The girls always laughed at her behind her back. I’m sure they laughed at me too. She was “the fat one”, I was “the smart one”. Apparently having such labels also makes you “the deaf one”.

But neither of us were deaf. We heard the taunts perfectly.

I hated the way they always made fun of her. For some reason it made me so much angrier than when the taunted me. Was that the reason I went out of my way to befriend her? I’d like to think I befriended her because she was nice. She was a good friend, even if troubled.

PE was the worst. This is a terrible class even for the skinniest and best looking of girls. It’s a time when you are forced to bare all in the locker room and then go outside and prance around trying your best not to humiliate yourself by either be too good at the sport or too wretched. The balance is delicate.

I was never good at finding such a balance. To me, it didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to pretend to be something I wasn’t. It’s not worth the energy.

My friend on the other hand, did want to try to be something she wasn’t. I remember the first time I caught her pinning her skirt so it wouldn’t fall down. She had been losing weight and I knew it wasn’t from exercise. Her shirts slowly grew larger on her, but her parents wouldn’t buy her new clothes. Eventually, she had to add another pin to her skirts to keep them from falling down.

But, she was still “the fat one”.

Despite the taunts we received behind our backs, she never let her hurt show.

I didn’t either.

It took me a while to get up the courage to actually confront her about her problem though. I still don’t know if I did the right thing, she didn’t speak to me after I confronted her. It wasn’t her fault she didn’t speak to me of course, her parents moved. I think they were running from something. I was never allowed over, nor was she allowed to my house. They lived in a hotel and she had always talked to me about how they moved every few months.

But, that is not the point.

The day I confronted her about the problem was the day she added the third safety pin to her skirt to hold it up. It was the same day one of the girls had unclipped one of her pins trying to force her skirt to succumb to gravity (which it did) and it was the last day I ever saw her.

“You haven’t been eating.”

“I’m on a diet.”

“I haven’t seen you eat in a month.”

“I don’t like school lunches.”

“You have to eat, it’s not healthy to starve yourself.”

“It’s not healthy to be fat either.”

She wiped her tears as I sat next to her on the back steps of the school. She had run away crying when her skirt tumbled around her ankles. Her skin had taken on a strange yellow-white pallor, one I knew couldn’t be healthy.

“I’m just worried about you. You’re not eating anything.”

“I eat at home.”

“If you say so. You don’t have to care what they think about you. You’re pretty unlike me. You have a great smile and good skin. The weight doesn’t matter.”

“You’re only saying that because you’re skinny.”

“No, I’m saying it because I’m worried. You’re losing the weight too quickly. How much have you lost this month? A couple of sizes at least. You’re up to three pins now.”

“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. You don’t have to. We’re moving again anyway.”

I nodded and handed her half an apple from my lunch. “Please.”

She ate it, then disappeared into the bathroom when she finished it.

I didn’t have to be smart to figure things out.

I should have said more, but I didn’t know how. I was a kid. Kids don’t know anything and I was at least smart enough to realize that. My problems were nothing compared to hers and I knew it. I couldn’t say “I understand” and mean it.

I was the smart one. She was the fat one.

We'd never understand each other it would seem.

Posted by Utopia at April 4, 2006 10:13 AM

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Posted by: katkat at April 4, 2006 01:25 PM

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