ThinandBeautiful.com (7 page)

All I had time to do was to figure out how I got here and how to get myself back out.

I was always excited to see Annie again after the summer. We always had a million things to talk about. We usually bought each other something new to add to the dragon collection in the summer and would get together the night before school started to exchange gifts and talk about the new year coming up.

When the doorbell rang the night before day one of grade ten, I grabbed the dragon T-shirt I had bought Annie on the way home from camp and ran down the stairs to open the door. I couldn't wait to tell her all about the aliens. I knew she'd have a good laugh over the thought of me in makeup at summer camp.

I opened the door, a big smile on my face. Annie was standing on the porch, a bag in her hand and a smile on her face as well. Her hair was tied back from her face with a red scarf that matched her shirt and she was wearing crazy-looking shorts with huge flowers on them. I was about to make a comment about her outfit when Annie's smile seemed to do an instant flip.

“Oh my God, Maddie, what happened? Are you all right?” She stepped forward and put a hand on my arm. I looked at her as if she'd grown two heads.

“What are you talking about? Of course I'm all right! Am I bleeding or something?” I patted my face, feeling for large gashes that would panic Annie.

“No, it's just you're so thin. You look like you've lost twenty pounds since I last saw you. Have you had the flu or something?” She didn't step back, like anyone else would have done when wondering if I had some dreadful disease, but leaned in to look at me more carefully. That's the kind of friend she was.

“I haven't lost twenty pounds!” I said indignantly, though I admit I was secretly pleased that she might have thought that was possible. “Maybe four or five. I've just been watching what I eat a little. I probably grew a bit too. Come on, we have a lot to talk about.” Annie still had her hand on my arm so I just turned around and started walking up the stairs. I didn't want to talk about the whole weight thing with Annie. Even though she was my best friend in the whole world, I didn't really think she would understand. She had never had to worry about her body the way I had. How could she know what it was like?

It was really strange that night. We sat in my room like we always did and talked about the same things we always had. She gave me a beautiful dragon made out of soapstone that I added to the collection on my shelf. I gave her the T-shirt that had two dragons holding hands and the slogan “Dragons Are Forever” on it. She tried it on and we laughed at how big it was on her. We looked at clothes and talked about school and boys.

Everything seemed the same as it always had been, except that it just wasn't the same. Every once in a while I would catch Annie looking at me with a strange expression on her face as if wondering what I was thinking. I tried to keep my expression and mind blank so she wouldn't use her seer skills and take a walk inside my mind.

I had my first major crush in grade ten. Jesse Grayson. He had his locker about three down from mine. He was definitely part of the cool crowd and way out of my league. I spent most of September dropping books on my foot while trying not to look like I was staring at him. He became my favorite topic of online conversation with Annie when I was supposed to be doing my homework. All of our conversations were probably almost identical, kind of like variations on a single theme, like some of the piano pieces I used to play.

alwaysannie says:
ur just as cool as any of those other girls, Jesse'd be lucky to have u

madmaddie says:
yeah … guys like Jesse always go out with the band nerds. lol

alwaysannie says:
nerds cause we spend time hanging out in the music room listening to music and practicing???

madmaddie says:
i guess in nerd world, the band's the least nerdy. i guess there's even a couple of the cool kids in
band, computer geeks too. equal opportunity nerd land.

angelicallyssa says:
Hey! Don't knock band land. So not nerdy. Coolest of cool!

alwaysannie says:
Hey, isn't JG in band? So he's like a band nerd too. Something in common, right?

madmaddie says:
totally in the band but totally not nerdy!!! trumpet. so cool. sigh. even in dance band. so cute!!!! so doesn't know i'm alive. sigh louder. wish he would notice me.

angelicallyssa says:
U could drop ur clarinet on his foot.

madmaddie says:
Lol better than dropping books on mine!

alwaysannie says:
so say hi to him

madmaddie says:
no way. then he would notice me!!

alwaysannie says:
U R CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

angelicallyssa says:
Totally!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

madmaddie says:
crazy for him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

alwaysannie says:
then talk to him!!!!!

angelicallyssa says:
Sing to him!!!

madmaddie says:
Don't want to kill him! Anyway, easy for u to say. y don't u talk to him?

alwaysannie says:
not my type of B/F

madmaddie says:
OMG U R CRAZY!!! he's the cutest

rowdyruth says:
Who we talking about?

angelicallyssa says:
JG

rowdyruth says:
JG??

alwaysannie says:
U know. Cute, trumpet, cute, guy, cute

rowdyruth says:
Oh. Yeah. JG. Who likes him?

angelicallyssa says:
MM

madmaddie says:
No one.

rowdyruth says:
AA beat u! now I know. He's cute. Go for it.

alwaysannie says:
just talk to him. Gotta go. Math. bfn.

angelicallyssa says:
He won't bite

rowdyruth says:
Maybe she wants him to bite.
Haha

angelicallyssa says:
Lol

madmaddie says:
U ppl are no help. H&K.

angelicallyssa says:
Just bugging u. u should just say hi. Anyway, gtr. Math too.

madmaddie says:
Yeah, me too.

rowdyruth says:
I just got here. Sucks. Guess i'll find someone else to talk to. TTFN.

madmaddie says:
off to dream sad lonely dreams. hahaha. Ttyl

I got my chance to meet Jesse in the last possible way I had ever thought would happen to me. Suzanne Albright, of the cooler-than-cool crowd, actually approached me one day at lunch. I know that doesn't look all that mind blowing down here in black and white, but trust me, it was. Every school has a Suzanne Albright. She's the one girl that everyone wants to be noticed by, male or female. She's the one with the perfect hair, perfect face, perfect wardrobe hanging on a perfect thin and beautiful body, perfect boyfriend always older and athletic, perfect family with lots of money. She's totally sure of herself and confident that everyone else thinks she is as perfect as she believes herself to be. She's kind of a composite of the whole group of girls from camp. I'm not sure if anyone actually likes her but everyone wants to be liked by her. Looking back, I'm not sure if the one girl ever actually has a personality or any actual character at all, but back in grade ten, I didn't care any more than anyone else did.

Anyway, I honestly can't remember precisely what she said, but I seem to remember something about my outfit looking nice on me. It was everything I could do not to actually swoon at her feet. Suzanne Albright of the wardrobe of many colors actually liked something I had on. I can't remember now exactly what I had on, but it was likely something new and form fitting.

I still wasn't thrilled with the form that it was fitting, but it was smaller than the year before and I was a little more willing to show it off. Obviously, thinner was cooler, if Suzanne was any judge. Actually, in my mind, Suzanne was judge, jury, and the guy who drew the pictures in court. So, it was all I could do not to perform a happy dance when she followed the compliment up with an actual invitation to one of her cool crowd parties. A party that was going to have all of the beautiful people at it. A party that was going to have the gorgeous and wonderful Jesse Grayson at it.

I'd like to think that I was suave and smooth and answered with some sort of witty response that would make her think that I was a good choice to join her entourage of minions. I don't actually remember what I said, but I am pretty sure I stammered and stuttered and probably drooled. Always so very cool.

April 10

I saw that guy again. I mean, I saw Wolf again. Or Pieter or whoever he is. He just kind of walked by my room and sort of looked in my direction. I think I opened my mouth to say something brilliant but he was gone by the time my brain realized that my mouth was trying to speak. Maybe they have therapy for girls who can't talk to boys. I should check it out. I could just spend my whole day floating from one therapist to the other until my mind is completely out of my control.

Am I still technically a girl or am I officially a woman now? I can't drink legally until I'm nineteen but I've been able to drive since I was sixteen. I can't vote until next year.

Why is it that the government thinks that a sixteen-year-old can operate a two-ton piece of fast-moving machinery but they can't walk into a little portable closet and put a checkmark in a box?

Anyway, I am probably not an adult yet as far as anyone official cares. How old do I have to be to check myself out of here? I bet none of these guard dogs around here would tell me if I asked them. My parents sure wouldn't tell me. Maybe that guy would know. Of course, to find out, I would have to be able to actually put enough words together to ask him. I bet Marina never has trouble figuring out what to say to guys … or anyone else for that matter. I wonder how someone like her ended up in a place like this? Does she have friends somewhere who are missing her? She seems like the kind of person who would have friends.

Of all of the things I hate about this place, the thing I hate the most is that I don't have the Internet. I have a laptop because they think that I need to write and they don't want me to have a pencil or a pen in case I decide to off myself with it – that would just be gross by the way – but they have decided that the World Wide Web is some sort of evil network designed to negatively influence impressionable people like me. That isn't exactly how they put it, but it's close enough. They have no idea how much I miss the Internet. I would feel a whole lot saner if I had it here.

Did I mention that this joint is called “Living for Life”? Can you think of a dorkier name on the face of the planet? It sounds like some sort of whacked-out religious cult that's going to launder my brain with their bull until it's squeaky
clean. More evidence that this
is
a cult. Maybe some door-to-door salesman showed up at my parents' house and sold them a year's subscription to hell on earth.

How can they take away all of my rights and freedoms and then try to tell me how to live for life? I don't have any life at the moment. No phone, no TV, no Internet, no friends, no nothing!

No friends. How pathetic is that. Maybe they can add that to the list of things wrong with me and make me have extra therapy sessions to discuss my lack of social skills and apparent inability to communicate effectively with my peers. Gag me.

Actually, I do have friends. Real, true friends who care about me and accept me just the way I am and aren't trying to change me and tell me to do things differently. I'm just not allowed to talk to them. I miss them so much I feel like I'm going mental. All I need is half an hour a day on the computer and I'll be OK. All I need is some time to talk to my girls.

We were a team and now I'm not there and no one even knows where I am. It's so unfair. The only people who understand me at all are hidden away from me now, floating somewhere out in cyber space while I rot away in this supposedly “real” world. They probably look for me every night and wonder why I'm not online. I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye to them before I got tossed in here.

I feel like screaming.

alwaysannie says:
u talking to SA???

madmaddie says:
totally! can u believe it? man, SA talking to me! Little old me. Well, not exactly little but still me. she liked my clothes and told me she liked them. amazing! i might have to retire the outfit or something, you know like a sports jersey. what did I have on anyway?