Misadventures of a Curvy Girl (Misadventures #18)(49)

Except maybe I won’t. Not until I figure out exactly what’s going on, at least.

And maybe, a cold, slimy voice whispers, they wouldn’t do that at all. Maybe after what Lyle said yesterday, they’ll start to realize you’re not worth protecting. You’re not worth the effort. Why would you be? It’s not like there are men lining up to take their place.

“Shut up,” I whisper back to the voice. “Shut up, shut up, shut up.”

But it doesn’t shut up as I creep down the stairs in the near-dawn darkness. The voice keeps going. And the longer it talks, the more sense it starts to make. Especially as I open up my laptop at the kitchen table and see an email from the reporter in my inbox, with the subject line Here it is!!!

I open the email and click the link.

I immediately wish I hadn’t.

The picture of me with Caleb and Ben is at the very top, and right away I can see it’s not a flattering picture. The skirt I bought in a fit of bravery after breaking up with Brian—the same skirt Caleb and Ben beg me to wear all the time—does nothing to hide thighs that are too wide and too pale and too dimpled. My cropped blouse that felt so cute when Caleb kept trying to yank it off me so he could nuzzle my breasts looks embarrassingly small now. The little strip of belly that seemed spunky and adorable looks sad and not a little oblivious on the screen. Even the long wavy hair and colorful lipstick—a look I’m normally so proud of, a look I’ve shown off on Instagram more times than I can count—seem pathetically desperate. When I went into town that day, I felt bold and sexy and fun, but looking at the picture now, it’s like every single element that makes Ireland Mills interesting or pretty or anything has been flattened into an image that screams trying too hard.

Not for the first time, I wish I weren’t so goddamned short. I wish I were five foot nine or ten, like the famous plus-size models on the covers of magazines, and not five foot two. I wish my curves were spread out instead of all squished together, I wish I carried my weight differently.

The cold, slimy voice chants wishes along with me—wishes that pass through my mind in less than a minute but get darker and darker as they go. I wish my breasts were smaller. I wish my belly were too. I wish I looked thin…I wish I were thin. I wish I were born that way.

I wish I wasn’t born at all.

A pulse of jagged, ruthless satisfaction follows the thought; it’s like pressing down on a bruise.

It’s starkly comforting to acknowledge the truth at last.

I wish I wasn’t born at all, not into this body. I hate this body.

I run my hands through my hair, tugging at it. How can this be me thinking these thoughts? Me, who just a month ago was a newly confident woman with tons of body-positive bloggers in her Instagram feed and a wardrobe full of clothes she actually wanted to wear? I thought I was over feeling bad about my body, that I’d solved my insecurity, and all it takes is one picture to make me wish I’d never been born? How weak am I?

Desperate for any new input to shake me away from my thoughts, I look back at the picture. The boys look amazing, of course, even though they’d both been working outside and sweating that day. They look like models for some kind of country boy calendar, T-shirts clinging to tight stomachs and belted jeans showing off narrow hips and distinct bulges behind their zippers. They look like the epitome of alpha males, like they should have a willowy, all-American blonde between them, not a dumpy brunette who looks like an art school dropout.

Although I’m not even an art school dropout. I’m something much worse: a girl who was too chicken even to go in the first place.

The caption for the picture is journalistically spare: Mills, 24, and her two boyfriends, Caleb Carpenter, 33, and Ben Weber, 33, both of Holm, Kansas. They met the weekend of the tornado.

The article itself is fantastic—I can recognize that in a distant part of my brain. The reporter paints a picture of me as smart and vibrant and creative, all of my quotes sound insightful and intelligent, and all the photographs of mine they feature are strikingly composed and emotional.

But I of all people know it doesn’t matter how smart I am, or how talented. When you’re fat, all of those qualities are erased. All that exists to represent you as a three-dimensional and nuanced human is your fatness, and your fatness is translated in a kind of visual shorthand for all sorts of moral failings. Laziness. Gluttony. Uncleanliness. An unholy lack of self-control and self-discipline.

The very sight of you is almost like an affront; your existence is almost offensive.

I could have invented CRISPR or fed thousands in the streets of Calcutta and it wouldn’t have mattered so long as my picture was at the top of the article. It’s why I’ve hidden behind the camera for so long—because to be in front of the lens is to acknowledge that I exist in this body. To be smiling is to not participate in the expectation that I should be ashamed.

I should close the tab. I should, I should, but the rational part of me is gone, cowering and crying somewhere, and all that’s left is the part of me that can’t resist pressing on the bruise some more.

Which is why I scroll down to the comments section.

It’s a mistake.

Even the awful part of me that whispers about how much I hate my own body sees that it’s a mistake, because it turns out that even the worst cruelty I can muster toward myself is nothing compared to what strangers can say on the internet.