”

  “You know me too well,” I lie, rubbing my eyes instead of my belly, putting the kettle on. Even though I couldn’t stomach a thing.

  “It’s done. It’s in the other room, waiting.”

  “Oh amazing, thanks, Dove.” I smile at her, watching her navigate her way around the kitchen: reaching, swivelling, her own revised version of culinary parkour. “What we having?”

  “Scrambled eggs.”

  Dove isn’t really a cook. So I’m completely doubtful. But how bad could scrambled eggs be, really?

  “They’re horrible,” she says after she takes a mouthful.

  “No they’re not,” I lie, forcing another forkful down. They are grey. Full of peppercorns that crack under your teeth like bombs.

  “Don’t lie.” She presses the egg and milky water sinks into the toast. It’s the colour and texture of nicotine-stained net curtains. Dove pushes the pan of eggs away from her. She growls a horrible noise from the pit of her stomach and angrily flings the wooden spoon across the kitchen, leaving little eggy sprogs across the tiles. “I HATE THIS! I CAN’T STAND IT! I HATE IT! I HATE IT! I just wanted to
be able to…DO something!”

  I want to, but I don’t hug her.

  I pick the spoon up off the floor and hand it back to her.

  “Well, you chose the wrong thing to do. You were a terrible cook before your accident,” I say. “Pass the eggs here. Let’s try again.”

  “Just give it to the dogs,” she grumbles, munching on the corner of a slice of toast, “and pass me the jam.”

  HOT EGGS, MAYBE MEXICAN STYLE

  To a pan of hot oil, so hot it shimmers, we add spring onion, chilli and the half-soft green pepper we have hanging around in the fridge. I throw in tomatoes and some Tabasco, cayenne pepper and smoked paprika. We let it cook….

  Dove’s eyebrows unfurl.

  We don’t have tortillas but we do have pittas in the freezer. Dove toasts them quickly in the toaster; then we place them on the hob, charring them up all lovely to get the black bumpy, gnarly lumps on them. Then I dump the horrid eggs back in the pan. The whole thing sizzles. I find some Cheddar cheese and grate that into it, melting it down. Cheese and eggs are BFFs. They are both edible glue that bring everything together. Then I crumble a knob of feta on top. I say a knob. I mean a lot.

  I snip whatever not-completely-brown leaves are left of some old parsley on top and hand the pan back to my sister.

  “WOW!” Dove’s eyes light up. “BB! This looks delicious!” She grins.

  “I dunno how it’ll taste.”

  “Delicious, I bet.” She tears some bread and scoops the egg up with it. “Yum! How did you come up with that? It’s so good!”

  “I think your eggs are what made it.”

  While she chews she watches a neighbour’s tigerlike cat snake along a fence, slink up onto the shed and then elegantly hop up onto our windowsill. Dove’s face is red from the warmth of the spice. She smiles at the cat.

  She looks over at me; her eyes are deep and serious. “Don’t stop moving your body, BB, even though it’s hard, even though you say it’s not for you and you don’t really like it. Keep moving. Run. Swim. Cycle. Climb. Jump. Dance. Whatever. Just don’t stop. Ever,” she orders. “Promise?”