Big Fat Disaster (21 page)

It’s lunchtime, but not for me. I’m not sure if it’s my nerves or the way my jeans are slowly grinding my body in half, but I can’t even think about eating. I slide into a chair near the food line exit and watch the endless stream of pizza, hamburgers, and nachos go by.

I remember the last time we went to the movies as a family. Dad and I got nachos and split an extra-large tub of buttered popcorn. I’ve known girls whose fathers took them camping or taught them how to work on cars. Eating is what my dad and I did together. We’d stand at the kitchen counter and dig the Oreos out of a gallon of Cookies & Cream ice cream. Mom would fuss at us, “You don’t need that!” and we’d just laugh.

But my favorite time with my dad—my
favorite
—was when he baked our birthday cakes. He makes the best cake icing in the
world
. He doesn’t even need a recipe. Rachel and Drew were never asked to help out, but from the time I could sit on the counter without falling off, I was in charge of handing my dad the ingredients for icing.

A bag of powdered sugar, a half stick of butter, vanilla, a little milk…the smell of the mixer getting hot…and the big moment, when he pronounced the icing just right, popped the beaters out, and handed me one to lick. He took the other one, and we always agreed that it was the best icing he’d ever made. He slathered a thick layer onto the cake, used a decorator’s bag to pipe flowers and border, and there was always enough left over for us to have big, melt-in-your-mouth spoonfuls. Aunt Leah’s cake icing is nearly as good as Dad’s.

It dawns on me: He didn’t make Rachel’s birthday cake in June. Even though he still ate a lot of junk food and kept his own snack stash in his desk drawer, he’d started yelling at me for eating the way we always had. He was cranky a lot of the time, and sometimes he even called me a pig. He’d snap, “Seriously, Colby! What are my supporters going to think when they see that one of my children has no self-control?”

Self-control? Um, hello, Dad, but I think that cheating on Mom is a sign of sucky self-control. Guess you don’t have to worry about what your supporters think anymore, and of course you have Marcy, the only person in the whole wide world who lets you be you.
Woohoo for you
, Dad.

Tina walks by with Kayley and Kara. There’s a tiny slice of pizza and a bottle of water on her tray. I wonder if it’s true: Did Kayley and Kara only decide Tina was cool enough to be a friend when she lost weight? I try to visualize Tina being as big as I am, but I can’t.

Mom put me on my first diet when I was in second grade. She started pointing out women who were so big that you couldn’t tell if they were pregnant or just really fat. “You don’t want to be one of
those
, Colby.”

She posted pictures of me on the fridge under alphabet letters spelling
Before
, and she’d post pics of tall, lean, athletic fashion models under
After
. I suppose she could have just put Rachel’s pictures under
After
, but maybe she thought that would be too weird…which goes to show that my mother may have a sense of what’s over the top, after all.

Here’s the thing: My wrists are twice the size of Rachel’s. No matter how badly Mom wishes I could be a Rachel clone, God, in all His [
cough-cough
] wisdom, made me in the image of my college linebacker father. I hope He didn’t also make me a two-timing piece-of-shit thief who walks out on my family someday.

“Helloooo…are you in there?” Anna waves her hand in front of my face. “I’ve been calling you and doing everything but standing on the table to get your attention. Are you going to join us or what?”

I pop into awareness. “Oh, hey. Didn’t see you.”

She puts her hands on her hips. “Obviously. Did you already eat?”

“I’m not hungry.”

Anna pulls me to my feet and drags me toward the round tables on the stage. She skitters up the steps and I follow slowly, just managing to lift one leg at a time in the jeans, which have not relaxed at all. She makes a beeline to some kids who, like Anna, dress all in black.

“Sean, this is Colby,” Anna announces to a skinny guy with chin-length dirty blonde hair and a stubbly chin. He stabs a plastic spork into a chicken nugget and waves it at me. “And, Colby, this is Nikki.” A girl with bluish-black hair raises one black fingernail but doesn’t look up from texting.

I’m adjusting my backpack straps so it won’t fall off the chair when I hear, “Ryan, this is Colby.”

I look up to see my cousin placing his tray on the table. He blurts, “What’re
you
doing here?”

I freeze. “Anna invited me—”

He glares at her; she throws up her hands. “What’s that dirty look for?…You two know each other?”

Ryan says nothing; just curls his lip into a sneer.

Anna orders, “Sit down, Colby. Ryan: you, too.”

But we don’t. Anna stands and puts a hand on each of our shoulders. “Hey. I don’t know what the deal is, but
everybody’s
welcome at the
Nobodies
’ table. Remember, Ryan? All your little football buddies treat you like shit now—but
not
the
Nobodies
! Aren’t you glad you’ve got friends who stick by you?” She playfully punches his upper arm, winks at him, and tries to get him to smile. He remains stone-faced.

I announce, “Ryan and I are cousins.” I lower myself slowly to the chair and glance up at him. “So, are you going to eat or just stand there glaring at me?”

Sean breaks out a Scottish brogue. “Aye, a spirited lass! I like a woman with fire in her belly and meat on her bones!” He addresses the texting girl. “Nikki, you could learn a thing or two from such a brave outspoken creature!” She nods but doesn’t look up.

Ryan’s voice drips with sarcasm. “Oh, yeah. Colby’s
real
good at speaking up.
Especially
when it matters.”

I slam my palm on the table. “How long are you going to stay pissed? I’m
sorry
about what happened on the Fourth of July! I never said I agreed with my dad or anyone else!”

Ryan’s eyes light up; he puts his hands on the table, leans toward me, and says loudly, “Yeah, speaking of your dad—Mr.
I’m All About Families
—what’s the name of the woman he left your mom for? You found a picture of them making out, right?”

A hush descends on the cafetorium, and Ryan straightens to his full height. He yells, “Come on, Colby, while you’re being so outspoken, tell us all about your dad stealing money from his campaign, and how his company ripped off people who trusted him. When’s the trial? How long do you think he’ll go to prison?” He pauses, and his mouth stretches into a smirk. He leans across the table and yells in my face: “You think if his cellmate rapes him but the guards aren’t around to hear him say ‘No,’ it’s still rape?”

For the first time since I squeezed myself into jeans that are two sizes too small, getting out of a chair is no problem at all. I don’t feel the metal button jabbing my middle, and I’m barely aware of falling down the stage steps. The room explodes in a mixture of gasps and laughter. I don’t know how I pick myself up, but I do. The next thing I know, I’ve bolted out the front doors of the school and I’m running toward the towering steeple atop Piney Creek Baptist. I know that Sugar’s is a couple streets over from Church Row. The echo of laughter in my head is almost as loud as my heartbeat in my ears.

I barely make it out of the long school driveway before I’m wheezing so badly that I slow to a stumbling walk. I keep the steeple in my sights and pray to God to pick me up and deliver me to Sugar’s, because I don’t think I can walk another step.

It becomes clear pretty quickly that God may answer Mom’s prayers for a place to live and fat girl clothes for me, but He’s not listening to mine.

Turns out, that steeple on Church Row is so big and tall that it looks a lot closer to the high school than it is. By the time I reach Sugar’s, I’m blacking out from the heat. The last thing I remember after slamming through the front door is the shocked face of a woman I’ve never met. I don’t even feel myself hit the floor.

A man’s voice: “Colby? Can you hear me?”

I think I’m still in a heap at the bottom of the stage stairs, and I try to get up, but my arms and legs are bound. I hear the sound of hissing air, and something is sticky against my face.

“Colby, it’s okay.” Mom’s voice is shaky.

I sense wet and cold on my forehead, under my neck, and on my groin. The pain and tightness around my waist is gone. I open my eyes. There’s a guy in a dark blue uniform adjusting a valve on an oxygen tank.

Mom hovers over me. She looks terrified. “You’re in an ambulance, honey. What happened? Why did you leave school?”

I shake my head; pain shoots through my eyes and I can barely focus. The man says something to Mom, and she sits back.

His face appears over mine. “Just breathe in deeply and slowly, sweetie. You’re dehydrated, and you may have heat exhaustion. We’re working on cooling you down, and the docs at the ER will get you rehydrated.”

We stay in the emergency room for several hours until the doctors are satisfied that my body temperature is in a safe range and I finish a bag of I.V. fluids. When they find out that I haven’t eaten all day, they give me juice and crackers.

Mom waits until the nurse walks out; then she pulls the privacy curtain closed. She holds up what’s left of my
Hallister
shirt and suffocating jeans. “The paramedics cut your clothes off, so I went to the store when you were asleep and bought new clothes.” She reaches for a bag and pulls out an oversized T-shirt and comfy-looking elastic-waist shorts. “I also bought a couple more pairs of jeans for you…in a
much
larger size.”

“Thanks, Mom.” I shakily sit up on the edge of the bed and start to slide off the hospital gown, but I don’t want Mom to see my body. I hate the face she always makes at my fat rolls and stretch marks. I pull the shorts on under the gown.

“Are you ready to tell me why you left school in the middle of the day?”

I shake my head slowly and immediately regret it; the pounding pain hasn’t quite gone away.

“Okay, how about this one: Why didn’t you tell me that the jeans you were wearing were so tight?”