I have been heavy before, but I don’t think I’ve ever been this heavy. It’s as if sacks of meat have been tied to my limbs, to my torso. It takes so much more effort to do anything. Because this is not muscular heaviness. I am not a linebacker. No, I’m fat. Flabby, unwieldy fat.
When I finally take a look around and take a look inside, I’m not very excited about what I see. Finn Taylor has retreated from most of the world; his size comes from negligence and laziness, a carelessness that would be pathological if it had any meticulousness to it. While I’m sure if I access deep enough I will find some well of humanity, all I can see on the surface is the emotional equivalent of a burp.
I trudge to the shower, pick a ball of lint the size of a cat’s paw out of Finn’s belly button. I have to push hard to get anything done. There must have come a time when it became too exhausting to do anything, and Finn just gave in to it.
Within five minutes of getting out of the shower, I’m sweating.
I don’t want Rhiannon to see me like this. But I have to see Rhiannon—I can’t cancel on her for a second day in a row, not when things feel so precarious between us.
I warn her. I say in my email that I am huge today. But I still want to see her after school. I’m close to the Clover Bookstore today, so I propose that as a meeting place.
I pray that she’ll come.
There’s nothing in Finn’s memory that leads me to believe that he’d be upset about missing school, but I go anyway. I’ll let him save his absences for when he’s actually conscious of them.
Because of the size of this body, I must concentrate much harder than I usually do. Even the small things—my foot on the gas pedal, the amount of space I have to leave around me in the halls—require major adjustment.
And there are the looks I get—such undisguised disgust. Not just from other students. From teachers. From strangers. The judgment flows freely. It’s possible that they’re reacting to the thing that Finn has allowed himself to become. But there’s also something more primal, something more defensive in their disgust. I am what they fear becoming.
I’ve worn black today, because I’ve heard so often that it’s supposed to be slimming. But instead I am this sphere of darkness submarining through the halls.
The only respite is lunch, where Finn has his two best friends, Ralph and Dylan. They’ve been best friends since third grade. They make fun of Finn’s size, but it’s clear they don’t really care. If he were thin, they’d make fun of him for that, too.
I feel I can relax around them.
I go home after school to take another shower and change. As I’m drying myself off, I wonder if I could plant a traumatic memory in Finn’s brain, something so shocking that he’d stop eating so much. Then I’m horrified at myself for even thinking such a thing. I remind myself that it’s not my business to tell Finn what to do.
I’ve put on Finn’s best clothes—an XXXL button-down and some size 46 jeans—to meet up with Rhiannon. I even try a tie, but it looks ridiculous, ski-sloping off my stomach.
The chairs are wobbly underneath me at the bookstore’s café. I decide to walk the aisles instead, but they’re too narrow, and I keep knocking things off the shelves. In the end, I wait for her out front.
She spots me right away; it’s not like she can miss me. The recognition’s in her eyes, but it’s not a particularly happy one.
“Hey,” I say.
“Yeah, hey.”
We just stand there.
“What’s up?” I ask.
“Just taking you all in, I guess.”
“Don’t look at the package. Look at what’s inside.”
“That’s easy for you to say. I never change, do I?”
Yes and no, I think. Her body’s the same. But a lot of the time, I feel like I’m meeting a slightly different Rhiannon. As if each mood presents a variation.
“Let’s go,” I say.
“Where to?”
“Well, we’ve been to the ocean and to the mountain and to the woods. So I thought this time we’d try … dinner and a movie.”
This gets a smile.
“That sounds suspiciously like a date,” she says.
“I’ll even buy you flowers if you’d like.”
“Go ahead,” she dares. “Buy me flowers.”
Rhiannon is the only girl in the movie theater with a dozen roses on the seat next to her. She is also the only girl whose companion is spilling over his chair and into hers. I try to make it less awkward by draping my arm around her. But then I’m conscious of my sweat, of how my fleshy arm must feel against the back of her neck. I’m also conscious of my breathing, which wheezes a little if I exhale too much. After the previews are over, I move over a seat. But then I move my hand to the seat in between us, and she takes it. We last like that for at least ten minutes, until she pretends she has an itch, and doesn’t return her hand to mine.
I’ve chosen a nice place for dinner, but that doesn’t guarantee that it will be a nice dinner.
She keeps staring at me—staring at Finn.
“What is it?” I finally ask.
“It’s just that … I can’t see you inside. Usually I can. Some glimmer of you in the eyes. But not tonight.”
In some way, this is flattering. But the way she says it, it’s also disheartening.
“I promise I’m in here.”
“I know. But I can’t help it. I just don’t feel anything. When I see you like this, I don’t. I can’t.”