Model Skinnies

You press your stomach in and wait for it.

Nothing.

You stick your finger in your mouth and you touch the hanging ball.

Success.

You did a great job.

You go on the bus to get to school and your eyes focus on the Model Skinny girls sitting in the back of the bus with their popular boyfriends who admire their beauty. But it is not the attention or their boyfriends that you envy.

It is their bodies.

Their bodies and beauty have won them all of the friends, the teachers' love, and the many awards that they receive at every assembly, every year.

You do not and never have.

So, for now, you will sit in the second seat, on the left side of the bus, with your cheek pressed against the window. The laughter and chatter surrounds the whole bus and it makes you claustrophobic. It dangerously hovers around your heart like a lurking darkness.

Evil, maybe.

A girl in your grade, about your height, sits next to you. She’s one of them; the Model Skinnies. You stare down at her leg and compare it with yours: hers a stick while yours is covered in mounds of body fat. You hold back the tears and ignore the squeezing of your heart in your chest. Huh. What a shame. Guess you will be missing another meal at lunch again today.

Maybe for the rest of the week.

*****

This must have been a weird day for you. Sitting in those classes, writing everything down, yet, you focused on the growling of your stomach the entire time. You noticed that, in your Spanish class today, the Ebert Greenfield looked your way a couple of times. He even smiled and waved. In fact, he had been doing that for the past two weeks now. You could not decipher what this meant. It is not normal for star quarterbacks to like ugly, fat girls. Maybe it was because you had something on your face or he could not understand how someone could be so repulsive.

That had to be it.

So, for the rest of class, you kept your eyes to the front.

But then, what was really strange was, after the bell rang, he followed you out and began to talk to you. You both talked about school and some of your classmates.

Just a normal conversation.

You grew shy a bunch of times and stayed crimson-faced until you both entered the lunchroom. Then, your skin faded back into its original caramel complexion, but it was paler than usual.

“Laney. Are you okay?” Ebert asked you, shattering your thoughts.

“Yes. I will see you around,” you mumbled and started to go the opposite way until Ebert stopped you.

“Wait. Do you want to sit with me and a few of my friends?” he asked you and pointed in the direction where his friends were sitting. You looked over with hopeful eyes but looked away with disappointment and shame when you realized there were a few Model Skinnies there.

Why would they ever want a fat pig like you to ruin their reputations?

You gulped nervously and managed to say, “No thanks. I am already meeting someone.” Liar.

“Okay, well, I guess I’ll catch you tomorrow then?” You nodded and hung your head down as you walked to the back table in the lunchroom. Pepperoni and cheese filled the atmosphere and it made you feel both nauseated and hungry. Too bad it was raining outside.