I couldn't take it anymore. The pointed remarks, the backhanded comments, the snide expressions and pitying eyes.
"Honestly, Ellie, the purple dress would look so much better on you if you could just manage to shed off some weight," Aunt Priscilla stated, with a sneer that was supposed to look like a smile.
I didn't bother saying anything because it was pointless anyways. Mother and Father looked embarrassed and to make matters worse, Mother decided to jump in, but not to defend me.
"Ellie has been trying really hard, you know? She's just a big-boned girl with a healthy appetite. But perhaps, she needs to do more fasting to be able to drop to a less..." she began and dropped her voice to a whisper, acting as if the sacrilegious word was said in a hushed voice, it would soften the sting.
"Less...well, morbidly obese weight."
I picked at the meatball in my plate, my eyes planted down, never looking at the people who were unfortunately my family members.
Aunt Priscilla, with her sleek, long Barbie-blonde hair and her waspy figure with slim shoulders, tiny waist and trim hips and long, shapely legs and her two kids, my cousins, who were a replica of her. Patricia and Petunia, who were approximately my age, about nineteen years old or so. Those three seemed to loathe me for only one particular reason: because I was fat.
None of my family members knew how it was possible for me to contain so much blubber even after hitting puberty.
Ah, yes--she is a chubby baby, indeed. Chubby babies are cute, but let's hope she doesn't stay this way for too long. It would look too bad for us.
Ellie--you've gotten even bigger over the summer! Why haven't you shed your baby fat?
Ellie--you need to stop eating so much. Get up. Exercise. Practice some self control.
Ellie--I don't think that top looks good on you. It exposes too much of your chest and your gut is poking out. Tut Tut.
I believe I've heard it all. By now, I should have grown a thick skin that could even stop bullets but the words permeate my skin like poisonous gas and I have no choice but to breathe in the toxicity of the family who made me the center of attention over dinner tables on a daily basis.
Father, slightly younger than Aunt Priscilla but less outspoken, mainly kept quiet but he would look at me with piercing, grey eyes, shaking his head every so often as his wife, my simpering mother, who thought she knew what was best for me, desperate for Aunt Priscilla's approval.
"You look like a lumpy potato," Petunia chuckled, daintily sipping her carbonated water. She flipped her long, blonde hair and sneered at me with her delicately formed face.
"Didn't ask for your opinion," I shot back and the demonic aunt gasped in horror.
"Ellie! Mind your manners, young lady. I expect a civilized behavior even if you don't look like it." She scolded me, her eyes glittering with fury.
I responded by stuffing more meatballs in my mouth and rolling my eyes to the ceiling. But apparently, that was another issue and boom! The whole table erupted as if I just announced to them that I was planning to brood a demon spawn.
"Ellie, your attitude is really appalling. You already look like this--and it's really not helping your case," Patricia piped in, her blue eyes narrowed on me.
I ignored her and started slurping my spaghetti loudly. She grimaced in disgust, her fork screeching against her neat plate.
"Yeah, you're hideous as it is now. Girl, you need to drop that layer of blubber," Petunia chimed, backing up her twin sister. They grinned at each other and then at me, with a vicious look in their expressions.
"Ellie, I'm expecting better than that. They're right, you need to start a rigorous diet. Some exercise would help too," my own mother told me, sternly.
My father didn't say anything but he scowled down at his plate, looking at the heap of spaghetti in his plate like it was a stinking ball of elephant dung. He hadn't touched his plate since we had sat down at the dinner table and it seemed like he just lost his appetite. It seemed like he had lost his appetite a long time ago, somewhere along the road trip where we were heading to the luxurious cabin in the middle of the woods, somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Upstate. As if he knew that this was something he knew would happen, leaving a bitter taste in his mouth.
"Father, if you're not planning to eat, let me get your plate," I declared, still ignoring the comments. Their words shouldn't hurt me and even if it did, I remained stoic in my stance.
He finally looked up, his grey eyes sad and tired and he pushed his plate towards me with a limp finger. The normally handsome father looked pale and withdrawn--his wheat-blonde hair sitting flat on his skull, his healthy sun-tanned skin taking on a dull pallor.
"Honey! Why are you giving her more? We were just saying that she needs to eat less and that is already her third plate. Why do you keep encouraging her?" My mother exclaimed, shock filling her brown eyes.
I grabbed his plate despite the loud objections around the table and quickly devoured the cold spaghetti with gusto. I wasn't hungry, per se, but I slurped the noodles as if I hadn't eaten for years-- I was aiming to enrage my audience. And it worked.
"Disgusting!" Aunt Priscilla growled loudly and the twins followed her lead with other choice words designed to pierce my thick skin.
Unbelievable. Nasty. Fatso.
"Peter, this is utterly unacceptable. How can you let your daughter become such a pig?" Aunt Priscilla asked, her similar grey eyes boiling in heat. She shot me a scathing look and my cousins did the same. Her perfect little minions that she designed from her wretched womb, like flying monkeys that followed the evil witch's orders.
"Ellie, go to your room now," My father said quietly and it was the reprieve I needed. I stared at everyone challengingly as I scraped my chair back and they just eyed me with disgusted looks in their faces. My mother included. My father met my eyes, an apologetic flicker in his face and he nodded at me imperceptibly.
Good to know that someone supported me, even if it was just from a tired glance from him. Better than nothing.
I marched heavily up the stairs, stomping for good measure and towards my room upstairs. The mahogany door behind me slammed with a force that shook the cabin and squawks of indignation ensued downstairs.
"Such a despicable attitude. Discipline that cow, please," I could hear my aunt saying.
My eyes rolled up and I headed towards the mirror with determination. What was it that they saw in me that they would look at me with such horror? I wasn't the black sheep, I was the fat sheep that all the skinny sheeps veered away from.
The mirror was always covered with a dark casing so that I wouldn't be able to see myself but this time I ripped away the black sheet from the fancy, ancient mirror even if I faced the consequences of petrifying myself with my ugliness.
I stared at myself in the hazy mirror. Big grey eyes that I inherited from my father gazed back at me, dark and stormy, and a round face accentuated them. My nose was small and button-like and my lips were pursed and full but my cheeks were on the plump side, always a faint pink that stayed with me. My hair was jet black, unlike my other relatives' straight, blonde hair, sticking from every direction and shoulder-length, and I blinked rapidly. Was I really that hideous?
My eyes lowered as I evaluated my body. Sure, I was on the big side. I stood at a formidable height of five feet nine and I had lumps and rolls everywhere, from my chest to my stomach to my thighs to my ass. My breasts were heavy but firm and my belly was round and dimpled. My thighs were laced with pale, lightning shaped stretch marks like my stomach, thick and sturdy, supporting my backside which were large and firm. No wonder they compared me to a hippo or a pig--their hind quarters had nothing on me. I continued to review myself, my brows furrowed in concentration.
Maybe they were right. I looked nothing like the Steward's family who pride in themselves for their bright, blonde hair and slim, proportional figures. I came from somewhere else, the land of the giants or something that made me look like a can of lard compared to them. I even wondered if my mother was actually my mother because she was just as attractive as my relatives, with deep auburn hair and big, expressive brown eyes. Where did I come from? With my waves of black hair and pale skin and layers of fat? It couldn't be true that she was able to pop me out from her tiny womb--maybe I was adopted. It wouldn't be much of a surprise, my parents had me later than expected, in their late thirties after several miscarriages and stillborns. I was a miracle to them, a sad, ugly miracle.
You're fat and ugly, I mouthed to myself in my reflection. You're fat and ugly and everyone hates you.
That night I decided to run away.
--------------------------------------------------
