In church the pastor said something about the "report." And she felt nauseous. Any word with both an "r" and a "p," would make her sick to her stomach for the next few years. After that word, formed of unfortunate consonants, had been spoken so innocently, she ran to the bathroom. Her parents looked at her meanly as she rushed out of the chapel into the parish hall. They were embarrassed.
In the bathroom she dry-heaved, over and over. She dry-heaved for the breakfast, lunch, dinner, and breakfast again, that she had skipped. But she did not cry. Tears welled in her eyes, but she squeezed them shut and waited for the droplets to absorb back into her aching eyes. And when the cold sweat all over her body had dried, and she felt secure enough to stand, she walked to the sink. She looked at herself, and her immediate thought was aw, before her fuzzy reality cleared up. Then she became very still. She walked to her reflection slowly with no swing in her arms or hips. She looked at the foreign face before her. This was not the face that had entered the party Friday Night. This was a very hard face.
Sarah had a round, round face. She was a chubby girl growing up, and had eventually developed a womanly figure from that baby fat. She had a body Millie would forever envy, and a body she would forever be at war with. That moment she hated her fat face and her double chin and her bingo arms and her thick legs and her cankles love handles ghetto booty belly pooch double Ds ALL OF IT. She hated her body, and she just wanted to start over with a new one. She wanted OUT.
This was a body that made her sexy enough to fuck, but not pretty enough to love. This was a body that oozed sex appeal in sweatpants and a Tshirt. This was a body that had no face--there was no face worth looking at on top of a perfect hourglass. Men just watched the sand pour from the top curve to the bottom. But she was smart, and she was a little awkward. She didn't party. She didn't even cuss. She was a church-girl. So men stopped looking at all--at least she thought they did.
Chris had to be so drunk he knew he'd forget it to even consider me. And I initiated it. He probably didn't want me at all.
In a terrifying and private rage she tore off her cardigan and threw it to the floor with more force than required, which hurt her shoulder. She grabbed the fat on her upper arm and squeezed, stomping her foot to keep from screaming. She stopped only when the squeezing hand cramped suddenly. She leaned on the stall and slid until she was sitting again. She knew she needed to calm down before she saw her parents again, but she wasn't done yet. She punched the floor with her left hand, and immediately knew it was too hard. She had broken her hand. She'd gone too far, and now she was panicked. But even alone she would not allow her face to reflect this. She needed to practice. She walked over to the sink and splashed her face with water, maintaining a fixed countenance. She cleaned the blood from her knuckles, only wincing when the soap burned her.
With her cardigan back on and her arms firmly crossed to privately cradle her throbbing hand. The service was almost over. So she waited in the lobby for her parents to exit.
"You're okay?" Her mother always asked questions as challenges. The contracted "are" was placed strategically after the "you," as opposed to before. With this Sarah had two possible responses. Yes. or No. She went with yes. At home her dad sat in his recliner with a beer in his hand and the rest of the six pack on the ground beside him. He watched Spike TV and didn't mutter a comprehensible word until he said goodbye as Sarah left the house to go to the park. With her new-found release, she wanted privacy to perform. She pinched fat, elbowed trees, kicked huge, moss-covered rocks... and she was in so much pain, but she had screamed! She had yelped with that pain. She had for a small while been out of her body, or perhaps she had just opened it up enough, both physically and metaphorically to let goodness back inside of her. It was nearly five o'clock before she ceased her endless cycle of self-abuse and moments of rest... and it was only because her phone was ringing.
It wasn't a call.
Hey girl. I'm sorry I missed your text this morning. I was still asleep. Is everything okay? Are you okay?
And Sarah didn't respond. She wasn't happy. She wasn't making a difference in someone's life. She wasn't as smart as Millie. She wasn't as brave as Millie. And she wasn't falling for someone. She was just falling.
Yeah. I'm fine. I'll ttyl, love.
She knew Millie would find it suspicious. There was no face. All her texts were littered with :) and :/ and :( and :'( and :*) and ;) and :D and... and she was always afraid her texts would be misinterpreted without them. But her texts had taken on a certain personality with those faces... her face. And without those faces, it was just a body of text. And Millie saw Sarah's face. She saw Sarah's face when others watched the sand. But Sarah was hiding her face. She was about to accept what she believed to be fact: her face was unimportant. Her sand... that mattered. She kind of hoped Millie would tell her she was crazy, and that her face mattered to plenty of people--to the people that mattered. She knew the faceless body would catch her attention and then she could save her. She was waiting for Millie to force the truth from her...
And then Millie made a horrible mistake.
Okay best friend. See you tomorrow.
All for a few more minutes to fall.
Rachel. Gutes Tun.
Sarah. Nicht Tun.
Kylie. Gutes Tun.
Millie...
But who shall do
or fail to do
for you
?
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