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"If only you had boobs, you'd have, like, the perfect body."
"What?"
"Yeah, because you're like super skinny and you have a nice booty, but girl you've got no boobs."
"Yes, I realize that, thanks."
"Have you ever even done anything with a guy? Like besides kissing?"
"No. I'm a Christian."
"You're missing out. So you've never let a guy, you know, touch you or anything at all?"
"No."
"Haha wow. I've done so many things with my boyfriend."
I looked down at the table in my ninth grade life class. The girls at my table had this terrible habit of telling me all about their sex lives and then somehow turning the conversation around to my lack of breasts, as if I didn't realize how small my own boobs were! "Mosquito bites," they'd call me. "Boobless." "Flat-chested." "Speed bumps." And these girls were overweight while I was around 120 lbs and five foot four, pretty much the perfect size. But no boobs. That just ruined my looks apparently.
"Can you believe Taylor has never done anything but kiss a guy?" Briana said to Caitlin.
"Well, she is a Christian. They just aren't allowed to have any fun, you know."
"Yeah, did you see that list of what she should and shouldn't do for God taped to her daily agenda?"
"I saw it. Taylor... are you sure you aren't taking your religion too far?"
"You can't take God too far," I replied.
"I think you've managed it."
Finally the bell rang, ending another torturous 45 minute life class. Just the rest of the school year to go. My best friend Kennedy walked up to me and said hi.
"Hey," I sighed. I was getting extremely irritated with all the bashing on my body.
"Hey, girl. What's the matter?"
"Briana and Caitlin keep making fun of me for how small my feaking boobs are. Like I can help it!"
"Ugh that's just not right. You're way prettier than them anyway."
"Thanks. It just makes me mad that they say stuff like that when they have no right to."
"Well say something about it!"
"Maybe I will."
LIfe class was the next to last period of the day, so I got to go home shortly afterwards. As usual, I went straight to my room when I got home. Not because I had family problems or anything, in truth my family was great. It was me who was the problem. Despite my Christian status at school, church, and among my friends, I still had trouble with anger issues at home. I would say terrible things to my parents without even really meaning to. Then I'd get my phone taken away, which would end with me saying even more hateful things that I really wished I could take back. So sometimes I just wallowed in my solitude, trying not to cause any more trouble than I already had.
"Dinner time!" My mom shouted up the stairs. It always irritated me when she interrupted me while I was reading or watching TV, but that was pretty much all the time so there was really no way to avoid it. "Just let me finish this chapter!"
"Dinner time is now! You can finish the chapter later!"
"Ugh, fine, whatever!"
"Now don't give me that attitude, missy!"
I sauntered down the stairs and into my kitchen to eat what my mom made, which was always good but I was also a vegetarian so I always took for granted the fact that my mom made me something special for dinner to accommodate my weird dietary habits. Mashed potatoes, green beans, and chicken were on the menu for that night so I just had veggies on my plate. After we prayed over the food I sat there and mostly played with my food, Briana and Caitlin's comments ringing in my ears. "If you only had boobs, you'd have the perfect body." Blah blah blah. Come on. I shook my head. Why was I letting these two non-Chrsitian girls and their big mouths ruin my day? It didn't matter what they thought, just what God thought. Right? But I kept thinking about it and thinking about it and it became more and more important to me what others thought than what God thought. Because I couldn't see God and I was sure he didn't care what I looked like anyway as long as I didn't dress like a slut. Why shouldn't I try to impress people?
As I mixed my green beans and mashed potatoes together on my plate, I couldn't help but wonder if God was even real at all, or if I was just a crazy religious nut.
The next day I made up my mind to say something to Briana and Caitlin about their irritating comments. I was getting up the nerve to do it when I sat down in life class and totally chickened out. Of course, the girls immediately started in on talking about their boyfriends and the "great sex" they'd been having. I just sat there quietly and kept my mouth shut, not wanting to be drawn into the conversation in any way. Of course, something was mentioned about my boobs because it was just so fun to pick on the skinny girl for some reason.
I thought back to the eighth grade when I had been made fun of for my chest size by an ex-boyfriend and his cousin. They were talking about my friend Regina and how small she was -- at that point in time she was about 80 lbs. and four feet ten inches. Then they called me "Speed Bumps", which was normally Regina's awful nickname. "What? I thought that was Regina's nickname?" I said acidly. "No, I think your boobs are actually smaller than hers," said the cousin. "No they're not!" I insisited indignantly. "Ummm, yeah they are."
Why did people care so much about what I looked like? It seemed like the whole world cared more about what I looked like than I did! Ugh. The memory of those two boys burnt like acid in my throat. Didn't all these people realize how much they were hurting me? I really couldn't take much more of this. I was breaking. Slowly but surely, I was breaking.
The sexual harrassment continued for the duration of the school year. Around September I had already gotten sick of it. Well,I thought, if I can't have boobs big enough for my body, maybe I can make my body small enough for my boobs and I won't have to hear anything more about it. And so began my rigourous exercise routine and my insane dieting.
I had limited myself to no breakfast, a PB&J sandwich and a carton of chocolate milk for lunch, and a small portion of whatever my mom cooked for dinner each day, but one Friday I decided to do something even more extreme about how I was feeling. But instead of turning to God, I turned to my treadmill. On Friday I ate exactly 200 calories and ran off exactly 300 on the treadmill. Afterwards, I was tired and weak, but I felt a sense of accomplishment and a euphoric kind of feeling that I had never experienced before. It was like I was running on a high. Day number two came with a bit more of a struggle, but I did the same thing as the previous day. 200 calories minus 300 calories meant I had pretty much eaten less than nothing that day. Again. I went to bed feeling pretty good that night, just a little dizzy but I wasn't too concerned. However, I woke up early Sunday morning to a terrifying sound. My heart.
It was beating like a helicopter; I've never heard anything like it. It was beating so fast and light that I was afraid it was literally going to stop at any second. I tried to sit up but couldn't manage to stand. The room was spinning; my vision had gone blurry. I tried to stand again but I just couldn't get my legs to work. They were about as useful as mayonnaise. I hate mayonnaise. "Please, God, no! Don't let me die God, please.... please God." I prayed fervently, so scared that I was going to drop dead on my journey down the stairs. Since I couldn't walk or even see much, I slid down onto the floor, crawled out into the hallway and down the fourteen carpeted stairs. I knew what I needed: food. I needed food and I needed it right then or it was going to be over, I thought. So I grabbed some fruit and a granola bar, dragged myself onto a stool in the kitchen, and I ate my breakfast. I sat there until the nutrients had absorbed and I could see again. Eventually I was able to walk up the stairs and go back to sleep. I had woken up at five a.m. No way I was getting up and staying up that early on a weekend. But before I closed my eyes and fell back into my land of dreams, I promised myself that this would never happen again. Little did I know that I was already in too deep.
My PB&J diet stayed consistent for the course of the next two years, but I didn't realize what I was doing to myself. People made comments that I wasn't eating enough, but I just brushed them off. "I'm fine," I promised, "I'm just not that hungry."
My weight stayed pretty steady after I dropped a few pounds due to my diet. I was about 117 pounds, but I started to feel like that was gargantuan. When I looked in the mirror all I wanted to do was cry. I hated the way I looked and I wanted so badly for it to change. I tried dyeing my hair a bunch of crazy different colors and even wearing way too much makeup, but none of it seemed to satisfy me. It was my size that bothered me. In my eyes, I was too big. And the more weight I lost, the more weight I wanted to lose.
After a while I started to get better. I stopped caring so much about what near-strangers thought and listened to the concerns of my family and friends. But I ripped my list of God things off the cover of my agenda. I was slowly but surely turning my back on my savior, but I was getting healthier. I gained the weight back and started eating healthy and exercising, but not too much. I was gaining my confidence and my health back.
And then my history teacher rearranged the seating chart. That's when Damien entered my life and changed it forever. And so my nightmare began.