Skinny • Book 1 In The Reality Series

Calum

When I was four and a half the chick that worked at the daycare where I use to rot until my Dad would come, had broken my arm. I wasn't listening, she was annoyed and one good yank of the arm later which still cracked when I bent it.

I'd expected my Dad to file some big expensive lawsuit. To comfort me in some way or at least by me the toy truck I'd seen on TV commercials but he didn't. He told me to stop whining.

When I was six I got a puppy, a beagle, named Biscuit. When I was eleven he got one and was hit by a truck. Holding his limp, lifeless well loved familiar body in my arms I'd broken down.

My Dad hadn't said much, but what he did say I never forgot.

"Stop crying, boys don't cry."

I remembered that when my grandma died, when my Mom left, and the time I shattered shin on a ski trip with my cousins.

I knew my tear ducts were dry, never leaking at sad movies, or at the death of characters in books. But I had no idea of how horrifically emotionally void I was until I was sat on a dirty convenience store bathroom floor trying to comfort someone mid post binge meltdown.

I had a leg up. I knew how binges felt. I'd used to do it a couple times a week in the beginning. I wanted to tell her that it was okay, and the next day was on its way and with the rising sun would come a clean dietary slate. But for some reason I didn't.

Instead I just sat there feeling incredibly awkward allowing her to cry into my shoulder, wetting my jacket with her tears.

I don't know how long we sat there. I felt like a while before I finally forced myself to speak.

"It could be worse."

It could be worse? Really, Calum? Really?

Looking up at me with red tear stained eyes and a blotch face, Katy sniffed.

"How?"

"I don't know." I admitted with a sigh, "What's the worst thing that could possibly happen? Worst case scenario?"

Hesitating for a moment, Katy reached up and taking a length of toilet paper blew her nose before answer, "Gracie could have rescued a tiger instead of an elephant."

Feeling my eyebrows raise, I waited for her to continue.

"We could be being savagely mulled by a tiger right now."

I laughed, even though nothing about our current situation was even remotely funny.

Smiling to her herself, Katy sniffed.

"Your turn, worst case scenario."

I thought for a moment.

"Sierra's Daddy could have sent a SWAT team looking for her. We could be in jail for kidnapping right now."

"That is pretty bad." she admitted.

"Your turn."

Her forehead wrinkling in thought, Katy did one of those stuttered after crying breaths, "We could be at school right now."

Shuddering theatrically at the very idea I leaned forward and picked up an empty sleeve of donuts.

"The third donut from the end." I said seriously, "Could have been laced with poison."

"Seems unlikely." Katy mumbled, eyeing the wrappers sadly.

"Oh no," I said quickly, "You see every day on his way to work Bucky the bucking bronco wrangler, stops at this gas station to fill up his tank and himself a snack and a Coke. He always chooses donuts. His ex wife, whom he owes fourteen months of unpaid child support, knows this. So, she buys the donuts, poisons them, then puts them back. You, could have eaten said poison donut. Your insides could be exploding right now."

A smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth Katy eyed me in amusement.

"What?" I laughed subconsciously.

"Thank you." She replied sincerely.

"For what?"

"For making me feel normal."

A strange feeling taking over me and warming me from the inside out, I smiled.

"You are normal."

"I'm fat..."

"And I'm Calum, and I'm a skinny, emotionally stunted and mentally messed up mess... and Gracie is a nut, and Sierra's... well Sierra and Elliot is a real, live stolen elephant in the back of my car. We're complete freaks. None of us are normal and all of us are. No one is and everyone isn't."

Looking up at me with a look I couldn't label, Katy smiled.

"Come on." I mumbled standing up then holding my hands out so she could do the same, "Let's go back to the rest of the Freak Show before they wake up and wonder where we are."