You'll Never Know

by Katie Cross

  Something I’d always regretted.

  I looked down at my hands, which I’d clenched together. One stiff finger at a time, I loosened them.

  “I promised myself I’d never be that Rachelle again,” I said quietly. “So I haven’t been. The other day, I wanted to work out to make sure that I don’t gain weight. That I’ll never go back.”

  “You want to be the opposite of what you were?”

  “Yes. I want to be thin. Confident. Not loud and obnoxious and opinionated. I thought it would finally make me feel happy.”

  “Are you happy?”

  A long stretch of silence stretched between us, filled with a striking chill. My heart skipped a beat.

  “No.”

  Janine let the quiet ride, and it sank all the way into my soul. When she spoke again, her voice was quiet.

  “We create roles for ourselves throughout our whole lives, Rachelle. College student. Best friend. Mother. Daughter. Marathoner. Therapist. There are countless roles and countless ways to place them. The problem with roles is that they aren’t really who we are. We sink into a role and allow it to define us, but roles aren’t solid.” She slid her hand back and forth, mimicking a shifting ground. “They move. If we base our self-worth on impermanent things, what happens?”

  “It falls?”

  “Precisely. At one point, you had an identity of being overweight. Correct?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “Now you’ve rejected that and made it about another thing: the marathon. What happened?”

  My voice was hoarse when I whispered, “It’s … gone.”

  Compassion filled her face when she nodded. “Yes. For now, the marathon will have to be put off. When the roles that define us crumble, what are we left with?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She leaned back in her chair. “The first time I met you, I asked you who you were.”

  “It’s haunted me.”

  “I’m not surprised. I’m going to ask you again, but not today. I’m going to give you homework. This week, take away all your previous roles. Strip them away. Take away weight. Take away jean size. Take away family situations or college degrees or the hours you spend at the gym or what you like to do for fun. Think about who you are without them.”

  The idea of stripping it away made me think of all the plus-sized costumes I’d left hanging in my closet. Sadness had always overwhelmed me whenever I stepped out of them, as if I’d left a piece of myself behind. Embracing the person I could be in that costume instead of the person I was had been empowering. Left without the layers, who was I?

  A deep chasm seemed to stretch out before me, into the beyond. Into my soul. Into the layers of my heart that drummed a painful song. Perhaps my problems were deeper than I had ever imagined.

  “Can you do that?” Janine asked, peering at me with an inquisitive gaze. “Can you think about who you are without roles?”

  I nodded.

  Janine lifted one side of her lips in a half smile. “You can. I know you can. There’s no right or wrong answer, either. I want to know who you see without outside limits.”

  “All right.”

  “I know it feels overwhelming right now, but there is hope. You can find clarity and peace, but only if you show up. Only if you want it. Do you want it, Rachelle?”

  The answer came from a warm, desperate spot deep inside my belly. “Yes.”

  She smiled. “Good. Then I’ll see you next week.”

  Chapter 6

  Roles

  That night after talking to Janine, I lay on my bed and watched the shadows deepen in my room. My ankle hovered above me on five pillows. Light from the television flickered underneath my doorway every few seconds. Outside, a mat of slate clouds had drifted in, drizzling rain against the window. Every now and then, a distant ripple of thunder boomed.

  Unable to stand it, I pulled my leg off the pillows and sat on the edge of the bed. Fabric spilled out of my closet in gobs, either sparkling, shimmering, or blending in with the growing darkness. The old costumes were a siren song. I stood on my left foot, held onto the side of the closet, and reached out. Velvet, sequins, and tulle trickled past my fingertips.

  A wedding dress.

  A medieval peasant’s garb.

  A sequined evening gown. Bright red. It had fallen in layers around my body when I wore it. If I were to try it on tonight, it would be a robe that drowned me.

  Bride, I thought, my gaze trailing past the wedding dress. Peasant from a different time. A beautiful woman on the Vegas strip. Tavern wench. Rainbow Bright. Princess.

  So many costumes. So many … roles. I’d switched in and out of them like a crazy person, as if I couldn’t stand my own life. Were costumes roles, too? Or were they just whimsical dreams of something I couldn’t have?

  When I settled back into my bed, I tried not to think about the scrapbook lying underneath me, chock full of photos, memories, and drawings of a simpler time. Surely those photographs would betray my roles. Or, more frightening, maybe I’d see what I was without them.

  Rachelle as the overweight, plucky kid.

  Rachelle as the bold and overbearing teenager who pretended to have no fear.

  Rachelle when she was happy.

  Unable to stop myself, I reached down, grabbed the edge of the binder, and pulled it out. For a long time, I stared at the cover, running the pad of my thumb over the construction paper. The tissue paper flowers we’d glued onto the front crinkled, stained yellow and ripped from years of childhood love. I caressed the pipe cleaners. The gritty glitter.

  Two pictures tumbled out from the sides. I pulled them out by the corners. A toothy, chubby girl stared back at me from the top picture, clad in a pink tutu, with thick calves that spilled over her feet. Ice cream smeared her cheeks and ran down her knuckles. Me. Little Rachelle. I’d hated dance lessons. Not only the comments from the other girls about my chubby legs, but the lonely recitals—because Mom never came. I kept with it, though. I wanted to prove I could do anything the skinny girls did.

  Stubborn, I thought. Was that a role or a trait?

  I stroked the side of Little Rachelle’s face with my fingertip, then shuffled to the other picture. It was taken two years ago, at my heaviest. I’d stuffed myself into a cosplay costume like a summer sausage. The same hefty feeling of disgust weighted my chest down. My hands burned just touching the photo, where I was smiling. I shoved the pictures back into the photo album, then stuffed the binder as far under the bed as it would go, closed my eyes, and fell into a restless sleep.

  Over the past two years, the meetings of the Health and Happiness Society had morphed from a weight-loss accountability group—and the first thing to get me really started on the path to health—to a fitness accountability group, then a mostly health- and happiness-oriented one where we updated each other about our lives. Even at the height of my weight loss, Bitsy had refused to do weekly weigh-ins, though she’d never explained why.

  When Bitsy perched her laptop on the coffee table across from me, I felt a warm tingle of anticipation. These were my people. My tribe. After all the horrible things that had happened, I just wanted to talk to them.

  Seconds later, Megan’s face popped into view. She wore a white headband, her dark hair pulled back into her usual braid, and a tank top. Sweat glistened across her forehead. She grinned as she slipped earbuds in.

  “Sorry,” she said, slightly breathless. “Just finished beating Justin in a trail run down the mountain.”

  A voice from off camera protested. Loudly. She laughed. A landscape of trees decorated the background behind her. From the bright light, it was obvious she sat outside somewhere, at her brother’s summer camp Adventura, where she worked every summer as a nurse.

  Another face popped up onto the screen next. Lexie. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a messy bun. She was rubbing her eyes, smearing her mascara with a grimace. What appeared to be a cupcake dropped off the screen suddenly.

  “Wha
t was that?” Megan asked, leaning forward. “Looks delicious.”

  “Nothing!” Lexie cried. She licked her lips, where I swore a dab of frosting had just been sitting. “Just … it’s been a bad day, all right! And double yikes. I look like I just woke up.”

  “Did you?” Bitsy asked.

  “No, Mom,” Lexie drawled. “But I did just finish a really gnarly test that took me hours. And a really long Zumba class. Let’s not talk about it.”

  She ducked out of sight for a moment, no doubt to eat the rest of the cupcake. Bitsy rolled her eyes, and Megan laughed.

  When Lexie reappeared, her mouth was full. She grinned with closed lips. Bitsy settled herself next to me on the couch.

  “Mira is in Chicago this week with her brother,” she said. “And we’re right on time, as usual. It’s just the four of us for now. Let’s get started.” Bitsy turned to me, her determination and verve burning hot as ever. “Rachelle, how was your week?”

  Did I imagine the cord of intensity that ran through her question? She’d raised her eyebrows in expectation. Did she expect me to spill everything to them? My brow furrowed. Not that I minded. If there were any girls I could tell, it was them. Still … now that the moment was here, how was I supposed to summarize everything that had happened?

  “Uh … busy?”

  “Mira says you’ve been a lifesaver at the bakery,” Bitsy said. “Said it’s like you were born to be at the Frosting Cottage.”

  A knot formed in my chest. Born to be in a house of sugar and sweets? The hair on the back of my neck stood up at the thought.

  “The world knows I was born to be there,” Lexie muttered. Megan chortled, contorting into a pretzel stretch that I’d kill to be able to do right then.

  “Bitsy told us about the job last week,” Megan said. “Congrats. Seems like a fun time. How are you liking it?”

  “It’s not so bad, to be honest. But that’s not really what I want to talk about. All of you heard I started counseling?”

  Bitsy’s eyes widened, like she hadn’t wanted to bring it up. Lexie gasped. Megan dropped her stretch.

  “What?” Lexie and Megan asked at the same time.

  A smile twitched on Bitsy’s lips. She cleared her throat and leaned back, gesturing for me to take the floor. I leaned closer to the computer screen and licked my lips.

  “Let’s get into all of that later. First, I need some help figuring something out, so I’m going to ask you a question.”

  “Therapy by Rachelle!” Lexie cried. “Bring. It. On.”

  “If you lost everything you had right now, who would you be?”

  Megan’s brow furrowed. Lexie’s eyes widened. “Everything?” Lexie whispered.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Like, what if you weren’t a nurse anymore, Megan? Or Lexie, what if you weren’t married to Bradley?”

  “I’d die!” Lexie squeaked.

  Bitsy’s smile became a knowing grin. “Ah,” she whispered. “Janine is talking to you about roles.”

  “My therapist…” The words fell off my lips like burned cookies. It felt so awkward to say that. “… she wants me to imagine who I would be without all the roles I have. Like runner. Marathoner. Cupcake froster. Whatever.”

  A long silence prevailed—a telling testament. Megan’s brow formed deep grooves. “You know? I don’t know,” she murmured. “I guess I’d still be myself. I’d still be a nurse, right?”

  “But that’s a role,” I said.

  “Yeah, but it’s also a title. Are they the same things, then?”

  I threw my hands in the air. “I have no idea.”

  “The idea,” Bitsy said, “is to stop identifying yourself with what you do or what you have. All of that could change. You’re supposed to burrow past that and figure out what makes you … you.”

  “And doesn’t change,” I muttered with a glance at my leg.

  Bitsy nodded. “Right. So if you take that away, who are you?”

  “Grief,” Lexie muttered. “That’s freaking deep. I’d love to peel away fifteen pounds. Is that the same thing?”

  “No,” I said, chuckling. “But I wish.”

  Megan tilted her head and stared into the distance, lost in thought. For a long stretch of time, no one spoke. Their silence was validating. It wasn’t just me, then. At least I had that.

  Bitsy grinned. “Confusing, isn’t it?”

  “If you’ve done it, you must have figured it out!” I said. “Help me, will you? I have no idea how to define myself without … roles or accomplishments or whatever.”

  “To be honest, I’d forgotten about working through this with Janine. I’d also forgotten how long it took me to work out.”

  “So you know the answer?”

  “I know the answer for me. But that doesn’t mean it will be the same for you.”

  “Tell me!”

  Bitsy opened her mouth, then closed it. She shook her head. “No.”

  “What?” I snapped.

  “No. It’s good for you to have to figure it out.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  She seemed nonplussed in the face of my righteous indignation, and I realized there was nothing righteous about it. In fact … she was right. Whatever answer Bitsy had come around to, it wouldn’t be the same as mine. At least Lexie still seemed puzzled.

  “I don’t know,” Megan said, blinking. “Honestly. I can’t think of a single thing or person that isn’t defined by at least one role. Bitsy, you’re a mama. An exerciser. A woman of power. Are those roles, too?”

  “I’m a Little Debbie addict,” Lexie said.

  “Another identity that defines us.” Bitsy’s gaze met mine. “Just like being overweight, or a marathoner, or a food addict.”

  “But how can you just take those away? You can’t. They’re still definitive.” I growled. “What’s left? Emotions? Memories? Thoughts?”

  “You.”

  Something bright in her gaze forced me to look away. I couldn’t even face it. My life spun backward to the times when I had been happy with Lexie. When we had laughed and giggled over vats of caramel popcorn drizzled with chocolate, and tried to fantasize what it would be like to have Gerard Butler sweep us off our feet.

  Being fat had been my identity.

  “I was happy when I was defined by being fat,” I said. The words spilled out of my mouth unexpectedly. Bitsy’s eyebrows rose.

  “What do you mean?”

  “When I was fat, I was happy. At least I … was happier than I am now. Than I have been since—”

  Since the night I messed up with Chris.

  Another stretch of silence fell between all four of us, leaving us to our thoughts. My mind sank even farther into this abyss. Was I happy because I was fat? No. Because there had been moments of deepest loathing. Moments I had forgotten until right then. Moments when I forced myself to look in the mirror and see what I had become. But those had been few. Far between. They hadn’t been every single day the way they were now. Sometimes every hour. Somewhere in losing weight, I’d started to think that shaming myself for the body I had would motivate me to something better.

  No, something thinner.

  “You were happier in some ways,” Bitsy said. “But that doesn’t mean you’re doomed now.”

  “You’ll figure it out, Rachelle,” Megan said.

  I didn’t tell them that I felt like I was knocking against a darkness that was impossible to see. That I still could barely fathom the idea of not running the marathon, of not being defined by such a big accomplishment.

  “Yeah,” I whispered. “I know.”

  “So, you like Janine then?” Lexie asked, a glass of sweating ice water in her hands. “Sounds like you trust her.”

  “She seems all right.”

  “You’ll keep going?” Bitsy asked. A hint of hope lingered in her voice, and I realized that they wanted me to get better almost more than I wanted to get better.

  “Yes. For now, I will. I fe
el like I’m just stumbling around in the darkness, but I guess that’s better than nothing.”

  “Maybe I should go see Janine,” Lexie said. “She could finally get me off Little Debbie snacks. Which I only have in moderation!”

  Bitsy grabbed her glass of unsweetened tea off the coffee table and clinked it against mine.

  “Here’s to the darkness.”

  Megan raised a water bottle. Lexie lifted her glass. We all air-clinked them through the screen.

  “And here’s to the light,” Lexie said.

  “So, Rachelle … what are your summer plans?”

  Sophia propped her hands on the edge of the metallic table in the prep area of the Frosting Cottage. Her black hair fell between her shoulder blades in two braids. She wore her usual white apron, which wrapped around her thin waist. Above it hovered a purple crystal on a silver chain.

  I glanced across the table at her. “Not much now that the marathon is off.”

  “No travel plans?”

  “Not really.”

  “Do you have a job after the summer?”

  “Not currently.”

  “College?”

  “I dropped out.”

  She nodded once, as if considering something. Then she stared at me. Hard. The moments seemed to span an eternity but really must have only been a few seconds. I blinked. Something hung in the air between us.

  “Ah, did you need—”

  “No!” She straightened up with a forced smile. “Nope. Sorry. Just waiting for a bridal consultation. How is the new tip coming along?”

  I glanced down. A tray of chocolate cupcakes awaited me, fanned by four bowls of frosting—bright teal, crimson, tiger-stripe orange, and butter yellow. For each color, I used a bag and a generous tip to deposit a large dollop that covered a quarter of the cupcakes’ top. I held onto a bag of the yellow frosting, which had a round tip instead of the open star I’d been using the last two days.

  “Good. I like the star tips.”