You'll Never Know

by Katie Cross

  Pain had exploded across my back as the table splintered beneath me into two pieces. Some of the shards scratched my legs. My ankles jarred from the impact of hitting the floor. My knees bled a little, even. Everyone in the bar cackled as I rolled off the broken pieces and vomited onto Chris’s shoes. My nostrils still burned with the taste of acid and vodka and pure shame. A long silence filled the phone.

  “Oh, Rachelle,” Lexie whispered.

  “I was too heavy for the table. The entire restaurant laughed at me while Chris pulled me to the door. I fought him, too, I think. It’s all hazy after that.” I put a hand on my head. “I can’t remember what happened after he dragged me away. I imagine he must have paid for the broken table and all the broken glasses and … anyway, suffice it to say that, after that, I returned home and holed up in the trailer for a week because I was so embarrassed. And then … I decided it was enough.”

  “And you started to get healthy and swear off men.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I had no idea, Rachelle.”

  “I didn’t want you to.” Tears welled up in my eyes. I blinked them back. “It’s just all so embarrassing. But I’m never going back there, Lexie. I will never, ever be that Rachelle again.”

  She hesitated, then said quietly, “I know, Rachelle, but the thing is—”

  “Never.”

  My nostrils flared. I made a fist with my hand and swallowed hard. My gaze dropped to my booted foot.

  “Never,” I whispered again, and felt it all the way into my bones.

  Chapter 5

  Won’t Happen Now

  After running into Chris, my sprained ankle wasn’t my biggest problem. Oh no. Sitting in the house, staring at my ceiling while thinking about how terrified I was about not having worked out in over a week—that was my biggest problem.

  The television droned in the background, keying me up when I was already jittery. It used to be a sound reminiscent of my childhood, one that would lull me into a comforted sleep. All my life, I woke to it. Ate breakfast to it. Bonded with Mom over it. Now I loathed it. Heard it while I tried to sleep at night, ate dinner, took a shower, and read the forums.

  Tonight, the sound of the television drove me deeper into my own mind. Into my plans. The memory of my last night with Chris played through my mind on a merciless loop. My dreams of the marathon followed. Crossing the finishing line. Running off my anxiety and fear. How I missed it.

  Annoyed by my own self-pity, I sat up and swung my bare right foot off the pillows. No more brooding over Chris. No more thinking about what could have been. I might not be able to run, but I could do something. And I would. Right here. Right now. The old Rachelle could back off.

  I would never be that girl again.

  The velcro on my boot made a ripping sound when I pulled it free and carefully slid the boot off. Dr. Martinez had just authorized removing the boot to air it—and my stinky summer foot—out. The rush of cool air on my sweaty skin was my favorite part of the day, so I closed my eyes, tipped my head back, and enjoyed it. Then I cast the boot aside.

  “Here we go.”

  Without touching the floor with my injured leg, I hopped across my bedroom and started up my laptop. Underneath my desk waited two ten-pound free weights. I balanced on one leg, reached down, and yanked them out.

  “All right.” I drew in a deep breath. “Let’s get exercising.”

  A free exercise video popped up from one of my favorite workout channels. Upper body and core stabilizer. Perfect. I sat on my swivel desk chair and turned it up. Its peppy theme music drowned out the sound of the television that seeped in under the door.

  “Ready to work?” a young California-type man in his mid-twenties asked. I eyed his corded arms and perfectly tanned chest rippling with muscles. A woman with platinum blonde hair and another man in short shorts and bright green tennis shoes flanked him on either side.

  “You bet I am,” I said.

  “Let’s get you toned and flooded with endorphins. Starting into a warm up.”

  “Yes,” I murmured, feeling a heady rush as I mimicked his movements. “Let’s do it.”

  The first ten minutes of the workout passed easily. I modified each warm up so I could remain in the chair, foot elevated. My shoulders relaxed.

  “I got this,” I said with a thrill. It was working! Not only could I keep making progress, but my foot was up! The swelling would go down. Muscle tone would rise. The marathon would happen.

  Perfect.

  “Really elongate that tricep,” he said as he pumped his arm up and down behind his head. “Can you feel that burn? Keep going. Push hard for results, and results will come.”

  I growled in frustration. The padded back of the computer chair wouldn’t let me lower the weight more than an inch. When I angled my body to the side, there still wasn’t enough room to pump. All three of the trainers in the video stopped at the same time with triumphant smiles.

  “Take a break before the next set,” he said. “Give that muscle a good stretch.”

  No way was I being left behind.

  I snapped the space bar to pause the workout, grabbed the weight in my right hand, stood on my good leg, and hopped toward the bed. There would be plenty of room to move freely there. A wave of dizziness washed over me halfway across my room. Spots of black crept in from the corners of my eyes.

  “Whoa.”

  My left arm shot out to grab the nightstand just as I stumbled forward. In a move born of pure instinct, my right foot dropped to catch my fall. Pain spiraled through my ankle, radiating into my knee and hip. I jerked with a cry. The free weight fell.

  Onto my right foot.

  Black spots broke out across my eyes again—this time from sheer agony. I dropped to my knees with a gasp. The weight rolled free. A pillow muffled my next scream of pain.

  No.

  No way.

  No way that had just happened.

  Eternities seemed to pass while my right foot pulsed and throbbed in ways I’d never felt before. Tears smarted behind my eyes. Several long moments passed while I tried to get my breathing under control. The slightest movement sent ripples of pain all the way into my knees. When I risked a peek, the foot was bright red. Already starting to swell. I closed my eyes.

  Reaching blindly, I extended my hand, fumbled for my phone on the night stand, and unlocked the screen. After a few awkward attempts at dialing because it was hard to see the screen through my tears, Bitsy’s voice came through the speaker.

  “Hey Rachelle. What’s up?”

  “Help?” I croaked.

  “What happened? Where are you?”

  “Home. I-I need you to take me to the doctor’s office.”

  “What?”

  “I think I just broke my foot.”

  I leaned my forehead against the cool windowpane of Bitsy’s car that evening and closed my eyes. The Urgent Care physician’s voice floated through my mind, replaying a terrifying refrain.

  You broke three of the delicate bones at the top of your foot, called the metatarsals. The swelling you see here? That’s probably going to get worse. I think all your treadmill running weakened your bones. Not to mention your sprain. A marathon? I’m sorry, Rachelle, but that won’t happen now. With two such injuries, you have several months of recovery ahead of you before you’ll be ready for full weight bearing. Of course, your primary physician will have more to say about that when you go follow up with her. Knowing Dr. Martinez? She’ll probably have a lot to say about it.

  The words repeated like a ticker tape in my mind.

  Won’t happen now.

  Won’t happen now.

  Tears filled my eyes. What now? No marathon. No proof that I wasn’t the same Rachelle. The marathon was the physical proof that I’d never be fat—would never be that girl—again. Something I could hold up and say, See? I’m new. I’m better. I did what she never could have.

  How else could I show it?

  I braced myself for Bitsy’s damning sil
ence. For versions of I told you so from her as she sat solemnly in the driver’s seat. When she flipped on the blinker, pulled off onto a residential street, and parked, fear rose hot in my throat. A warm hand rested on my shoulder.

  “You okay, Chelle?” Concern filled her gaze.

  Hot tears dropped down my cheeks. I hadn’t prepared myself for compassion.

  “No,” I whispered.

  She reached over to wrap me in a hug. I clung to her with a half sob. “That marathon was supposed to be my moment!”

  “Your moment to what?”

  “To prove I’m not that Rachelle anymore. To do something that the old Rachelle could never have done. It was going to show that I’m not embarrassing or overweight or someone to be ashamed of.”

  “Would a marathon have done all that?”

  “Yes!”

  She pulled back and put both hands on my face, cradling my tear-streaked cheeks. “What’s wrong with the old Rachelle?”

  “She was overbearing and loud and…”

  “And wonderful.”

  “No. She wasn’t wonderful.”

  “She was. She was fierce and loyal and—”

  “She wasn’t! She hid from her problems behind her weight. She hid from what she hated most about herself by eating. She acted like nothing was wrong. She even glorified something that wasn’t good for her!”

  Embarrassment rippled through my chest. Embarrassment I didn’t even know was there. Hatred for the girl I had let myself become—then and now. It encompassed me like a bath of hot water.

  Bitsy released me, reached into her purse, and extracted a tissue. “Maybe you did hide from the truth. Maybe you did the best you could to survive really difficult things. But maybe it’s time to face the things you’re running from now.”

  My mind blanked, unable to register what I could possibly be running away from. Weight gain, of course. But that seemed far too obvious. A strange, heavy veil of darkness seemed to draw across my eyes, preventing me from really seeing. Maybe I was running.

  Maybe.

  I mopped my face with the tissue. “What am I running from?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

  “H-how do I figure it out?”

  A haunted expression rested on her face. She swallowed hard. “You confront the darkness. See what it hides.”

  “That sounds like a line from a horror movie.”

  She laughed. “Sometimes it feels like it.”

  Her amusement quickly sobered.

  “Have you done that?” I whispered.

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  She pulled in a deep breath, her shoulders rising and falling with the motion. “For me, it was a matter of finding professional help.”

  “Janine.”

  “Yeah. Janine.”

  “What did she do?”

  “She asked me the questions that no one else would. She helped me find the dark spots that I tried not to see.”

  “Oh.”

  “Going to therapy was hard. One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. It was also the most liberating. I’ve never regretted it, though at the time it wasn’t easy.”

  For a moment, I was lost in my own thoughts. They spun back to the day I’d realized I had to change. The dark night that had preceded it. The self-hatred. The fear I had of myself and the lengths I would go to get attention. Could I revisit a time when I felt no hope, no light, no path to redemption?

  “What if I just leave it in the past?” I asked. “It belongs there.”

  “That’s what you’ve been doing. Can you continue like this? Can you continue to hate who you used to be? To stuff it away and live in fear? If you hate who you were then, you will never love who you are now.”

  The tears brimmed again. “No.”

  “You could ignore it. But you’d live a half life. You’d be running and not know it.” Her gaze met mine. “Like your mom.”

  “I’m not brave enough.”

  “You are what you have to be.”

  A long moment passed. Bitsy shifted the car back into drive, pulled away from the curb, and gently accelerated. I gazed on the trees as they whizzed by in fluffy shades of emerald and tucked an errant piece of hair behind my ear. I knew what I had to do, but I didn’t want to do it. Didn’t want to open the door and step through into something so vast. So dark. An encompassing, terrifying world I wasn’t sure I could make it through.

  Another tear trickled down my face.

  “Will you take me back to Janine?”

  Bitsy reached over and clasped her hand in mine. “Of course, Rachelle. Of course.”

  “Rachelle, it’s so good to see you again.”

  Janine warmly clasped my hand two days later, a genuine smile on her face. There were no signs of gloating, just concern. Maybe some relief that I’d come back. Although Bitsy told me not to, I still felt sheepish. This time, I managed a struggling smile in return.

  “Thanks.”

  “Come on back.”

  Bitsy waved as I followed Janine, my booted ankle swinging as I navigated the crutches like a pro. Janine wore a plum blazer with a cream button-up shirt and modest pumps. A blast of air conditioning blew across my face when I entered her office. She gestured to the couch.

  “Have a seat.”

  After I situated myself, she glanced at my foot.

  “So,” she drawled. “I normally use my intake paperwork to give me an idea of where to start, but I think it’s clear what we should talk about today. The paperwork can come later.”

  “Okay.”

  “Bitsy told me about the weight. Yikes. Your poor foot. Would you like to talk about what happened?”

  A hidden implication lingered in her words, but I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it or not. Of course, I wasn’t supposed to be lifting weights then. But how could she know that?

  “Not really, but I will. I mean, I should. That’s why I’m here, right? Should I just … ah … “

  She smiled in that warm way again. “Go for it.”

  “Okay. Well … basically, I missed working out and accidentally dropped the weight on my foot.”

  She sucked in a sharp breath. “Ouch. Were you supposed to be working out so soon after an injury?”

  “I wasn’t using my legs. Just my arms.”

  She opened her mouth to respond but paused. Even I heard the defensive note in my tone. A hesitant beat lingered in the air before I let out a long breath.

  “No,” I finally said. “I wasn’t.”

  “What drove you to it, then?”

  I shoved my fingers under my thighs. How honest was I supposed to be? How honest did I want to be? The thought of skirting around the real answer occurred to me, but I shoved it aside. Not here. This time, I had to take it seriously. If I was going to be here, I would be here.

  “Uh, well, I guess the reason technically started a year ago when I … when I danced drunk on a table while singing karaoke. The table, uh, broke beneath me. It was so embarrassing. The next day, I resolved to lose weight.” I lifted my hands. “Here I am, 110 pounds lighter.”

  Her brow furrowed. “What was it about that particular instant that motivated you to such a big life change?”

  “Oh.” My voice shrank. “The guy I liked was there. Everyone laughed at me. It was the single most humiliating moment of my life.”

  “Ah. So you were embarrassed about what happened and felt that you could avoid it again by losing weight?”

  “Extremely embarrassed. If I hadn’t been so fat, I wouldn’t have broken that table. If I hadn’t been fat, I wouldn’t have felt like I had to do something outrageous to impress Chris.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  Her question stopped me. What thin woman broke a table by dancing on it?

  “Um, I was until you asked me.”

  Janine leaned forward and quirked her lips, as if stymied by something. “When you think of that memory, how does your body feel?”

&nb
sp; “My body?”

  “Do you feel a heaviness in your chest? Does it make you sick to your stomach? Are you lightheaded?”

  Several seconds passed while I tried to figure out the question. I’d never thought about how my body felt. My mind pretty much controlled my emotions … or so I thought. “It feels like … I’m not sure. But my heart feels … heavy, I guess? Can that happen?”

  She nodded. “And what would you call that feeling?”

  “Disgust.”

  “At what?”

  “Myself.”

  “Because you broke the table?”

  “Because I acted like an idiot. It’s bad enough I broke the table, but to kick the bouncer? To sing karaoke at the top of my lungs? To throw napkin dispensers and vomit everywhere? That’s pretty embarrassing.”

  “I hear that disgust in your voice. I hear resentment, too.”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  “Why?”

  Something deep in my chest itched and wiggled like a worm. For half a breath, I almost left the office again. It would be so easy to pick up the crutches and bolt.

  But to what?

  With a sigh, I said, “I guess I’m disgusted because I was up on a table, totally smashed, hoping to impress this guy. Really, I was … I was desperate.”

  “You felt that dancing on a table would impress him?”

  “Er … no? I mean, I was drunk at the time, so it’s hard to know what my thoughts were.”

  “You’d be surprised. Alcohol lowers inhibitions. Sometimes the truth comes out when that happens.”

  My mind flashed back to that night—what I could recall through the haze, anyway. There had been other women there. Sequined tank tops. Thin shoulders. Confident smiles. Everything I wasn’t.

  “I … I wanted him to see me. Not the other girls that were there. Just me.”

  “Was he looking around?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “So you acted out?”

  “Yes.”

  My mind spun with relief to the next morning. I had woken up in my hotel room on the bathroom floor. My shirt was halfway up my stomach, and pieces of hair were pasted to my face with vomit. I’d stood in front of the mirror and stared at myself for what felt like hours. My skin was pale, anemic under those lights. My eyes drawn. Everything moved slowly, like through water. When I finally left the bathroom, Chris was nowhere in sight. He’d left a note on the table, but I had crumbled it up and flushed it, too frightened to read it.