Except—
there
. A slim tube of paper, bound with a pink ponytail holder. Carefully, I slid off the elastic and unrolled the paper.
Good golly
, I thought as I took it in. It was a collage of pictures cut from magazines, all of models so skinny they looked like skeletons. Bony rib cages. Sharp and dangerous collarbones. Thighs the size of my forearm, forearms like straws.
Worse were the personal touches Gwennie had added. She’d filled every bit of white space with words and quotes meant to motivate her, I guess.
Thinspiration
! she’d printed at the top of the page. And then tips, like,
Freeze your food, it makes it take longer to eat
. Or,
Pinch yourself every time you think about ice cream
. Or,
Take a picture of yourself naked and look at it every day, and don’t worry if it makes you throw up. Just be sure to brush your teeth after
.
At the bottom of the page, she’d written,
Think thin. Think Patrick
! And then, in loopy cursive,
Mrs. Patrick’s Wife
.
Carefully, I rolled up her “Thinspiration” sheet and tucked it back among the tampons.
My heart, as I closed the cabinet and rose to my feet, was a small dead creature. If I could bury it in the woods, I would.
ON TUESDAY, I TOOK THE BUS INTO TOOMSBORO so that I could go to the public library. I told myself it was to check for new information on the case, but the truth was that talking to Gwennie had left me shaken. I wasn’t ready to confront anyone else just yet. I wasn’t ready for any more secrets.
The pants Gwennie threw in my face—“candypants,” Tommy dubbed them—
did
come from the Sharing House. Patrick and I had taken this same bus to Toomsboro one afternoon near the end of eighth grade, when Patrick was still my best friend and I still thought life was a sugarcoated delight.
At the Sharing House, Patrick unearthed the pants with a cry of glee, and when I glanced over, I squealed, too. They wereinsane. They were
awesome
. We’d giggled trying to imagine who donated them in the first place, because in our neck of the woods, orangish red wasn’t a color guys wore unless it was a vest for hunting season.
But the pants
were
meant for a man. They weren’t ladies’ slacks or anything, and when Patrick tried them on, they fit perfectly.
“Do I look sharp?” he asked, stepping out from the makeshift dressing room. He turned sideways and admired himself in the cracked mirror.
“
So
sharp,” I told him.
“Like someone from L.A.?” He was always dreaming of L.A., where he could cruise around in a convertible and attend movie premieres.
“Totally.” I put my finger to the corner of my mouth and acted confused. “Hold on a cotton-picking minute.
Are
you from L.A.?”
He asked the Sharing House lady to bag the pants up for him, and yes, Gwennie was right. I absolutely encouraged him.
Those pants had nothing to do with what happened to me a few weeks later, however. They were in no way connected to the cruelty I myself experienced at Tommy’s hand, but in my mind they would be forever linked.
Patrick, the pants, Tommy. Patrick, Tommy, the pants. Me, sitting on the sofa, reading. Aunt Tildy in the kitchen, making blackberry jam.
Tommy found me alone and he messed with me. He
knew
Iwanted him to stop. He didn’t, and he was punished. Aunt Tildy made sure of that.
But guess what? I was punished, too. I punished myself every day of my thirteenth summer, slowly shutting down and putting up walls. I quit my chatterbox ways, and I changed the way I dressed, switching out halter tops for the shapeless T-shirts Aunt Tildy hated. And yes, I dodged Patrick’s company, but I dodged everyone. It wasn’t yet deliberate. It just . . . happened.
Patrick didn’t understand. He thought I was avoiding him on purpose, because of something he did.
Not true
. I just didn’t know how to explain what was going on inside me. Finally, after I’d shrugged and toed the ground and made too many excuses for not doing this or
there
. A slim tube of paper, bound with a pink ponytail holder. Carefully, I slid off the elastic and unrolled the paper.
Good golly
, I thought as I took it in. It was a collage of pictures cut from magazines, all of models so skinny they looked like skeletons. Bony rib cages. Sharp and dangerous collarbones. Thighs the size of my forearm, forearms like straws.
Worse were the personal touches Gwennie had added. She’d filled every bit of white space with words and quotes meant to motivate her, I guess.
Thinspiration
! she’d printed at the top of the page. And then tips, like,
Freeze your food, it makes it take longer to eat
. Or,
Pinch yourself every time you think about ice cream
. Or,
Take a picture of yourself naked and look at it every day, and don’t worry if it makes you throw up. Just be sure to brush your teeth after
.
At the bottom of the page, she’d written,
Think thin. Think Patrick
! And then, in loopy cursive,
Mrs. Patrick’s Wife
.
Carefully, I rolled up her “Thinspiration” sheet and tucked it back among the tampons.
My heart, as I closed the cabinet and rose to my feet, was a small dead creature. If I could bury it in the woods, I would.
ON TUESDAY, I TOOK THE BUS INTO TOOMSBORO so that I could go to the public library. I told myself it was to check for new information on the case, but the truth was that talking to Gwennie had left me shaken. I wasn’t ready to confront anyone else just yet. I wasn’t ready for any more secrets.
The pants Gwennie threw in my face—“candypants,” Tommy dubbed them—
did
come from the Sharing House. Patrick and I had taken this same bus to Toomsboro one afternoon near the end of eighth grade, when Patrick was still my best friend and I still thought life was a sugarcoated delight.
At the Sharing House, Patrick unearthed the pants with a cry of glee, and when I glanced over, I squealed, too. They wereinsane. They were
awesome
. We’d giggled trying to imagine who donated them in the first place, because in our neck of the woods, orangish red wasn’t a color guys wore unless it was a vest for hunting season.
But the pants
were
meant for a man. They weren’t ladies’ slacks or anything, and when Patrick tried them on, they fit perfectly.
“Do I look sharp?” he asked, stepping out from the makeshift dressing room. He turned sideways and admired himself in the cracked mirror.
“
So
sharp,” I told him.
“Like someone from L.A.?” He was always dreaming of L.A., where he could cruise around in a convertible and attend movie premieres.
“Totally.” I put my finger to the corner of my mouth and acted confused. “Hold on a cotton-picking minute.
Are
you from L.A.?”
He asked the Sharing House lady to bag the pants up for him, and yes, Gwennie was right. I absolutely encouraged him.
Those pants had nothing to do with what happened to me a few weeks later, however. They were in no way connected to the cruelty I myself experienced at Tommy’s hand, but in my mind they would be forever linked.
Patrick, the pants, Tommy. Patrick, Tommy, the pants. Me, sitting on the sofa, reading. Aunt Tildy in the kitchen, making blackberry jam.
Tommy found me alone and he messed with me. He
knew
Iwanted him to stop. He didn’t, and he was punished. Aunt Tildy made sure of that.
But guess what? I was punished, too. I punished myself every day of my thirteenth summer, slowly shutting down and putting up walls. I quit my chatterbox ways, and I changed the way I dressed, switching out halter tops for the shapeless T-shirts Aunt Tildy hated. And yes, I dodged Patrick’s company, but I dodged everyone. It wasn’t yet deliberate. It just . . . happened.
Patrick didn’t understand. He thought I was avoiding him on purpose, because of something he did.
Not true
. I just didn’t know how to explain what was going on inside me. Finally, after I’d shrugged and toed the ground and made too many excuses for not doing this or
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