Chapter 34

 Buy a New Shirt 

Bradley and I video chatted for three hours. In the course of those three hours, we completely forgot to talk about the book Frankenstein.

I sailed through the next week on a strange oblivion, humming in the middle of workouts, easily rejecting vending machines that used to whisper at me when I strolled past. I stayed within my calorie goal, and started writing three short stories.

All of which I deleted entirely before I finished a first draft.

“Lexie, you’ve already missed the deadline for two of the smaller competitions,” Miss Bliss admonished with a tsking sound. Her massive horn-rimmed glasses reflected the glare of the fluorescent light of her office. “I can’t help but feel suspicious that you don’t really want this internship.”

The heady feeling I’d been carrying around with me for the past week crashed into smithereens.

“I want it,” I said. “I want this internship more than anything. But I can’t find any inspiration to write. Some of the prompts are really terrible.”

“I’ve read some of your work before; you’re good. Good enough to win at least one. Even that would add something to your resume.”

“But I wasn’t under pressure when I wrote those other pieces. Besides, I’ve already submitted them to competitions in the past and they didn’t win. I don’t want to waste the entry.”

“Well you’re under pressure now. You’re going to have to figure it out.” She pinched her lipstick-smeared lips together and appraised me with the narrow eye of an owl in contemplation. “Writer’s block doesn’t just happen, you know. There’s almost always a reason for it. You must not be looking in the right places or writing about the right things. What are you passionate about?”

Chocolate. Food. My thoughts flickered to my workout that morning, when I’d finally run three quarters of a mile without stopping on the treadmill. Writing a story about Bradley would be way too creepy.

I shrugged. “A lot of things?”

Miss Bliss leaned back in her old chair, which groaned beneath her shifting weight.

“Figure out what you are passionate about and the story will write itself.”

Writing itself wasn’t new to me; I’d often conjured up stories in my childhood and played them out on paper. When Dad and I weren’t binge eating and watching the latest football game while Kenzie and Mom did crafts, I was reading. Devouring romance books and picturing myself as the simpering, beautiful, skinny female swept away by the dashing rogue. But those weren’t real, and I’d never written to win anything.

“Yes, Miss Bliss,” I said, grabbing my bag by the strap and rising. “I’ll work on it.”

She pulled her glasses down until they rested on the tip of her nose. “Do that. And you’re looking good, by the way. Don’t know what you’re doing, but keep it up. Oh, and buy a new shirt. That one’s drowning you.”

“Relax, Lex. It’s just shopping. Nothing is going to bite you, you know.”

Mira walked into the mall next to me wearing a bright red and pink muumuu with orchids on the front.

“Mira,” I said, pulling open the main door and stepping into a white tiled world that smelled like caramel corn and french fries. Of course we would go in the food court on a Saturday, when delicious smells bloomed like early spring flowers. “You’re looking really good.”

Her gowny dress hid it, but her arms and shoulders had definitely slimmed down. She didn’t waddle with a side-to-side, unbalanced gait anymore.

“Thanks. Going off Diet Pepsi helped—don’t tell Bitsy—but that doesn’t mean I still wouldn’t kill for a pretzel.”

We hurried past the pretzel stand and into the closest department store. The subtle reminder of giving up Diet Dr Pepper stung a bit, but not as badly as I thought. After the first week of headaches and withdrawals, I’d slowly been forgetting about it.

“Do we have to do this?” I asked with a twist of my stomach. I hadn’t been shopping on purpose in … well … far too long. Mira cast an eye at my shirt, which, admittedly, hung a bit loose.

“You look like you wrapped yourself in your old drapes.”

I was about to protest but she ignored me and headed for the plus size section. I skimmed the tops of the racks, but didn’t see any familiar faces to hide from. I’d never shopped outside of the plus size section in my life, and felt shame every time I walked through.

“What pant size did you wear before?” Mira asked, perusing a display of shirts designed with bright tropical flowers. I quickly steered her away. She grabbed a few shirts along the way, draping them over her arm.

“Uh, size eighteen was the last pair of jeans I remember buying, but they … were a bit tight.”

Mira continued her path, plucking blouses, pants, jeans, dresses, and skirts off every rack she passed. She dumped a bundle of clothes into my arms and shoved me into a dressing room.

“Try these.”

“But—”

The door closed behind her with a firm clang. “Just do it, Lexie.”

Obedient, but still grumbling under my breath, I slipped out of my pants and grabbed the first pair I saw. Out of habit, I avoided looking at the size, put my back to the mirror, and quickly pulled the jeans up, bracing myself for the usual tightness in the thigh and bulge of my stomach spilling over the too-small waist. Except the pants slid easily over my legs. And they buttoned.

I blinked several times. “Wait, what?” I whispered.

“Well?” Mira asked. “Let’s see!”

My fist fit in between my stomach and the zipper, finding lots of room to spare. I checked the legs, which hung loose, and finally the butt, which sagged a bit in the back.

“Hold on,” I called, and scrambled out of the pants. My hands shook when I finally found the tag. “Eighteen. It’s a size eighteen.”

“Did you take them off?” Mira asked, stalking up until her feet waited on the other side of the door. “I want to see!”

Shocked, I stepped back into the pants, pulled them up, and opened the door. Her outraged frown turned into a question when she cocked her head to one side and braced her hands on her hips.

“Well, those are certainly too big. We’re going to have to go down a size. Try the sixteens.”

Sixteen? I thought in disbelief as I shut the door. I haven’t worn a sixteen since … early high school.

The nervous flutter in my gut turned to disbelief, and then raw emotion, when the size sixteen jeans easily slid up my legs. They felt snug, but not sickeningly tight, and left no bulge in the waist. I sat down, buried my face in my hands, and started to cry.

“Lexie?” Mira charged into the dressing room. “What’s wrong? Is everything okay? Why are you crying?”

“Because they fit.”

She put a hand on my shoulder. “That’s no reason to cry! That’s a happy thing, Lexie.”

“They’ve never fit before. It feels … I feel … so good.”

Mira sat on the bench next to me with a long sigh and the two of us stared at the white wall while I sniffled, trying to get my emotions under control.

“It does feel good, doesn’t it?” she asked with a little smile.

“I never want to go back, Mira. I never want to feel the way I used to. I never want to hate myself again.”

“That’s the greatest part of all this, Lexie. We don’t have to.”

My legs looked remarkably thinner now that I didn’t have miles of fabric around them.

“Yeah,” I whispered, returning her teary smile. “I guess we don’t.”