The Tribuo - 29. Part IV, preface/chapter 1

PART IV

PREFACE

“Hey. I missed you.”

“I know. I missed you too.”

“You know, I really thought… Hell, even hoped that it would get better with time, but it doesn’t. What do I do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Every morning when I wake up, my first thought is of you. How do I stop it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Every goddamn day I keep seeing your face in the crowd… I can’t do this anymore, I can’t go on without you, do you hear me?”

“You have to. You promised.”

“I know… But I am so tired, I can’t do this anymore… Please…”

“You promised.”

“If only I could…”

“Hey…”

I slightly jerked and turned around.

“Oh, sorry,” she muttered. “Didn’t mean to scare you… Just wanted to let you know that…” she coughed and looked away. “I’ll wait by the gate, okay?”

I didn’t say anything and she walked away, her shoulders stooped, hands clutching onto her umbrella. I looked up in the sky. It was raining pretty heavily by now. Weird, I didn’t even realize that until I saw that umbrella in Dana’s hands. I shifted my gaze back to the headstone.

“I can’t do this anymore,” I muttered.

This time, there was no answer. Of course, I knew that the whole talking thing was just happening in my head. I am not crazy or delusional, although sometimes I wish for that. Would be so much better to simply be delusional, but unfortunately for me, I am sane as ever. I touched the cold stone with my hand and ran my fingers across the smooth surface of the picture.

“I died with you on that day,” I muttered. “It’s been… Six months… It’s been… Yesterday…”

I knew that Dana was waiting for me by the gate. I needed to go -- the rain was getting even worse. I couldn’t move. I just stayed there, and rain was flirting with my tears.

_____________________

- I -

Six Months Earlier

EMMA

“Look at yourself,” I whispered, staring in the mirror. “You are repulsive!”

I pinched some skin on my stomach.

“Fat…”

I stepped on the weight scale.

“Disgusting…”

It read 105 as usual.

“You are not losing any weight, Emma,” I said a little louder. “And do you know why? Because you are a pig, that’s why!”

I’ve had weight problems ever since I was a kid. I remember my mother gasping with horror one night when she walked in on me in the kitchen. I think I was ten or maybe eleven, I can’t remember. Anyway, she walked into the kitchen in the middle of the night when I thought I was completely safe. She turned on the lights, and there I was. Standing by the counter, frozen, with a doughnut hanging out of my mouth.

She never screamed at me. Hell, she didn’t even raise her voice. I still don’t know why. Maybe it was because she thought that raising her voice would diminish her somehow. Or maybe it was because my father used to tell her that she was a true lady, and she actually believed that. And true lady would never lose her cool. So she never did. That night (I still call it “Night of the Doughnut”), she just gasped in genuine horror.

“Oh my God!” she whispered, and I was so scared that I didn’t have any strength left in me to even pull the damn doughnut out of my mouth. “Emma! Do you have any idea how many calories you just inserted in your body? Do you want to be…” she struggled with words for a second. “Overweight?!” she finally managed.

Overweight. That was my mother’s greatest fear. Not when it came to her, oh no. She had enough willpower to overflow the Nile River. She barely ate, and she stayed incredibly thin until the day she died. But when it came to me… I had never had any willpower, it seemed. I would all but run to the ice-cream van every time it showed up on our street; I loved doughnuts; I loved cakes and cupcakes with frosting and whipped cream; and when I saw a milkshake, I would literally drool.

My mother would always say stuff like, “If you eat all that food, you will gain weight. If you gain too much, you will be fat. Now, Emma, you don’t want to be fat, do you?” I would cry the minute she’d say the word 'fat.' I knew that having a fat daughter would disgrace my mother somehow. I wasn’t exactly sure how, but I knew that it would be disastrous. I also knew that if I were fat, I would never have any real friends, because people would be ashamed of being seeing in public with me. So I would end up being surrounded by weak-willed people, just like myself, and all of us would be fat.

So on the Night of the Doughnut, I finally started crying so hard that I almost choked on the sweet treat. My mother watched me for several minutes, and finally told me to pull that disgusting thing out of my mouth and throw it into trash. I did. I also swore up and down that I would never in my life touch another doughnut again.

I was never a fat child, but I knew that it was only thanks to my mother. “If I wouldn’t watch over you like a hawk,” she would always say. “You’d be a balloon by now!”

My dad tried arguing with her, and I heard him say stuff like, “You are fucked up in the head, I know that… I am used to that by now. But why do you want our daughter to be fucked up as well?! Do you even look at her close enough?”

To which my mother would reply, “Yes, and she is somewhat pleasant to look at now that I am watching her diet!”

“Jesus Christ!” my dad would explode. “She looks like she is in the mid-stage of anorexia!”

I had no idea what anorexia was.

“Charlotte, she is a kid, okay? And she is nowhere near overweight! If anything, it’s the opposite!”

“You are either blind,” here my mother’s voice would sound dangerous, even though it remained quiet. “Or you have some disgusting fetish for fat women!”

And then my dad would usually explode again, and I would just cover my head with the pillow. I knew that my mother was right -- if I were fat, I’d be just a worthless huge piece of flesh, nothing else. But I loved my dad, and I couldn’t help but side with him every time. I hated myself for it.

Then one day -- it was before the Night of the Doughnut -- my mother said that she and dad couldn't be together anymore, since he was clearly a very bad influence on me, so they were getting a divorce.

“I only do all these things because I care about you, Emma,” she would always say. I always knew that I was the only reason she and dad got divorced, even though she never said it. She didn’t have to -- I could see it in her eyes every time she looked at me.

So, after the Night of the Doughnut, I decided to keep my promise. All I wanted was for my mother to be proud of me. I studied as hard as I could because I knew that if I managed to get an A-minus, she would be disappointed. I also made sure that I never, ever went over 100 pounds when it came to my weight.

I was good until two years ago. That was when my mother died, and at first, I was seriously contemplating suicide. If she was not here, then how could I find any strength to go on? She was the force that drove me all this time. She was my inspiration. She was the reason for perfection. Before I knew it, I ended up gaining five pounds. It terrified me. I couldn’t figure out why and how it happened. Oh, sure, I had an occasional slip here and there, but why wouldn't the weight go away after I went back to my strict diet?

“Look at yourself, Emma,” I said again and pinched my stomach harder. “You are twenty-nine years old, and you are fat!”

I almost kicked the weight scale, but managed to restrain myself at the last second. No need to kill the messenger. I was about to add another pinch to my fat stomach, but then realized that I would be late for work if I didn't start getting dressed right now. I bit my lip and finally turned away from the mirror.