“I lost a lot of weight, right?” I said pointedly, hoping he would get where I was going with this and I wouldn’t actually have to spell it out. Say the actual, difficult words. I still remember that night I’d said the words to Kyle. I still remember how he’d acted. It hadn’t exactly been well received. Not that he said anything negative, but it was the way he looked at me after that, or didn’t look, that left me feeling more insecure. Or the way that whenever we did have sex, I was never fully naked. Or the way he suggested I wear certain clothes when posting pictures, or pose a little differently.
Mark smiled at me. It was big and warm and genuine. “Well done. Not many people can do that, although I do still think you can eat a pancake from time to time.”
“But you know what happens when you lose it, right?” I asked, taking another sip.
“What do you mean?” he replied, like he had no idea where I was going with this. He probably didn’t. He didn’t look like he’d been fat a day in his life.
“Uh . . . stuff kind of doesn’t go back to the way it should be,” I said softly.
“Stuff?” he asked.
I nodded.
“What stuff?”
“You know,” I pressed. “Like . . . skin.”
“Skin?” Still not getting it, clearly.
“It doesn’t go back to the way it should be.” I was starting to get a little frustrated now.
“How should it be?” he asked.
“Smooth. Stretch-mark free.” I thought I was stating the obvious here.
“Who says it should look like that?” he asked.
“Uh . . . everyone,” I said, blinking a little in disbelief.
He smiled. “Like everyone on Instagram? And maybe Kyle?”
“Well . . . yes!” I said.
Mark shrugged. “Well, I don’t listen to what everyone says. I like to make up my own mind.” He smiled at me, but I didn’t smile back.
He leaned forward across the table. “To hell with what everyone thinks, Frankie. To hell with what Instagram and Facebook say and tell you what to be and how to be it. To hell with all that crap. Isn’t that what you told me a few days ago?”
I nodded a little. I had said that to him, which must mean that on some level I thought that too. For him though. Not for me.
“To hell with it?” I asked tentatively.
“And to hell with Tweeting some stupid opinion you have about something you barely know a thing about, and posting only the perfect pictures of yourself and waiting for people to like them before you like yourself and counting every single last one of your steps and seeing how many carbs are in a bagel and never getting a little lost because you’re always on Google Maps. To hell with all of that.” He paused for a while and then pulled my tea away from me and had a small sip. “It took me a while to learn that. To stop looking at what other people thought about me, for me to form my own opinion of myself.” He passed the tea back to me and I sipped it too and nodded at him. A silence filled the room, and we sat in it for a while.
“Wait, did you stop me there in the bedroom from doing what I was planning on doing to you because you have stretch marks?” He sat back in his chair and ran his hands through his hair. It fell straight back to his face in that way that made me go a little crazy for him.
I nodded.
“Holy crap, Frankie, that’s about as ridiculous as taking photos of breakfast and not eating it.” And then he stood up and walked around the table towards me. I swallowed. Hard. He moved my chair and held out his hands for me to take. I looked down at them and hesitated, but then slipped them into his. He pulled me to my feet.
“Is that the only thing that stopped you?” he asked, almost sounding amused.
I nodded. “I didn’t want you to take my clothes off and then . . . you know. Be disappointed.”
“Who the hell would be disappointed?” He put his hands up to my face and held it, looking straight into my eyes.
“Well, my ex kind of was . . .” I trailed off.
“Your ex sounds like a total douchebag,” he said. “And he was clearly an idiot too.”
