chapter 5

The most embarrassing moment comes when she is at a house party. It is well into the night, and she has lost some of her inhibitions to light spirits. She is not drunk, but she is getting tipsy, tottering somewhere in between caring and not caring about the way she looks without her jumper on. When getting dressed for the party, she had to squeeze into dark blue denims and a sparkly top. She used to kill in denim jeans, but now she's not so sure. Her stomach was lunging out, and her bum was feeling unsightly. So she put a baggy sweater over the top, long enough to cover her stomach and hips in one throw. But as the night gets warmer, and a few drinks later, she feels too warm and too flustered to keep it on. She pulls it up over her head. Sweater off, the air rushes back to her skin, and it is as if she can breathe again. Sweater in one hand, and cup in the other, she makes eye contact with a friend, and together they bob stupidly up and down to the music thundering through the hallways. Standing beside a hall table with a long blue vase on it, Melissa watches people move in and out through the nearby sliding doors leading to the backyard.

Adelle comes in, hanging off some guy's neck, and they disappear into the kitchen. Chris turns his head to watch them elope, and seems to make a joke on them with whoever he's talking to. Gripping a bottle, Angela wanders in and meets Melissa's gaze from across the room. Pausing for a moment, she makes a comical face and looks down at something. Melissa realizes Angela is looking at her waist. Angela pulls another face, making some large, vague gesture at her with the bottle, then sways away out of sight. Melissa looks down, and is instantly dazed. When did she get this fat? Milky white blubber is all on display under a shirt accidentally hitched upwards from the sweater. Slipping into tipsy, she leans against the hall table, fascinated by herself. She can see the shape of the top of her stomach, half covered by a sequined shirt, in between her breasts. She has never been able to do this before. Just as she is about to correct herself, she hears her name from behind her.

Melissa turns around. She feels something bump into her belly, and there is a smash.

Voices falter. Eyes wander over. Shattered ceramic lies around her feet. The ceramic is blue, a pretty blue; as blue as the vase was.

Coming in from the front door, Ally halts, seeing the shattered vase all over the floor. Mitchell peers over her shoulder.

Footsteps come up from behind her. It's Jackson, the host of the party. The vase was his mother's. Chest like ice, Melissa turns carefully to face him. Her knees buckle. She blabs and gabbers about being sorry and sorry and so, so sorry, and more sorry, and that she'll fix it, she promises, but she cannot remember if he said anything to her. All she can remember is the way it felt; like she was naked in an empty ditch, and everyone she knew stood around the edge, seeing her.

The next moments are shaken into pieces, as confused and messy as the vase on the floor. A dustpan and broom are brought out. Someone collects the larger pieces. Jackson has vanished. Melissa has retreated out into the front lawn to try not to cry.

Her cup discarded somewhere, she sits alone, huddled on a large lawn rock at the very front of the house where there is no more light and only the dark, quiet street to see. It's cold out here, and the air is dewy. She clutches the sweater in her hands but won't put it on. Statue-still, she wages uncertain war against the hot lump on her throat, pushing it down only for it to swell back up. Swollen, like her. The lump thrives further.
Grass whispers behind her, and then someone is sitting down nearby.

'Hey,' Ally says.

Melissa doesn't respond.

'How do you feel?'

'Bad,' Melissa croaks.

They share a long silence together. Crickets whistle in places. Melissa lets their song soothe her. Then, at last, she speaks. 'What happened?'

'It's cleaned up,' Ally says.

'Where did he go?'

'I don't know.'

'How mad is he?'

'I don't know.'

Another long silence, as wind sighs through leaves.

'I hate myself.'

Ally edges closer to her.

'I hate myself,' Melissa says again.

'Please don't.'

Ally's shoulder is close. So Melissa leans on it. 'I've missed you.'

'Me too, Milly.'

Melissa collapses into Ally's shoulder and nearly weeps. 'What have I done?'

'Shh. Don't think right now. Just breathe.'

They sit in silence again, Melissa's head on Ally's shoulder and eyes shut.

'I should go home,' Melissa mumbles after a while.

'You want to?'

'Yeah.'

'It 's been a pretty rough night for you.'

'Yeah.'

Ally sighs. 'I'm not trying to be mean, but... I don't know how to say this. But, you do know, don't you?'

'Know what?'

'Well... I mean. This. Look at you.' Ally gives Melissa's shirt-covered belly an affectionate pat, but Melissa brushes her hand away.

'I know.'

'What happened?'

'I don't know.'

'What do you mean you don't know? Again, I'm not, like, trying to be mean, and I hope I'm not being mean. But you put on some weight. Very quick. It doesn't just happen that quick. Well... maybe it can, but--'

'I know. I just...'

'Do you know how much?'

'How much what?'

'How much you've put on.'

'No.'

'Can I guess?'

Melissa takes her head off Ally's shoulder. 'Fine.'

'I'm going to guess thirty or so pounds. I'm just being realistic.'

'Since when?'

'Last year.'

'Oh, god damn it. That makes me, like, 160 or something.'

'That's bad, Milly.'

'I know.'

'If you know, why don't you change it?'

'I will, now.' Melissa turns her face away to hide her embarrassment as she thinks of the incident. 'Is he mad?'

'I don't really know. Mitchell will know, later.'

'I'm never getting invited to anything again, am I?'

'Don't think like that.'

'It's true. I'm fat. And shitty. And I knock things over. With my fat.'

'...that's because it's all here.' Thinking she can be funny, Ally grabs at Melissa's belly, seizing a handful, ready to tickle mercilessly, but Melissa just swats her hand away again.

'Wow. That was more than I thought.'

'Huh?'

&apo s;That was a lot of fat to grab.' Thinking she can be funny again.

'Shut up.'

Ally gives up trying to be funny. Melissa pulls the sweater on. Warm and concealed, she folds her arms and broods.

'Okay,' Ally says. 'I'm sorry. I'm not good at humour. But here, listen, there is a bright side.'

'Yeah?'

&apo s;Boys love bigger tits and asses.'

'Doesn't matter. I'm still disgusting.'

Ally finds nothing else to say. Their breath plumes in the chill night air.

Crickets whistle while a distant plane screams through the sky.

Melissa has had enough.

Ally drives her home.