I stared at myself in the mirror, watching my thighs, my stomach, my arms, my everything jiggle. The thing about being fat was that you got used to it. You got used to having the extra rolls of flesh everywhere. It was just another part of life. And every time you lost some weight, while everyone else noticed, you didn't. Because after looking at yourself the same way each day, it was next to impossible imagining yourself anyway else.
I turned to the side, sighing heavily. My stomach rolled out, although I could see my ribs pushing through the thin skin. I wasn't fat fat. Ten pounds and I would be like those other girls, skin stretched tight around their calf muscles. But that was the problem. The other girls looked like that, and they wanted you to look like that too. So when anyone told you that you could go without a pound or two, you wanted to rebel. You wanted to drown yourself in the chocolate, the cookies, the chips, just to show everyone how much of a crap you didn't give.
Because eating was good. Sitting on the couch with a bowl of ice cream in your lap was good. Scraping brownie crusts off of the side of the pan was good. Feeling your legs burn in gym two minutes before everyone else's started to was good. And when all the other kids were outside, riding bikes or kicking soccer balls, and you were inside reading, well, that was good too. After eight years, you learned to love the lovehandles, the tummy, the arms, because they were a part of you. Though not always desirable, they made you, and you accepted that.
And when the skinny girls whispered about you, thinking that you couldn't hear, you just smiled. That was the way it was. Maybe it was your fault, and maybe you were lazy, but so be it. Because that was the way you were, and maybe curling up on the couch with a Shakespeare play and a candy bar was so much more enjoyable than running five miles.
I grinned at myself and threw on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, loving the pale face and broad body in the mirror.
