Fat Girl ✔️

And it Begins

I stared down at the video, flooding my timeline. Over and over again. Me. Me. Me. 

I turned off my phone, tossing it into the backseat. Leaning my head against the headrest, I tried to focus on the road ahead.

I wanted to go to the beach.

Sitting on the shore, my toes digging into the sand, it was like all of my problems melted away into nothingness. I felt no pain. No hurt. The cruel torments of my classmates was a distant memory. 

The image of my father, falling to the floor of our kitchen, his hand held to his heart in pain... it simply washed away.

Any thoughts of lost friends or bullies or absent mothers or dead dads became less important.  It was just me and the waves, crashing on the shore. Nothing else mattered. 

I tried not to think of the feeling of Blake's lips against mine. Of the warmth that exploded within me at his touch. Of the way I fell into the shape of his body, the way we fit together perfectly like puzzle pieces. I tried not to think of the fact that he stole my first kiss from me. He stole it, and it was perfect, but it wasn't real. None of it was.

I tried to push the image of flashing lights and loud music and messy first kisses and Spider-man in his bedroom with Julian out of my mind. Dad was right. None of it mattered in the long term. One moment I could be angry with the world, hating how people thought of me, and the next I could be falling to the ground with heart failure. It didn't matter at all.

I tried not to think of Bella, tugging at my sweatshirt as she begged me to get in the ocean, and the hot feeling of my cheeks as I was forced to tell her no. Or Ingrid, and the way she looked at my thighs, no matter how baggy my sweatpants were that day. I tried not to think of the disgusted look on Blake's face when I saw him in school that very last time, like he hated that he ever had anything to do with me. Everyone kept telling me to love myself. To love my body. But how could I when the whole world was screaming at me to hate it?

I wanted to go to the beach.

So I did. Headed for the coast, I started my car, the windows rolled all the way down, wind spraying through my hair. My hands were slippery with sweat. I was shaking, and I hadn't even realized it.

Images clouded my mind. Everything flooding back at once. Everything I'd tried to become numb to. The things I used my humor and fun to try to hide. The warm, happy facade I put on for the world slowly slipped away, leaving me with an empty shell of who I thought I was. It all came flooding back, and it was messy and ugly and fat with hate.

Tears welled in my eyes, polluting my vision.I swerved in the road as I let out whimpers and cries. I allowed myself to cry, to really cry. It all came out.

My foot slipped on the gas pedal, and I repositioned it quickly. I couldn't take it anymore. It was all too much. I was so close- the beach was so close- I'd be there any minute and it would all go away-

My foot slipped again, and as my car approached a turn, my body jerked to the side. I blinked, trying to wish away the tears so I could see clearly.

I was falling. Quickly.

I held the steering wheel tightly, trying to make my way back to the road. I was approaching a hill now, and the turn was hard to make. I lifted my hand from the steering wheel to wipe my eyes-

The car stumbled.

I wasn't making the turn.

In one flat moment, I was pulled pulled from my seat, the seatbelt yanking on my neck. I clawed at it. My hands fell from the steering wheel, and I gave up control.

It was over.