Slowly,
the air cooled off and the humidity left the city air, replaced by clouds of warm exhaust from buses and cars chugging through the streets. I loved to watch the sprawling city just over the bridge, and how the people moving through it changed the feel of the concrete and LED backdrop as they started wearing pea coats and carrying cups of steaming coffee. I used to love taking long walks around Philly, getting lost and discovering new murals, food trucks, and boutiques.
That was when I could walk significant distances without being exhausted and in pain.
For the most part, my classes and occasional physical therapy kept me busy enough to distract myself from a few things. Like the fact that Jake had pretty much been using me as a booty call the entire time I’d known him, and I was letting it happen. Or the fact that I was pretty broke (Mom could only kick in a fraction of my living expenses compared to what I’d earned modeling, and I’d been too stupid to save anything). Or the fact that I was depressed.
Most of the time, I felt okay. But the times when I’d catch myself staring into space, or turning down invites to go to dinner with my sorority sisters for a whole week, or wanting to sob every time I puffed going up the stairs or felt my thighs rub together...those moments were getting more and more frequent. So much so that I felt like I could bring a pillow and blanket and move into those moments to stay.
The last straw, though, came during a philanthropy event that our sorority had pulled together with another house. A simple “charity gets a tenth of the cover and food purchases” deal, to which we’d invited everyone we’d ever met.
That morning, the scale had revealed that I’d put on a couple pounds—the change in the weather had been making the rod in my leg feel funny, and I hadn’t been walking quite as much. I’d also pulled a few all-nighters in the design studio, and snacked my way through them. It was no big deal, though—my sorority sisters were always bringing over something they thought would be cute on me from their own closets and lending me the clothing for the semester.
For the party, I’d pulled on some leather riding boots with stretchy skinny jeans and a long cashmere wrap sweater that dipped into a deep V in the front. It showed off my boobs and made it look like I actually had a waist. Because most of the girls wore heels and my boots had hardly any, I didn’t even tower over them that noticeably. I felt good.
I’d just started chatting with a sweet girl from the other house, Hannah, whose sleek dark ponytail looked like a freaking waterfall compared to my messy blonde waves. She was a fashion design major too, and we were bonding over what a pain in the ass it was when people thought that all we did was glue-gun shit to pre-existing clothing all day, when her brows furrowed down and she cocked her head. “Hey, if you’re in the program, how is it possible that I didn’t meet you till tonight? Studio time always overlaps.”
“Oh, I was home with my dad in California and then my mom in Ohio, recovering. Horseback riding accident, lots of physical therapy.” My carefully rehearsed rundown of what happened to me rolled off my tongue by now.
“Oh my God, you’re from California?”
“Um...yeah, I—”
“I wonder if you know my friend. I mean, it’s a longshot, but—Nate, come over here.”
A guy with dark messy hair shouldered through the crowd toward us. He wore a dark gray button-down shirt and jeans, and when he stopped a couple feet from me, I really got a look at him. Just the way his shoulders rounded and his eyes flashed at me made my heart race a little bit. Jesus, was he gorgeous. I had just reached out my hand to shake his when Jake walked in.
My stomach twisted, since I’d asked him to come to the event tonight and he said he had to go home for the weekend. Maybe we’d start making out in public again. And maybe actually dating like normal people would follow.
I took a few steps to the door of the bar, smiling, when the girl said, “Oh, you know Jake?”
“I....yeah. Do you?” The way she said his name was so familiar, so excited, and I’d never met this girl in my life.
“Yeah.” Hannah giggled, striding over to him. He met her halfway to me, his eyes darting between the two of us. Then Hannah flung her arms around his neck, stood up on tiptoes, gazed adoringly into his face, and murmured, “Hey, baby. Glad you made it.”
He leaned down and kissed her, pressing his face into her and eliciting a small, delighted noise from her. It made my heart stop and drop into my stomach. Oh, God. Maybe they just started going out. Maybe....
“We’ve been together like a year and a half,” Hannah said. “I can’t believe the two of us never met before, if you know him too.”
Jake spoke to Hannah, but he looked at me. “I didn’t think this fundraiser was with Kappa Delta.”
Oh, great, asshole. Kick me in the gut
.
“It wasn’t. We changed it at the last minute, because half the other house had the flu and our philanthropies weren’t that similar anyway.” She giggled again. “What do you care?”
Some of my sisters who knew Jake, and about my involvement with him, were watching. Hannah snuggled up against his side, threading her fingers through his.
“I don’t care,” Jake replied, lowering his mouth to hers. “I only want to be with the hottest girl on campus.”
He broke the kiss and looked around with a satisfied smile. King Jake had conquered his college kingdom, chosen his queen, and made out with her in front of his concubine.
But I was not about to accept that. I smacked him square across the face, hard.
“What the fuck, bitch?” he yelled, clutching his face.
I used the burning hot anger in my chest to push back the tears that threatened. They’d probably come out of my ears in the form of steam. I wished they would. “If you really only want to be with the hottest girl on campus, douchebag, then maybe you shouldn’t have been fucking me on the side a year ago.”
Spit gathered at corners of my mouth, and everyone in the vicinity stopped what they were doing and stared at our little nightmarish triangle. Including that hot guy Hannah had started to introduce me to. Fabulous.
“You can mind your own goddamn business. You’re lucky I’m paying any attention to your fat ass at all.” Jake’s sneer made my stomach twist.
That was it. The tears were coming now whether I liked it or not. I pushed past Jake and Hannah just in time to see her push him in the chest with both hands and screech, “What the fuck, Jake?”
On another day, on another planet, I might have had the balls to stand there and keep berating him, or even to band together with the other poor girl getting screwed over and kick his sorry cocky ass out of the bar. Maybe even make friends with the poor cheated-on girlfriend.
But my embarrassment and my hurt and my humongous body were taking up too much space as it was right now. I pushed out of the crowd and stalked home as fast as I could, trying my best to ignore the pains that shot up my leg like electric shocks but were ten times as painful. I wrenched my key into the old sorority house door with crumbling paint, sobbed as I had to wiggle it exactly right to get the door to open, and collapsed on the couch.
As always, Joey was right behind me. Ten minutes later, she was kneeling next to the couch, stroking my hair and telling me to take deep breaths.
“I’m just in so much pain,” I finally managed. “I mean, I wasn’t doing well before I got back to school, but at least I thought he wanted to see me, you know? From our texts and phone calls...he wanted to be with me. But I guess not even good sex overcomes being a fatass.”
“First, he never just wanted to see you. He wanted a place to put his dick. Second, he doesn’t not want to be with you because you’re fat, he doesn’t want to be with you because he
is
a dick. Because you’re not fat. And third, from what I heard, the sex was never that good anyway.”
I watched a smile slowly, carefully pull up the corners of her mouth. My head pounded, but I laughed. “What do you mean, ‘what you heard?’”
“Well, you know. You’re a passionate girl. I figure you’d make a little more noise if a guy was really taking care of you.”
A giggle, half hysterical and half relieved, bubbled out of my throat. “Well, you know he was my first, so I didn’t know any different. But you have a good point there. Next time, can you just kick out anyone that doesn’t make me scream and scratch the walls?”
“If our house mom doesn’t first.” She hugged me tight around the neck. “What else are friends for?”
“Um...well...dragging me to a counselor tomorrow? I think I really need to talk to someone.”
She sat back and looked at me, her eyes big and sad. “Yeah. Oh, yeah, babe. I didn’t realize it was that bad.”
“Neither did I, I don’t think, until...I don’t know. A couple days ago. And right now, I can’t stop thinking about how I deserved that. What Jake did to me. Because I’m so fat, and depressed, and not seeing things right, and feeling so weird about everything...I don't even know what I am anymore.” My lip trembled and tears brimmed in my eyes. “I just...I don’t want to feel this way anymore, you know? Everything hurts.”
“Oh sweetie. You know that’s ridiculous, to think you deserved it?”
I nodded.
“Okay, then. Counseling center tomorrow. I didn’t want to go to my nine o’clock anyway.”
The tears finally spilled over into rivers on my cheeks. “Thank you,” I said over and over as she hugged me.
After a few minutes, Joey pulled back. “Now that we have that taken care of, what should we do now? Compare Jake’s dick to various tiny household items?”
I giggled again. “Yeah. Let’s start with some chopsticks. Got the number to the Chinese place?”
The white
laminate high edge of the intake desk at the counseling center curved around a lower one with a secretary sitting beneath it. When we walked up to her, she kept staring at her computer screen and clicking her mouse every one or two seconds.
“You have an appointment?”
“No, she’s a walk-in,” Joey said, standing on tiptoe to try to get the secretary’s attention.
The woman tore her eyes from her screen and looked up at us over the rims of her shining wire glasses. “We don’t have any appointments today.”
“This is a student alert situation.”
The woman sighed and pulled a brown clipboard off the desk from the other side of her computer. The tiny silver balls of the chain that held the pen there flashed at me as it swung beneath. “Fill this out and I’ll let them know.”
Joey flashed her a tight smile. “Thanks,” she said, in a short snappy tone that implied anything but thanks.
We settled into some chairs in the small waiting area, and Joey handed me the board.
“What is a student alert situation?” I asked while I filled out my name, e-mail address, year, major, and why I wanted to see a counselor. I bit back a giggle when I thought about filling that blank with
seriously fucked up
. Instead I just filled in
feeling down
.
Joey looked at me and smiled slightly. She tapped her forehead with her index finger. “Psych student, right? I did a little research project in the office last year. ‘Student alert’ is code for ‘I think she’s gonna kill herself if you don’t see her today.”
I gasped. “Joey! It is not that bad.”
“It’s bad enough that you need to talk to someone today. I don’t even want to think about what you’re gonna look like six weeks from now if you don’t.”
My mouth dropped open. “I...yeah.” I wanted to argue with her but every time I thought about how much energy it took to drag myself out of bed, or smile when I went out with my friends, or thought about Jake’s announcement that he was officially and finally dumping me on my fat ass and all the embarrassment....yeah. I needed to see someone.
We flipped through magazines for a few minutes before one of the office doors cracked open, and a woman in a sweater and jeans with swingy auburn hair stepped out. She held the door for a girl who looked like she’d been crying, but thanked her.
She gave a slight smile as she passed the woman in the sweater, who gave her a quick rub on the back. “See you later, Anna.”
“All right, Patty, I’m going to lunch,” the woman called as she started to walk to the main door of the office.
“Doctor Albright, would you just take a quick look at the board?”
“I—” But then the doctor looked up at Shelly, and a serious look and a nod passed between them. “Sure,” she smiled. Her eyes scanned the paper for a few seconds, and then she looked up. “Which one of you is Catherine?”
I swallowed and half raised my hand before I realized how stupid that probably looked. “Uh, me. I’m Cat.”
“Do you have a few minutes to come in and talk to me?”
The woman’s—doctor’s—smile was kind and genuine. So I smiled too. “Yeah.”
The couch was shabby and saggy, and creaked a little when I sat down on it. “Sorry about that,” I mumbled.
She laughed. “No, it’s fine. Does that every time.”
I laughed, too. “I just thought it was because I was fat.” I laughed a couple short, breathy laughs, trying to inspire her agreement. Whether I wanted her to agree with me or with my joke, I didn’t know.
Instead, she just tilted her head to the side a little and gave me a courtesy smile. “Why would you think that was funny?”
“I don’t know. It’s easier than feeling bad about it.”
“Is your weight what’s making you feel down? That’s what you said on the paperwork, right, that you’ve been feeling depressed?”
“Yeah, but I have no idea what the problem
really
is, you know? I mean, I don’t like being fat—”
“You’re not fat, Cat. You know that. Right?”
“Well, I mean, I guess I’m the size of the average American woman, but I used to be—”
“We’re not talking about what you used to be. We’re talking about what you are.”
“Okay. Well, no. It’s not about that. It’s just...everything has changed.” I told her about the whole ten months since my accident—my poor snapped leg bone, the surgeries, the physical therapy, how none of my clothes fit, how I couldn't even spend that long on a cardio machine, let alone go running, any more. How everyone saw me differently since I’d changed so much.
“Has anything else changed about
you
? Besides your weight?”
I shook my head. “I’m in the same sorority, same major. Same friends. I don’t know. It’s hard for me to go out.”
“Why?”
“It hurts to walk, and I guess I have nothing to wear.”
Her eyebrows went up. “I mean, I do have stuff to wear,” I said, “but I don’t like any of it. You know.”
She smiled and sat back. “Sort of. I don’t think I introduced myself. I’m Doctor Albright, and I specialize in body dysmorphic disorders along with working here in the counseling center.”
My whole body stiffened. “No. Hold on. I...when I modeled, it was healthy. I ate enough, I worked out. I wasn’t a crazy person, or dysmorphic, or anorexic, or anything like that, I swear to you.”
She nodded, putting her eyebrows up. “Oh, I know. I can tell that you are naturally very tall and have a smallish frame, and that you probably stayed very thin without too much effort. And I’m not saying you have a disorder now. But I am saying that if you don’t take care of your issues with your body image, they will continue to be a plague on your life forever.”
I sat back, stunned. This doctor was telling me that if I didn’t deal with my issues now, not a day would go by when I didn’t want to cry at the feel of my jeans tightening around my thighs when I sat, or stress over eating half a cookie.
“I’m speaking to you directly, Cat, because I can tell you’re a relatively healthy girl who just had a very, very tough year. And I want to work with you to figure out how to cope, no matter your body shape, so that you have these skills in place for when things change later.”
“My body’s going to change again?”
“Your body will change your whole life. Rather, it could. Illness, pregnancy, stress, all can affect how much you eat and can exercise. I’m a counselor, so while I care about your body being healthy, what I care about most right now is your
mind
being healthy
about
your body.”
Her assessment hit me like a ton of bricks.
“My whole identity was wrapped up in being a model. In people thinking I’m beautiful. I loved that feeling. I don’t know how to get it back.”
“What have you been doing?”
“Um...eating well. Or eating badly. Or sometimes not eating at all.”
She gave me a gentle smile. “Okay. Emotional eating, we can deal with. Later. But now, I want to tackle the idea that your value as a person is wrapped up in your body. It’s not your body you want to get back, though. It’s how you felt when you were in that body.”
I raised my eyebrow at her.
“Think about how it felt to be on the runway, or in front of a camera. What was that like?”
I let my eyes flutter closed, trying to remember it. The flash of the camera, the excitement of someone telling me the way I popped my hip or looked at them through my eyelashes was “stunning” or “perfect” or “gorgeous.” I took a deep breath and told her. “The feeling that no one else in the world could look the same as I did right then, could make those clothes look as beautiful as I did. My body was the canvas, and the clothing was the art. My entire being was art.”
She just sat there, watching me.
An intense unease twisted my gut. “I understand what you’re saying. I really do. And I believe it, logically. But when my entire job, and a lot of who I was, was based on how good I looked in clothes, it’s kind of hard to not judge myself like that. You know?”
“I know. Which is why I’m here to push you. To help you.” She tapped her pen on her chin. “How strong would you say you are, Cat?”
“Well, I just publicly chewed out the douche canoe who was using me for serial one-night stands. At a bar. In front of all my friends.”
A grin spread across her face. “Okay. Do you think you can trust me, Cat?”
“What do you want me to do?”
“First, I want to tell you a story.” She stood up and lifted her shirt. Her whole abdomen hung like a wrinkled curtain of skin, striped with shimmery white stretch marks. The area around her belly button sagged like it had a hood covering it.
“Kids?” I asked her, though I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her belly. I’d thought mine was bad. This was like a train wreck.
She pulled her shirt back down, sat down in the chair, and smiled. “Nope. See how short I am? How petite my shoulders are?”
I nodded.
“I used to be a ballet dancer. I was quite a star, actually.”
“What happened?”
“My mom and dad both died in a car crash.”
I gasped. “Whoa. I’m so sorry. That’s horrible.”
She nodded. “It was. I was fourteen. And I didn’t have any siblings to lean on. It was really just my aunt and me, and she was devastated too. And I didn’t know what else to do, so I just ate. A lot.
“I almost doubled in weight, and by the time I lost it all, I was in college. I’d been a fat high schooler, never been kissed, and was just trying to figure out how to be normal.”
“So what did you do?”
“I did what I loved again, but I did it in a way that was going to help me. I went back to dance class.”
“So you want me to model again?”
“I do.”
“Well, I can’t. My Philly agent can’t find any spots for me.”
It was a lie. Maureen, my modeling agent had a bunch of plus-sized jobs for me—she said they were in high demand, actually—but I knew that if I walked back into that office and was surrounded by all those pictures of girls I used to work with, who were still long and lanky and beautiful, and I was reporting for a job for fat-girl clothes, I would totally lose my shit.
I thought Dr. Albright would drop it. Instead, she said, “That’s not exactly what I meant. You told me you were strong, and I believe you. I have a friend who's a professor at Drexel who could really use your help.”
“What class?”
“Drawing. She needs models.”
“So I just go and sit in the middle of the room and people draw me? Okay. So you’re going for the whole ‘art’ thing. Cool.”
“Well, it’s not ‘just’ posing though. It’s posing nude.”
My eyes flew open wide and panic seized my chest. “Oh, no. You don’t understand. I’m not a nude model. My belly has rolls and my boobs sag. I have cellulite.”
“So do most people. And for artists...the curvier the better.” She waved her hand. “I’m not sure exactly why—something about fundamental beauty and curve and shadow and balance—but I’m sure they’ll tell you.”
I just sat there, trying to wait for the waves in my stomach to calm down and take deep breaths.
“No kidding?” I said carefully. “You really think this will help me feel less depressed?”
“No, I think the low-dose antidepressant I’m giving you will help you feel less depressed. I think that modeling again will help you feel more powerful, which will keep you from getting as depressed later. Most importantly, it will give you some of the coping skills to deal if some asshole calls you fat in a bar. So what do you think?”
All the excuses obliterated themselves in my head. It was at Drexel, and I was a Temple University student, so I most likely wouldn’t see anyone I knew too well. I could put on weird makeup and leave through the back door. If I didn’t like it, I didn’t have to go back. I could even leave halfway through. It was a free country.
And the promise of feeling that power again was too delicious not to try it. Especially coming from this person who knew what I felt like, at least a little.
I swallowed, then nodded. “Okay.”
Doctor Albright nodded and started scribbling on her prescription pad. “One for the happy pills,” she winked, “and one with Professor Astor’s phone number and e-mail. Oh! And one more to come see me again in a month, or sooner if you need.”
I stood up and took the small square papers. “Thank you. Really.”
She walked me to the door and held it open for me. “Remember, Cat. Try to find enough bravery to make yourself feel powerful. Can you do that?”
I took a deep breath, and my stomach quivered as I made the promise. “I can certainly try.”