Beauty (20 page)

I protested when she grabbed me,
my fingers
clinging to the man’s shirt screaming for him to give me my money. No one paid us
any
attention, but Becca seemed furious, smacking me hard across my face when I whirled on her. I suddenly got it. She was mad.

Four neon drinks down and I felt sick, the colors to
o
much to take with my stomach heaving so violently. She was yelling, but I couldn’t hear her, my focus only on getting a breath of fresh air into my lungs.
She dragged me and I let her, my shoes lost somewhere in the throng of people that still danced the night away.
Once we were back in the field again she waited while I puked behind the first car we came to before lighting into me.

“Do you want to catch an STD? What the fuck is wrong with you?!” she screamed, pulling me along at a jerking pace
the second I finished
.

I
knew what I’d done, but I couldn’t understand why she was so mad. She’d told me to take the mushroom. She’d given me the blunt to chase it with. She’d left me to fend for myself in there, knowing that I would be out of my mind on the new high. Confusion settled as she continued to scream, my body curling in on itself when we finally made it to the car. I needed a line of coke. This was just too much.

We waited for what seemed like an eternity, me pretending to sleep while she paced the area around the car, muttering to herself the whole time. She’d apparently sold everything she brought with
her tonight, but I searched her
bag anyway, hoping she’d saved a little extra for the ride home. The weed I left untouched, no coke in the bag to save me from the depressing come down I was experiencing now that the colors had disappeared. I pocketed one of the two packaged needles I found
in the hidden zipper of the bag, zipping it tight again before stuffing it back under the seat.

Molly and Madison showed up more than an hour after our agreed upon time of two a.m. and I was grateful to not be the only one Becca fumed at the entire way home. She was more pissed at me than them, but pretending to nod in and out of sleep saved me from having to listen to her yell the entire way back across town. It was five in the morning by
the time I finally made it
to my dorm, and I
passed out the second my body hit the bed, refusing to think about what had happened at the rave. My bulging waist was enough of a reminder
;
all I wanted to do was forget.

Chapter 19*

I didn’t bother looking in the mirror as I ran from my room and to my car, my alarm still going off. I’d thrown a dirty grey t-shirt over the dress I still wore, my hair scrunched up into a mass under a baseball cap in an effort to hide my identity. I was in luck that campus was pretty much empty, and I was parking my car
in front of the engineering buildin
g
s
within five minutes, still twenty minutes late.

I hadn’t bothered to wash
, brush or apply
deodorant
, but I had remembered to grab the tiny nugget of coke I had left. I rubbed a little on my gums as I scurried down the hall to room 208, my head lowered as I entered the darkened classroom. The professor paused and I ducked into the first available seat in the back, out of breath and mildly buzzed.

My eyes scanned the twenty or so heads in f
ront of me and I spotted Michael
, Abbey and Buster in the very front, seated together and furiously taking notes on whatever was displayed on the projector screen up front. My fingers twitched nervously, but I ignored it, pulling out my own notebook and pen to do the same. It was all mumbo jumbo to me, the more the professor spoke, the more lost I felt, the few words I’d jotted down not making any sense at all.

Twenty minutes in and I was drawing mindless doodles on the blank bottom half of my page, my thoughts on anything but adiabatic solutions. It was time to call my mother and apologize. I still didn’t want Eric coming to stay with me for the summer, but she hadn’t deserved th
e disrespectful outburst
. She hadn’t called me since that day, so that meant she was either really mad or really hurt. The thought of either made me uncomfortable enough to put calling her at the top of my to do list as soon as I got back from picking up some new clothes.
Once again nothing fit.

There wasn’t time to weigh myself this morning, and I was actually scared to even get on the scale now. The ten pounds I’d lost had come back times
five probably and I didn’t need a number to know
that the two rolls my stomach
had divided into
overnight
was a direct result of fat gain. I cursed the witch for doing this to me, and then cursed myself for ruining the skinny body I’d been given. It pissed me off to
think of the unfairness of my life
and all I wanted was another
line to get myself out of my head and out of my feelings.

Had I discovered coke in my early teens, I would have lost the weight no problem, and without the help of a cursed gift I hadn’t even asked for. This was all actually Becca’s fault. She’d only been trying to help, but she knew how irresistible it would be for me. I was fucked up when I met her, but I was even more fucked up now, my priorities centered around staying high and remainin
g thin. The two should have gone
hand in hand. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten or even seen food, yet I gained at an inhumane rate, my body practically changing before my eyes.

The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to go back to just being me…the skinny me I’d been on that first day without all the bad deeds. Having Eric here would probably actually be good for me. I’
d finally open
the weight watcher’s package that lay hidden under my bed. I’d continue to jog and go to class. I’d make time to study and stay away from partying late into the night with Becca, Molly and Madison. I’d still be less than the three hundred and fifty
-
three pounds I was, and my sanity
would be safe
once again
.

I
t seemed so easy, but the jitters I was already starting to feel reminded me that I would have to let go of the one thing that had helped me cope better than anything else had in my entire life. I was hooked, but I wasn’t a junkie. I still showered. I still combed my hair when I wasn’t running late for class. My teeth usually got brushed every day, and I wasn’t
spending every dime I had on chasing
. I was far from the rail thin crack heads I’d seen in movies, their desperation so palpable that it made me sick to my stomach to think about living that way.

Plain old Evelyn Renee Barns. The idea was more refreshing than I expected it to be and I was ready to get out of here, and start making things right. But first, the professor was waiting to speak with me, and I had no idea what I was going to say.

***********

I ignored the four calls from Becca that came back to back, erasing her two text messages without reading them. After barely escaping my chat with Professor Morris with my spot in the class intact, I didn’t need any distractions. Michael had tried to wave me down before I pulled from the parking lot, but I’d sped away pretending not to notice, deciding to go shopping right away just in case he tried to follow me to my dorm room.

I wandered around Wal
-M
art aimlessly, picking up outfits and then putting them back. I’d banked a little over five hundred dollars at the rave, but I was trying to be smarter about spending. My goal was to let coke go completely, but I wanted to wean myself off it gradually, which meant I would need a little more than I had now.

The idea took root before I could stop it, and I circled the racks I’d already been to twice, pulling off the items I’d just put back. The store was buzzing with shoppers and employees, but no one paid me any attention as I went into an already open dressing room, peeling off the clothes I wore before layering myself with the new ones.
My heart had begun to pound so hard that I felt it in my neck, nervousness filling me at what I was about to do. I’d never stolen anything in my life, and I told myself now that I would send the money to the store as soon as I had it. I didn’t want to look, but I forced my gaze up over the misshapen bulg
e of my body, studying the ston
y face in the mirror.

I barely recognized myself. My plain brown eyes seemed darker…meaner even. I’d gained so much weight back that my cheeks were
fully
round again, a tiny hint of my fat dimples appearing on either side. My mouth was set in a hard line,
and my brows knitted together
as I tried to remember the last time I’d genuinely smile about something.

My old clothes
,
I hung on the discarded hangers, plucking fr
ee the wad
of cash and
stuffing it
in my bra. The coke I stuck my index finger in before tucking it in the front of my underwear, my gums stinging for a moment as I coated them again. I counted backwards as my mind lifted slowly, my eyes checking for tags one last time.
I looked like that fat girl that I was stead
il
y turning back into. Skinny girls stole clothes. Fat girls didn’t.

Pushing my way from the dressing room I made a show for anyone that might be watching the security cameras, walking slowly as I pretended to shop some more. My old clothes I hung on over flowing racks, now searching for something cheap to buy so that I could get out of there. No one followed me as I grabbed a pair of stretchy shorts and a tank top, and no one even looked my way when I made my way to the first available register.

I could have fainted when I stepped back out into the hot sun, sweating through the first two layers I wore before I even made it to my car. I stripped before unlocking the door, not caring if anyone saw me now.
The high combined with the nervousness was fucking with me.
My skin prickled from the heat and I wiped the moisture from my neck and chest when I was finally down to one sun dress.

One good fix and I planned on playing catch up
with my studies
the rest of the
day and well into the night. After I called my mother…

“Excuse me,
Miss…?”

I froze
, my keys dropping to the pavement
with a clink. I knew before I turned that it wasn’t some nice person bidding me a good day. I’d been caught. My bladder released just a little as I met the security officer’s gaze, his hand already reaching to usher me back in the store. There was no hiding the mound of clothes on the backseat
of my car
,
colorful price
tags sticking every which way. He asked for a receipt and I produced the only one I had, my head hung low as he
gathered the discarded clothing
in his arms.

I sat in the manager’s office, hands clasped, and knees shaking.
I wasn’t worried about being caught for shop lifting.
They hadn’t
even
asked me to remove the sundress I wore, but I was sure once the
police arrived I would be
searched. They’d find the coke and I’d have a lot harder time hiding a drug charge from my parents. The woman watching the door seemed nice enough, so I put on a pained face the next time she turn
ed
to peek at me through the crack, my hand waving to get her attention.

“Please…I can’t hold it any longer,” I begge
d, my toe tapping violently now.

“The police will be here any moment…you’ll have to wait,” she shrugged apologetically, turning her attention back to picking her nails.

Skinny bitch…!
My teeth gritted as I tried another approach, ignoring the jealousy that laced through me as I took in her perfect little body.

“Don’t let me pee on myself… I saw a bathroom right at the corner”
I whispered, tears in my voice as I crept to the door. “You can watch me go…”

There were cameras in the manager’s office
. The only chance I had was getting out of this room. She sighed, looking in both directions before stepping
away from the door. I pushed it
open slightly, waiting meekly for her to take me.

“Hurry up,” she snapped, looking over her shoulder before locking us both in the one toilet bathroom.

She watched, just like I’d promised she could, and I squatted, pulling my panties aside to release my full bladder and the nugget of coke I’d tucked there. The sundress hid the contents of the toilet, and I flushed without looking, a grateful smile tugging at my lips as I washed my hands.

With the coke gone, I could breathe again. I’d stolen less than two hundred dollars worth of stuff, and it was my first offense. Once I gave the police the stressed out, sleep deprived college student sob story I was pretty much off the hook. They did strip search me, and only found the money I’d tucked safely in my bra. I gladly paid for the dress I wore and accepted the four hundred dollar shop lifting fine I received from the store.

Safely back in my Jetta I allowed the tears to come, my nerves shot. It had been humiliating being escorted from the
store and then banned for the next two years
, but not nearly as humiliating as getting arrested would have been. My parents…my brother…