The Gain of the Loss

        I gulped down the delicious meat and laughed as my brother, Parker, made another joke. My dad's booming laughter trumped mine, making everyone sitting near us in the restaraunt look over and roll their eyes.

         My mother's face was turning pink, because she hated any kind of embarassment that we ever brought her. So, just for more laughs, Parker stood up and belted out the loudest laugh he could. He was the most outgoing person I had ever met.

        Olivia just smiled at him, having the same fear of embarassment as my mother. She was leaving for college soon, going to UCLA in California in just three days, so we decided that we must have another family dinner before she and my mother left for the airport Saturday morning.

        Parker, an incoming junior, and me, an incoming freshman, really didn't want them to leave us, because both Olivia and my mother both could break up our arguments in a flash. Olivia and I never fought, because I admired everything about her so much, but Parker, being the crazy boy he was, argued with everyone in our family.

        I missed those family dinners. The happiness and care-free attitude was the most comforting thing to a girl like me, one that didn't have as many friends as I would like to. I was quiet, shy, unsociable. But it wasn't just the happy family moments that I liked about the past, it was the oblivion to the calories I gorged down, the fat on my bones that created a monster.

        I care too much now.

        And it gets in the way of everything.