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He acted like I was personally offending him by not taking care of myself and eating properly.
Doesn't he understand, though?
In a world that gives me no power, food is the only thing I have, my one way of controlling my value in the world. My mother drilled it into my brain since I could walk.
No one will love me if I'm fat.
No one will want me.
I will be abandoned and all alone.
I remember the first time I actually thought I would end up alone and discarded by eating the wrong thing. She'd been mad before, of course, but not like that. She was furious. I thought she was going to leave me there, seven years old and thrown away like trash. I remember that day like it was yesterday. Heck, it feels like it was yesterday.
As I stand in the classroom trying to not think of him, I think of her instead, and the memory brings it all back: shame, regret, and fear.
We were on our way somewhere, running errands. I can't remember exactly where, but the car needed gasoline, so my mother pulled off the highway and stopped at a convenience store with gasoline pumps out front.
"Ugh, it's hot out today," she complained, grabbing her billfold from the center console and taking out a five-dollar bill.
"Go inside and get a bottle of Evian," she told me, handing me the bill. "Or whatever has electrolytes. Not any of that flavored crap either. It's horrible for you."
I unbuckled myself, held the five inside my palm, and opened the car door, carefully shutting it after me. She didn't like it when I slammed the doors on her pretty new car. I watched for traffic, but the place was busy, cars darting in and out, and when my path was clear, I walked across the black asphalt and into the big building. People bustled about everywhere, walking here and there, over to the counter selling scoops of ice cream in the back corner and down the aisles that advertised treats my mother would never let me have.
Like a good girl, though, I minded my own business and walked straight to where the drinks were kept in the coolers on the side of the building. I scanned the drinks held behind the glass doors. They probably sold twenty different varieties of water, but they didn't have her favorite brand. I looked for the one I thought she would like the best. It said it was from natural springs, and she always liked things that said they were organic, natural, or whole. Also, it was unflavored, just like she said.
I plucked it from the cooler and walked between the aisles, my attention catching on something on the middle shelf. I stopped walking and stared at a display of Moon Pies. Mother would never let me eat them, but it said it had marshmallows in the middle. My stomach pinched. We had skipped breakfast. She said I could afford to skip breakfast, and it looked so good in the wrapper. It was even my favorite flavor too, chocolate. I only had a five-dollar bill, though, and if I didn't come back with enough change, my mother would know I bought something for myself.
My stomach pinched again and gurgled loudly as the smell of hot dogs turning over in the display wafted over to me. A man at the end of the aisle grabbed a bag of chips that crinkled in the cellophane wrapping.
My middle gurgled again, and I crossed my arms over my stomach. Without another thought, I snatched a Moon Pie right off of the shelf and shoved it beneath my shirt, the movement awkward and clunky. My heart beat like a thumping rabbit inside of my chest as I beelined to the counter and got in line. I waited until it was my turn, and then I sat the water on the counter in front of the register. I could feel the wrapper of the Moon Pie cool and scratchy against my skin. The clerk behind the counter blinked at me, frowning. Wrinkles piled on top of more wrinkles at her forehead, and her fake tan was blotchy at her temples.
"This all you getting today?" she had asked me, chewing on the inside of her cheek like she was a cow, and her cheek was the cud.
She scared me when I looked at her for too long, so I didn't look at her. I just nodded down at the counter and slapped the five-dollar bill in front of her. When she didn't pick it up and instead stared down at it too, looking disgusted, my heart thumped even faster.
"There's nothing else you want to add?" she asked me.
I should have known then. Hell, I should have known before then, but I was a kid, and I stupidly didn't realize.
My voice cracked as I shook my head again.
"No," I managed as a guy walked through the front doors and into the store, ringing the bell tied to the top of the doorframe.
"Where are your parents, kid?" she asked me, still chewing on the inside of her cheek. She let go of it with a loudsquelch. Another customer joined the line behind me, and his phone rang, loud in the big open store.
"Hello," he answered, practically yelling. He sounded like my grandfather before he had died, when he couldn't hear anymore and shouted at everyone all of the time.
"Hey, kid," the lady behind the counter snapped her fingers in front of my face, her ruby red nails were chipped at the ends. My mother would snicker behind her back and tell her to take better care of herself. "Who brought you here? Your mom or your dad?"
I turned and looked out the window at my mother, still pumping gas into her convertible, an anniversary gift from my father. She was talking on her cellphone, as she finished pumping gasoline and put the nozzle back on the machine, where it was supposed to go.
"Billy," the lady said behind the counter, calling to someone in the back. She rang up the total for my water quickly and slid the change across the counter to me. "I'll be right back."
A man ducked out from behind a cigarette display.
"Watch the register?" he asked her.
"Yeah," she confirmed.
