Salmonella

Chapter 3

🫧Three🫧

content warning: body shaming, bullying

"Barely... slept..."

"Still... left..."

"Wanna... today?"

My door cracks opens with a whiny creeeak, a stream of light hitting me painfully. I blink two bleary eyes, wishing I was still asleep. Wishing whatever the hell that happened yesterday was all a dream.

An orange head pokes in.

"Hey, wanna come shopping with us?"

"No." I bury my face in my pillow.

Gigi joins her in my doorway. "We're getting tops. Maybe you can find something that actually fits you."

"Nooo," I mumble into the pillow, wishing they would read the room and leave me alone for once. "Di'n't you jush go to a par'y? Why're you e'en up so ear'y?"

They laugh, swimming over and tearing the covers off me. I groan in protest and hug the pillow to me tightly like they're going to take that away next.

"It's the adrenaline," Gigi explains. "It's impossible to sleep after partying for so long. And then you have all this leftover energy that has to go somewhere." Their language is foreign to an antisocial homebody like me. "Plus, we didn't end up spending money yesterday, so we have a lot left over."

"Mmmh." I try to raise my head, but the effort is dizzying so I lower it back down.

"Come onnnn," Terra whines, tugging at my arm. "It's getting late. It's gonna get crowded, and then by the time we get there, all the good stuff will be bought out."

Tch. We have very different definitions of "late."

But knowing arguing with these two just isn't possible, I suck in a breath and raise myself from the pillow.

"Ugh... Fine!"

𓆟 𓆟 𓆟

"This one's good!" Terra grabs a hanger off the rack. "It's mesh, so it's sexy enough!" Gigi pops her head over Terra's shoulder to nod in agreement. Terra places the thin, almost translucent material in front of my chest around where it would go. I grimace down at the ugly piece of crappie.

"Uh, no. What even is this? There's nothing there, I might as well not wear anything!"

They gape at me.

"What do you mean?!" Terra screeches. "What do you think clothes are for? Looking sexyyyy!"

Hyperaware of the other customers staring at us, I flush madly, crossing my arms over my chest. "Guys, stop. You're being loud..."

"Well, you're being a little guppy." Terra takes one of my arms and Gigi takes the other and I let myself get dragged deeper into the store. I can feel everyone's eyes on me as we pass and stare seepishly at the floor.

"Alright." Terra lets go of me abruptly and I go diving into a wall. She grabs a messy pile of bra tops from Gigi, stuffs it into my arms, and shoves me past a curtain into one of the stuffy changing rooms. "Here. They're around our size, so they should fit. Have fun."

She whisks the curtain shut, leaving me floating alone in this shrinking room where the walls seem to close in on me. I gawk at the tiny figure in the glass: her wide, shaken eyes; the ugly orange kid's top that's riding up on her. Unlike Terra, I don't like orange, but the aunt who forced hand-me-downs on us several years ago insisted it was orange-pink. A salmon color. So I kept it. It's tiny, with short princess sleeves and a single pearl sewed to the center. Fake, of course. Not like the real pearls you find on expensive wedding rings. Pearls weren't always this valuable, actually; not until people were so greedy for them that clams almost went extinct and we were forced to take a lap back. Life always seems to work that way. What's abundant is for everyone, but what's limited is limited to the rich.