by Jo Ramsey
“Holly.” She walked over to me. “This is what I mean. This isn’t how you usually act.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I’m sick of being nice.” I zipped my coat. “See you.”
I almost hoped I wouldn’t see her again, if she was going to be this way. I thought she and I loved each other, or at least liked each other a lot, but clearly I’d been an idiot. I opened the door and walked out. She didn’t try to stop me.
It was snowing harder than before, and the wet flakes and cold air cooled down my temper pretty fast. I thought about calling Chastaine to apologize, but I couldn’t come up with anything to apologize for. Maybe I’d been a little pissy during the meeting, but that didn’t give her the right to call me a bitch. She was the one who should apologize.
My headache started up again, and I felt dizzy as I walked. That only made me walk faster, because I wanted to get home before something stupid happened. I wasn’t going to pass out, but it would have been just my luck to slip on a patch of ice or trip over something.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. I ignored it. If it was Chastaine, I didn’t want to talk to her yet. If it was anyone else, I probably didn’t want to talk to them either.
Even though the walk from Chastaine’s house to mine didn’t take long, it was long enough for my headache to get so bad I felt sick to my stomach. I stumbled into my house, closed the door, and collapsed onto the couch with my jacket and boots still on. I didn’t have the energy to take them off, and I didn’t care if I got snow on the floor and couch.
The next thing I knew, Mom was shaking me. “Holly. Wake up.”
She sounded scared, which didn’t make sense. I’d fallen asleep. I didn’t remember it happening, but why else would it suddenly be time for her to get home from work?
“What?” I opened my eyes.
“When was the last time you had anything to eat?” She sat on the very edge of the couch and touched my forehead. “You’re cold.”
“Duh. You and Dad keep the temperature in here at fridge level.” I sat up. The room spun, and I tried not to let Mom see how dizzy I was. “I had something at Chastaine’s earlier.”
“What did you have, and how long ago was earlier?” She took a deep breath. “It took a minute or two for you to wake up. I was worried. And you look sick.”
“I’m fine.”
“I don’t think you are.” She studied me.
I rolled my eyes. It was bad enough she was acting like I was dying. Now she was pretty much calling me a liar and staring at me like some weird kind of bug or something.
“It doesn’t matter what you think,” I said. “You aren’t me. I know how I feel, and I’m fine.”
“You’re being rude.” She stood. “You didn’t answer my question. What did you eat at Chastaine’s and how long ago?”
“An apple.” It wasn’t completely untrue. The bottle of apple juice in Chastaine’s fridge was labeled “100% juice,” which meant it was made out of real apples. “Around noon.”
That wasn’t exactly a lie either. I’d had the juice before the meeting, which meant it had actually been quite a bit before noon, but it was close enough.
“It’s five o’clock. You haven’t eaten anything since then?”
“It’s five?” Of course it was. She wouldn’t have been home any earlier.
That meant it had been over six hours since I’d had the juice. Even though I’d gone longer than that without food before, it didn’t seem like such a good idea now. My head still hurt, and I’d scared Mom the same way I’d scared Chastaine. I was pretty sure both those things had to do with lack of food.
“Come into the kitchen,” Mom said. “You need to eat something, Holly. This is getting ridiculous. Maybe we should talk to your doctor.”
“I’m eating.” I got up. The room spun, and I had to grab the back of the couch so I wouldn’t fall over.
“Not enough.” Mom took my arm. “Do you need to go to the emergency room?”
“No. Probably eating will take care of it.” I would have to choke down something so Mom would give me a break. I could handle that. I wouldn’t have to eat a lot, and then I could wait until the next morning to have anything else.
She kept hold of my arm while we went into the kitchen, and she waited for me to sit at the table before she went to the fridge. “You should have some protein. That will help, I think.” She turned around and held up a package of hamburger. “Burgers?”
“I guess.” At least it was lean hamburger. And I wouldn’t have to put it on a bun. That would keep the calories down.
Mom put a frying pan on the stove and turned on the burner. Our stove took forever to heat up, and if we started cooking before the pan was hot, we ended up with food that was burned on the outside and barely even cooked on the inside.
While we waited for the burner and pan to be ready, Mom sat across from me at the table. “What is going on? I don’t think you gave us straight answers this morning. You started spending time with Chastaine, and you stopped eating. Is she encouraging you to lose weight?”
“No. She likes me the way I am.” I stopped myself before I told Mom too much about my relationship with Chastaine. My parents assumed I was heterosexual. This was definitely not the right time to smash that illusion.
“Then why are you doing this?”
“I want to look good.” I paused. My parents had always taught me looks weren’t the most important thing, and I didn’t want to get into a debate about it with Mom right then. “I want to feel good. I’m not happy when I look in the mirror, and I’m not exactly in shape. That’s all.”
“Losing weight involves eating properly and exercising, not giving up eating entirely.” Mom sighed. “You look fine, honey. Especially now. You have lost weight. Do you even know how much?”
“About fifteen pounds.”
“That’s about what I would have guessed. Anyone who looks at you can tell.”
“Anyone except me.” I bit my lip. There wasn’t any use in arguing with Mom about how I looked or how much weight I’d lost or should lose. She was the parent. She always won the arguments.
“Maybe you ought to take a closer look,” she said. “Holly, the way you looked when you woke up just now—not to mention me not being able to wake you at first—isn’t okay. Those are signs that you’re doing some damage to yourself, and that concerns me. Like your dad said this morning, if you want to lose weight, we’ll help you find out how to do it in a healthy way. What you’re doing right now isn’t healthy.”
“Are you going to lecture me all night or cook the hamburgers?” I couldn’t believe she was going over the same crap as that morning. It wasn’t helping. All she was doing was making me more determined to stick to my plan. Fifteen pounds wasn’t enough. I had to lose at least another ten. After that, maybe I would let my parents and doctor tell me what to do about maintaining my weight or losing more, but not until I’d lost the amount I wanted to.
“Be respectful,” she said. “I don’t mean to lecture you, Holly, but we are worried, and I don’t think you understand that. I don’t think you understand why there’s anything to worry about.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I don’t. Okay, so today I’m not looking well. It’s one day, and there’s probably something going around. There always is at this time of year. So maybe I have the flu, not starvation.”
“I’m going to stop now.” She got up. “I can see you don’t want to hear any more, so there’s no point in saying anything else. I’m going to make hamburgers, and I want you to eat at least one.”
“I’m only going to eat one,” I said. “Without a bun.”
“Fine. It’s food.”
She turned to the stove and started making patties out of the hamburger. She dropped the patties into the pan and just stood there, not looking at me. Her shoulders were shaking a little, like she was crying, but she didn’t have any reason to be upset enough to cry. She and I didn’t always get along, but she never cried when we argued.
When the burgers were ready, she put one on one of our smallest plates and set the plate in front of me. Without saying anything to her, I got up and took a fork out of the silverware drawer.
She put her hamburger on a bun, with plenty of ketchup and mustard and a slice of cheese, and sat down again. Neither of us spoke, but she watched me the entire time I ate.
I choked down the entire hamburger, because with Mom staring at me I didn’t have much choice. It tasted okay, but I really wished I could have stopped after a few bites. The rest of it just sat in my stomach like a boulder.
I thought about throwing it up when Mom wasn’t paying attention, but I’d always hated puking. Besides, I wasn’t one of the girls who went around sticking her finger down her throat. I was only trying to lose weight, not hurt myself.
“Thank you,” Mom said when I finished the burger. She’d finished hers a few minutes before but had stayed at the table to supervise me.
“You’re welcome.” I wasn’t sure what else to say.
“You look better,” she said. “Not as pale or tired.”
I doubted food would have had any effect so fast, but it wasn’t worth disputing. She would have gotten on my case about being disrespectful again. “That’s good.”
“Yeah.” She looked as if she didn’t know what else to say either.
Fortunately, after that she let me go to my room. I turned on music and opened my laptop so I could randomly go to blogs and websites. I didn’t have any plan in mind. I just didn’t want to be out in the living room watching TV with Mom or waiting for Dad to get home or whatever.
Even if I didn’t look as tired, I still felt exhausted. After a little while, the letters on the screen started blurring. I lay down and closed my eyes. And then it was morning.
Chapter 5
I DIDN’T hear from Chastaine all weekend. It was a pretty strong sign she didn’t want to talk to me, because it wouldn’t have been exactly difficult for her to get in touch. Aside from my phone number, she could have instant messaged me or posted on any of the four or five social media accounts I had. But she didn’t, and I didn’t care enough to try to get in touch with her.
Monday morning, I didn’t want to get out of bed, but I didn’t have much choice. It was the first day back to school after break. I kind of had to be there.
I wanted to put on a comfortable, soft, old blue sweater I’d found during one of my thrift shopping trips with Evan, but I couldn’t find it. Evan better not have gotten rid of it. He knew how much I loved that sweater. But it wasn’t in my closet or bureau, so it clearly hadn’t survived the great clean out.
I put on a less warm, less comfortable sweater my grandmother had given me for my birthday, along with one of the pairs of jeans Chastaine had decided I looked good in. I almost didn’t wear them, because if she was going to be a bitch, I didn’t really want anything of hers. But I liked the way the jeans fit, and at least they were warm.
Usually I made sure to see my parents before they left for work, but today I didn’t bother. They’d hovered over me all weekend, interrogating me about what I ate and giving me all the food I usually liked but had stopped eating because it was way too fattening. I’d taken nibbles of it here and there to make them happy, but this morning, with my gut bloated and my stomach rolling, I regretted it. And I hated them for making me break my diet, so the last thing I wanted to do when I was facing a day of school was deal with them trying to shove breakfast down my throat.
As soon as I was sure they’d left, I went down to the kitchen and drank about a quarter of a cup of orange juice, so if anyone asked, I could say I’d had something before I left the house. Then I made sure all my homework was done, because why wouldn’t the teachers assign homework over vacation, and headed to the donut shop to meet Evan and the others.
When I got there, Chastaine was in the booth with Evan and Guillermo. I should have figured she would be. Her old friends didn’t want anything to do with her anymore, so she’d latched on to my friends instead.
I ignored her and sat at the booth behind Evan and Guillermo, sideways so I could look at them when I talked. “Good morning.”
“Good morning on a Monday is an oxymoron,” Evan said. He looked at me over his shoulder. “You do realize there’s a seat for you over here.”
“I saw there’s an empty seat.”
“Holly, come on,” Chastaine said. “I’m not mad anymore, and I hope you aren’t either. I want to talk to you.”
I didn’t have a word to say to her, but picking a fight in the middle of the shop wouldn’t have helped anything. All three of them were looking at me now, and other people from school were coming in, so I moved to shut them up.
“I’m sorry for fighting with you Friday,” Chastaine said.
That surprised me. On Friday she’d made it sound like I was the bitch and she hadn’t done anything wrong, because of course Chastaine Rollo was perfect. I’d figured she would try to make me apologize, not do it herself.
My anger kind of flowed away. Not totally, but at least I didn’t hate sitting next to her. “Thanks. I’m sorry too.” I didn’t know what I was sorry for, but it seemed like the right thing to say.
“Okay.” She smiled. “I don’t know why you were acting that way, but it’s in the past, and we have enough crap to deal with when it’s the Monday after vacation. How was your weekend?”
I shrugged. “I just kind of sat around.”
“Same here.”
“Wow, we’re a bunch of wicked exciting folks,” Evan said. “We should rest up from all that resting. I vote we call in sick to school.”
“Good luck with that,” Guillermo said.
Over the next few minutes, Nathan, Stephanie, and Julia joined us, the way they did every morning, even though Stephanie and I didn’t really speak anymore since I’d become friends with Chastaine. Nathan didn’t look happy to see me sitting beside Chastaine, which didn’t make any sense to me. She and I always sat together. He’d never acted like it bothered him before.
He and the girls sat in the booth behind Evan. Nathan was facing me, and he kept looking at me, which got on my nerves. If he had something to say, he could just say it instead of being creepy.
When it was time to leave for school, he got between me and the door. “I need to talk to you.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s Monday morning and I’m not awake yet. Why is everyone trying to talk to me?”
“This is important.” He glanced at Chastaine, who was standing beside the door waiting for me. “A couple of the drama kids told me there’s something going on between you and Chastaine. They think you’re a lesbian and you’re cheating on me.”
“Duh. I am a lesbian. And you know damn well I’m not cheating.” I’d told him I wasn’t straight right up front, the first time he’d asked me out. It hadn’t bothered him, because he was gay and only asked me on a date to try to hide it. We’d kept up the act ever since. And he knew exactly what was going on between Chastaine and me and had said he was okay with it as long as it didn’t interfere with me pretending to be his girlfriend.
“But no one’s supposed to know it!” He ran his hand through his hair and lowered his voice. “They think Chastaine’s your girlfriend. They’re going to be on your case about it.”
“That’s their problem, not mine.” The sinking feeling in my gut said otherwise, but I tried to ignore it. People at our school would talk about almost anyone, and it was probably just my turn.
“It’s our problem.”
“If you say so. I don’t see how them giving me a hard time about my sexuality is going to affect you. We’re going to be late.” I looked at Chastaine, who was standing there watching us talk. I really wished she would say something so Nathan would back off.
“It’s going to affect me because if my girlfriend is dating another girl, they’re going to start wondering about me,” he said. “And now I have to find someone else to say they’re my girlfriend. You and she were supposed to
keep things quiet, not be around each other all the time.”
“We have been.” I narrowed my eyes. “Friends hang out together. I don’t have to spend every second with my make-believe boyfriend and ignore my friends. Get over yourself, Nathan. If anyone gives you a hard time about me, that’s them being idiots. Don’t be one yourself. We’re going to be late.”
I didn’t give him a chance to say anything, just pushed past him and walked out of the shop. Chastaine followed me, but she must have noticed I wasn’t in the mood to talk, because she didn’t say a word the whole way to school.
I didn’t know what to think. So far, no one had guessed anything about Nathan or me. At least, if they had, they’d kept it to themselves. I didn’t know who in the drama club was talking behind my back or why they’d decided to start now, but I was kind of pissed about it.
No one said anything to me at school, though. I didn’t even see anyone looking at me funny in the halls or hear my name whispered in any of the groups I walked past between classes. If anyone had said anything to Nathan, they weren’t sharing it with me. Maybe Nathan was lying because he was jealous of Chastaine. Even though he wasn’t into me as anything more than a friend, that didn’t mean he liked me spending more time with her than with him.
By lunchtime, I’d relaxed. I went through the food line, because the teachers who monitored the cafeteria would have gotten on my case otherwise, and bought an apple and a bottle of water. I was kind of hungry, but I definitely wasn’t going to eat much. Just enough so I wouldn’t freak anyone out like I’d done to Mom on Friday. I really needed to watch what I ate so I could cancel out the calories from over the weekend.
I sat with Chastaine and my other friends. Chastaine and Evan gave me weird looks when I picked up my apple, but neither of them said anything. That was good. I’d had a decent day, and I really didn’t want to get into an argument with anyone about my eating.
Tracie and El-Al joined us instead of sitting at the popular kids’ table. It wasn’t as surprising as it could have been. Since Eleanor Alice and Chastaine had patched up their friendship, sometimes Eleanor Alice sat with us. I figured Tracie was only there because Eleanor Alice was.
