Shine - Lauren Myracle [20]
“You weren’t. It’s fine.”
“I’m just super stressed,” she said. “The diet . . . and Patrick . . .”
“It’s fine. Back in a sec, ‘kay?”
In the bathroom, which needed cleaning, I peed and washed my hands. Then, leaving the water on, I crouched and opened the cabinet under the sink. I felt around until I found what I was looking for: a box of Tampax Pearl Ultras.
Gwennie got her period when she was eleven, and she made me go with her to buy supplies. If she had something private she wanted to keep safe, like a perfume sample or a pretty stone, she’d hide it among her tampons, knowing Beef and Roy would never find it.
I lifted the cardboard flap of the box. Tampons, tampons, tampons. Rows of little white soldiers. 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 were insane. 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 I wanted 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