Perfection- Chapter One

*Chapter One*

My name is Siovhan Randers.

I’m fourteen.

I am five foot two.

And I’m fat.

•  •  •

I pulled on my swimsuit. Bright pink with orange dots and white stripes, and pale yellow ruffles on the stitching. It was a really cute bikini that snagged for five dollars at Target. I felt super lucky it came in my size-- which is a two. Usually they don’t carry it. Most people think size two is really small, but so am I. I’m only five two, after all.
I slipped the piece over my hips and adjusted it, my back to the mirror. I dreaded the moment where I judged my bikini body. It was always horrible.
I spun dramatically in front of my full-length mirror, attempting to put my mood up before I took a look. It didn’t work. I could see a small wave of fat rippling over the bottom piece. My thighs looked huge and lumpy in comparison to everything else, and seemed totally out of proportion. I waved my sandy blonde bangs over my eyes. I looked fat. I was an obese monster. I slid the suit off dejectedly, putting on instead my huge sweatshirt of Mom’s for UMass and my favorite Levi’s. I shoved my feet into some sweater-boots. It was May, but it was a veritable freezing for the season. Today was forty-seven. Some people think that is much warmer than I do, but I was not a born-and-raised Boston girl-- embrace the cold? Yeah, right. Not if you spent four years in North Carolina.
I slid down the banister of our staircase straight into the kitchen. Mom hates it, but it’s almost like what they say about smoking; quitting is much easier in theory. At the table was my little sister, Sadie. She’s eleven now, but unlike most girls I knew at that age, Sadie knows her place. She’s not catty; in fact, she makes a point of choosing geeky friends over popular ones (Even though she is so charismatic she could pick her nose and eat it, yet still have twenty BFFs). I dote on her, and her wavy blonde hair gives her the look of an angel. I sighed, wishing she only could have patience. Or common sense.
Right now, she was trying to see how far back she could tip her chair before it gave away. Case in point.
“Careful, Sade,” I warned her. “You’re going to crack your head open.”
She rolled her eyes, retorting, “No, I won’t, Siovhan!” Immediately, her concentration broke and the chair’s remaining two legs wobbled and shook. She tugged on the table and righted herself quickly, giving me a smug look.
I sighed. She gets great grades in school, but her smarts don’t always come to the party.
I turned into our laundry room at the end of the hallway, and climbed on top of the washer. It was my favorite spot to be alone. I pulled my laptop off of the top shelf next to the detergents. I opened up Google. I tried searching random things to get the image of my fat stomach from my mind. The distended wave kept coming, and coming, back into my mind. I Googled a fashion magazine to see the latest styles, but all I could see were skinny bikini models. They were thin, blonde and tanned. They looked too gorgeous for it to be true.
I knew it was, though. Stars in Hollywood have everything-- personal trainers, daily facials, perfect dieting plans, and abundances of makeup. How else would they look so beautiful?
My eyes teared, looking at the models. All I could think of was my fat. I was huge. Size two was too big, too big. It would never be small enough. I would have to get those models’ bodies. I couldn’t pass now. I was unacceptable. I vowed silently, atop of a rumbling washing machine, that I would become one of those models.
I would do whatever it took.
 

• • •

That night we were having hamburgers for dinner. Fatty, greasy, dripping hamburgers,
with piles of American cheese, a ketchup-y sugar load, and buns that were packed with carbs. Served with French fries bathed in salt. I could count how many extra pounds I’d put on just by eating it. It finally sunk in how gross some of the food I ate was.
There’s no wonder how you’re so fat, my mind taunted. You eat this garbage.
I knew there was a simple solution to this: Don’t. I didn’t need to eat it. Kids in Africa probably ran on a lettuce leaf a day. I could live minus a burger.
My family was setting the table, so I tiptoed past, praying nobody would see, up the stairs, where I began a mad run to my room. I shut the door quietly as I could. If anybody asks, I’m writing an essay, I thought, flopping down onto my unmade bed. If they come in, I just finished.
Breathing in the scent of my cotton pillowcases, I let out a sharp gasp as my stomach panged. I was starving. I then realized I hadn’t eaten since lunch. The only thing I could tell was that dieting was going to be really hard. I turned myself flat on my stomach now, breathing deep. I eventually was able to lull myself to a hungry, pained sleep.