Bon Bons to Yoga Pants

Chapter 15-No Freebies

"Thanks a lot, jerk!" I yelled, barely restraining the passive aggressive impulse to lay on the horn when a car cut me off. "You just made my day a lot more peachy!"

Settling for annoyed ranting instead of flipping the bird, I slowed down and forced myself to take a deep breath. To say it had been a long day would have given the misery no justice. The high of losing five pounds during the second Health and Happiness Society meeting the night before faded as soon as I woke up an hour and a half late. Mira had gone to the gym without me—although she still sent eight very angry text messages summarized in the words: Don't fall off the bandwagon now that you've lost weight!

I had scrambled as fast as I could, but still showed up late to my first class with my shirt on backwards. My eyes flipped to the papers I'd hurled onto the passenger seat, first catching the big red D scrawled across the top. The words inability to meet objectives came beneath.

"My worst grade ever," I whispered, shaking my head. I'd never scored below a C on a test in my life! Not even when I took Statistics, the most unholy course in all of humankind. My stomach growled in blatant reminder that it hadn't been fed it because I had to skip breakfast. I'd forgotten my wallet at home, and Rachelle didn't have class today, so I couldn't even raid a vending machine or borrow money.

The sign for Donut World popped into my line of vision on the road ahead. My eyes glazed over and I sucked in a deep breath. What aches doesn't a cream-filled donut heal?

None. Except maybe obesity, but in my frantic mind, I didn't care.

"Yep," I said. "This is going to happen."

The tires of my car squealed when I hooked a hard right and turned into the parking lot. Pushing aside my sense of self pride with deliberate force, I dove into the nooks and crannies of my car, fishing for old change. Desperate for sugar, for the amnesia of emotions it always gave, I rooted around until I found a dollar in crusty change and threw myself inside the store. My food conscience silenced easier than I thought.

"It's just one donut," I told myself, standing in line behind a woman with a bright blue bouffant. "Just one. This won't kill the diet. Besides, I didn't eat lunch . . . or breakfast. This will be lunch. And breakfast. Besides, I just lost five pounds. I've earned this donut. I won't gain five pounds from a donut."

The strings of rationalizations ran through my head until I stepped to the counter. My eyes fell on a sign illuminated from holy light streaming from the heavens. Or a flickering fluorescent blub just above, but whatever.

Two for One.

So the universe didn't really hate me today.

I slammed my money on the counter. "Two chocolate cream-filled. Make sure they're really filled, you know?"

The guy behind the counter gazed at me with an expression that said he recognized not only me—this certainly wasn't my first time coming here after a bad day—but the look in my eyes. He nodded.

"Got it," he said in a voice filled with understanding. With a tissue paper, he carefully selected the two most plump, shining donuts in the case. My mouth watered.

"Keep the change," I said when he handed me the brown bag, already spotting on the bottom from grease, and flew out of the store without another word. Relieved to get the sugary sweetness in my body, and more relieved to forget my bad day, I climbed in the car, turned up the radio to drown out my inner Bitsy, and bit into the first donut.

Forgetting my health came naturally once I tasted the sweet, sweet chocolate. I melted into the pastry, relieved to find happiness somewhere.

Despite, or because of, my hunger, I didn't really take the time to enjoy them. Before I'd even finished the first donut, I had the second in hand. Then they were gone, and I glanced in the bag, hopeful the employee had done me a solid by giving me a freebie.