Beauty (5 page)

“What did you do to me?” I blurted so fast I didn’t even know I’d opened my mouth until I hea
r
d the sound of my own voice.

She turned, but never stopped moving, pulling the books from her bag and putting them away, and then starting up her laptop. I stood in the middle of her floor, waiting whil
e she clicked through the welcome
screen and opened up a pack of crackers sitting on the desk.

“Sit…” she gestured to her bed, taking a bit
e of one before offering me the p
ack.

“No…” I whispered as I sank
gently
down on her bed
.

I
t would be embarrassing if it creaked under my weight.

Shit! I wasn’t fat anymore…

The breath I’d been
holding released, allowing
me
to
face her more comfortably.

“What did you do to me?” I repeated, my voice barely above a whisper as I met her gaze.

“I asked if I could help… You said…only if I could make you skinny…”

“Yes…! But…”

“A witch will never offer her help if you don’t truly need it.”

“So you are…” I swallowed hard, a lu
mp suddenly stuck in my throat.
“A witch…?”

She chewed
her second bit
e
of the cracker
slowly as if considering what she would say next carefully
, her lips finally
turning up into a small smile.

“That’s what you here are
most comfortable with…so yes…think of me as
a witch…”

“You said you only offered to help because I needed it. I didn’t need
your
help or anyone else’s,” I spat, memories of Brice and the night before flashing through my mind now. “I had it under control.”

“Cutting…Evelyn…?”

She’d seen the scars… Or…

“
You
found me,” I whispered, my eyes going to the bandage that covered the
whole lower half of my left arm
like a cast.

She was the first person to ever know that I was a cutter. I’d imagined embarrassment or humility if anyone ever found out, but that’
s not what settled in my chest as I watched her reach for my wrists, her fingers gentle as
she
unraveled the gauze wrap. I wanted to close my eyes as my skin finally came into view, but what I saw wasn’t what I expected. I’d buried the razor almost a half inch deep and even longer across, but all that was there was a faint pink scar. My breath held as she ran her thumb lightly over the mark before meeting my gaze again.

“I’ve given you a second chance…
this
…is your reminder…” she murmured, balling up the
stained
gauze and throwing it in the trash can under her desk.

I hadn
’
t asked for a second chance, but
-
as much as I didn’t want to admit it
-
I did nee
d help. Somehow…she’d seen that.

“I just wanted to take away the pain…” I whispered, my voice catching as she slid from the chair onto the bed, beside me.

She didn’t try and touch me. She sat with a few inches between her knee and mine, her eyes watching my face intently as I broke down for the first time in front of anyone. I’
d never talked about how I felt on the inside. I wasn’t sure why words started flowing from my mouth now.

“I was
so
fat! And then Brice… And he… I’m a good person!
I’m always helping others. Even when I know they’re using me, I still try
and make everything right for them and forget all about me
. Apologizing for being me! Apologiz
ing for being so fucking fat! S
o damn ugly! I never wanted to kill myself. But he took it from me. He…he…”

“Raped you…” the witch fini
shed for me, her voice soft, her
hands softer as they settled over mine.

“Yeeeeeeees…” I sobbed, curling over into her chest, my shoulders shaking uncontrollably now.

I didn’t have to explain my whole horrible life story to her. For some reason she wrapped her arms around me and cradled me like a baby. She rocked and I let her. I cried for the yellow flowers I’d tried to give Danny Thompson, I cried for the time Sherri Dodd knocked me off the merry-go-round, I cried for the real friends I never had, I cried for Brice raping me, but most of all I cried for being…fat.

We sat for what seemed like an hour, her rocking and me
sniffling through the storm of tears that still ran silently down m
y face. I’d almost drifted off from the exhaustion of it all
when
she
finally spoke, her voice soft.

“It’s real
ly quite simple Evelyn… Your heart’s desire was to be skinny. Now you are. You may not be able to see it right now, but you had a very beautiful life before, helping others was only part of it.”

“So…that’s it…I stay skinny forever…” I whispered, straightening so that we were once again eye to eye.

“I said simple. There are rules,” the witch hesitated, rising into a stretch before she crossed the room.

I watched as she picked up her discarded book bag, pulling free one last item. It was a brand new scale, still wrapped in its cellophane and decorated with a shiny orange price sticker.

“As long as you stay the same good person on the inside, your weight will stay the same. It’s when you let your dark side out that you begin to lose your precious gift. You
will
gain weight Evelyn. Not fast at first…but the more dark things you allow in your life
the faster you gain. It’s a one—
tim
e deal…you weighed in at three hundred and fifty-three pounds
. As it has always been, your fate is in your hands
.”

“You weighed me?” I whispered, the weight of the s
c
ale heavy in my tiny hands as she handed it to me.

“It was necessary…”

“But what if I…don’t…” I gulped, feeling the skinny body I now had. It felt great. “…want to be skinny…?” I finished in a whisper, watching as she opened her bedroom door, signaling that our conversation was already over.

“Be ca
reful what you wish for Evelyn.”

**********

I wandered back to my dorm suite in a fog, the scale clutched tightly to my chest until
I
reached the safety of my bedroom. There I made sure the door was locked, and even slid the chair underneath the knob for good measure. Stuck to the bottom of my shoe was the note June had slid under my door before leaving. I opened it now.

Evelyn…the box in the living room is full of old clothes I don’t want anymore. Drop them at the student goodwill for me would ya? -Luv June

Of course even on the tail of her whispered thanks to me, she was asking for yet another favor.

“Bitch…” I muttered to myself, balling up the note and aiming for the pink plastic trash can in the corner.

I missed. A shrug of my shoulders and I shed the nightdress, stepping from it so that I once again stood completely naked. I wanted to at least know where I was starting. Now would also be a good time to start that journal I’d been planning on keeping; it would help me keep track of my weight.

“One ten…” I whispered in disbelief as the numbers on the scale stop
ped
moving upwards.

I’m
one hundred and ten pounds now?!
Denial shot through me and I stepped off the scale, feeling my new body with tentative fingers, convinced that it would all blow up –literally-. I stepped back on and once again the tiny red numbers ticked up from zero to one hundred and ten.

Holy Shit!

I suddenly wanted to be free of this room. I wanted to see if the wind felt different as a skinny person. I wanted to see how fast I could jog across campus. I wanted to see what George would say wh
en I walked into the nursing home
for my evening visit.

Thank you June!
I crowed inwardly as I raced from my room to retrieve the box of June’s old clothes.

She’d left more than just a handful. The box was too heavy for me to lift. It would
have taken several trips of
hauling separate bags down to the student goodwill to get rid of it all.
Bitch!

I stepped on the scale again as I picked up the first piece of material that caught my eye. A little sequined black dress hung from my fingers, my eyes following the intricate detail down to the red numbers ticking upward.

“One hundred and…eleven!?” I practically squeaked, jumping from the cool white metal square as if it had burned me.

One pound!? How had
I gain
ed
one pound in the last two minutes?! My body flushed cold and then hot as I remembered the witch’s word
s.

“It’s when you let your dark side out that you begin to lose your precious gift…”

Ok, so I’d called June a bitch…so what…?
Was cursing part of my dark side…? Perhaps the thought of her being a bitch…
But she was…!

“Ok…I
sighed…that’s one I need to write
down.”

I discarded the dress on my bed, firing up my lap top before I forgot. With a words program opened, I saved a blank document as ‘Skinny Rules & Bad Deeds’. With two columns separated out I typed in labels at the top: Skinny Rules and then Bad Deeds
once again
. There. If my weight changed, I would put in my new weight right beside the bad deed that I’d done, that way I could make sure not to do it again. I wanted to smack myself as I typed slowly in the first column: no cursing, or thinking about cursing someone
out
. In the far right column I type
d
: Calling June a Bitch-111 Pounds.

I could deal with one hundred and eleven pounds. I was bound to gain a few over the years. But I wasn’t a bad person…far from it. I made a mental note to find out the witch’s name. In all my haste and confusion, I hadn’t even asked. I didn’t want to call her the witch anymore. It just seemed wrong now.

I smiled to myself as I twirled gracefully from my sitting position on the bed. I would definitely need to go shopping for underwear, bras, and shoes, but June had left enough clothing that I could get through the s
ummer before having to buy clothing
that actually fit me.

Out of the box, I pulled free a pair of
dark blue skinny jea
ns and a tiny white tank top
that had the words:
Save A Virgin. Do Me Instead!, p
rinted in bold re
d lettering across the front.

I was no lo
nger a virgin; that was for sure. And as a testament to that, I was still sore,
I realized
as I lifted my leg to slip the pants
on.

Brice…that fucker…

Shit! Another pound… At least that one was worth it.

I pushed the nasty thoughts aside
, turning my concentration back to dressing.
Not only had the witch cleaned my arm and dressed my cut, but she’d cleaned my body as well. My skin felt as if it had been scrubbed by a dozen tiny brushes, tingling and smelling of lavender I noticed as I pulled the tank top over my head. The clothes fit like a glove. I was almost sure the button on the jeans wasn’t going to button, but the zipper slid up with ease, holding without the slightest bit of strug
gle from me. The tag read
size
two. At three hundred and fifty-three pounds, I wa
sn’t even sure if I’d ever
worn a size two
in anything except maybe diapers as a baby
.

My eyes closed briefly as I stepped in front of the mirror, a whoosh of breath escaping as I tossed my hai
r playfully, taking in the new me
.

Shit…
If being skinny made me look this good, I’d just become a hardcore junkie.

Campus was beyond empty. My first stop was at the student book store. Bright yellow sandals –branded with the letters ASU-were all they had available in the way of shoes. I was surprised to find that my feet had shrunk from a nine and a half down to a size seven and a half. I hadn’t
even know
n
it was possible to lose weight in your feet. Sandals in hand I carried them to the long line of students waiting to sell back this
past
year’s text books.

When I was fat
I
’d
always got
ten
stares. Today I thought the
stares would be directed at my obviously bare feet
instead of my body for once
, but a few cat calls and whistles later, I lifted my eyes from my toes to look around. I was used to trying to blend in, but already I’d forgotten that with this new body…I might as well be a flashing neon sign. Two guys on my right pretended to hover at the keychain rack, both of them with their phones pointed in my direction.