Skinny(41)

This morning, I was so busy trying to pick out the right outfit that I totally forgot my lunch. Now, I’m standing in the lunch line, too overwhelmed to really think about what I can and can’t eat. It’s too fast. I need more time. Can I eat chicken nuggets? Maybe. If I chew really well. Mashed potatoes. Yes. But I can’t fill up on them — no protein. I have to eat protein first. No gravy. Applesauce?

“Does the applesauce have sugar in it?” I ask Hairnet Lady.

“Huh?” She looks at me like I have two heads.

“Never mind,” I say. She plops a spoonful of rosy applesauce onto the tray.

When I come out the door into the crowded cafeteria, I search for Rat. If he’s here, he’ll probably be at the non-popular tables over by the wall. I want to say I’m sorry. The last two hours of class were endless. All I could think of was how horrible I was to him. He didn’t deserve it.

“Ever!”

I turn to see Whitney waving frantically from the popular tables by the windows. You’ve got to be kidding me. But there’s no mistaking it. She’s waving me over.

“Here. Sit with us.” She pushes a frowning Briella down the table and pats the now empty space on the tabletop.

I scoot into the bench, notice the space in between the tabletop and my stomach, and look across at Wolfgang, who is downing his second carton of milk. He nods. I glance back over my shoulder, looking for Rat, but he’s nowhere to be found. I guess I’m stuck here for the moment. I take a tiny bite of chicken nugget and chew like crazy.

“You won’t believe how little she eats now,” Whitney announces to the table. My face burns. I feel like an interesting animal at the zoo at feeding time. See how the elephant uses its trunk to pick up the hay off the ground. I glance around the table to see people watching me chew. Wolfgang is especially interested in what I’m not eating.

“So . . . you’re not going to eat all those potatoes, right?”

“No,” I say, watching the interest grow in his eyes. “Do you want them?”

“Sure, but next time order the gravy on the side.”

I nod. There’s evidently going to be a next time for me to sit at the popular table. If only to give Wolfgang my leftovers. I look down the table toward Briella. She’s talking to someone on the other side of her. She leans back, laughing and tossing her hair over her shoulder, and I see it’s Rat. What’s he doing at this table, too? His regular spot is over by the trash cans with the other science geeks. He’s never spent a day on this bench before, but he looks like he’s been here forever. My stomach feels funny at the way he’s smiling back at Briella. Or maybe it’s just the chicken nuggets. That’s probably what it is.

“Are you full yet?” Whitney watches me like a hawk. I chew my third bite of chicken nugget and finally take a bite of mashed potatoes.

“Almost,” I answer.

“Amazing,” Whitney says, then addresses the whole table in a loud I-know-all-about-it voice. “She only eats a few bites and feels like she just ate a Thanksgiving dinner. Right, Ever?”

I look around the table. Everyone seems fascinated. With me.

“Yeah,” I say.

Whitney looks down her too-big-for-her-face nose at me.

“So how much weight have you lost so far?”

“Seventy-two pounds,” I tell her. Whitney Stone is asking me a question in front of all her popular friends, and I’m answering her. That’s the amazing part.

“That’s like one of you,” Wolfgang says to Whitney.

“I wish.” She makes a fake frowny face and says, “I weigh way more than that, silly.”

She turns to Kristen, who always seems to be not too far away from Whitney’s left elbow. “You should look into that surgery.”

Kristen is maybe twenty pounds overweight. Maybe. Kristen looks down at the tabletop and bites her lip.

“Now, that really hurt. Comparing poor, average-sized Kristen to you.”

“You have to be more than a hundred pounds overweight to qualify for the surgery.” I can’t believe I’m trying to make Kristen Rogers feel better.

“So when will it stop?” Whitney asks.

“I don’t know for sure. Most people stop losing weight after about a year.”

“So you’re only halfway done? You could lose seventy-five more pounds?” Kristen asks incredulously.

“It slows down. I won’t lose as fast as I have been.”

“I saw this actress on TV that did that surgery. She lost a lot of weight,” Kristen says. “But she’s gained it all back.”

I don’t feel sorry for her anymore.