Weightless Read Free

she’d rather die than do that. She wasn’t unusual in that regard. She
reminded me of myself at her age – overweight, bullied and unable
to see beyond her day-to-day struggle.
    She had Ariadne to deal with. I’d had
Christy sodding Blake. We may have moved on a decade since I was in
school, but the bully’s tactics hadn’t. Trips in the corridor. Fake
love notes passed in class, nicknames coined in cruelty and adopted
by everyone. There seems to be a special place in the shriveled
hearts of tormenters for the overweight.
    Not that I’d been Christy’s only target. Any
physical disadvantage was fair game. So I was in the same boat as
the girl with huge eyes (Ellen the Alien) and Stuttering Tom. The
mistake I made was one of appeasement. Instead of showing her up
for the shallow, mean cow that she was, I tried ingratiating
myself. That just made things worse.
    ‘Tell me about the reunion,’ she said.
    ‘We’re here to talk about you, not me.’
    ‘Come on, you know you want to.’
    I couldn’t help but smile. ‘It was nice. I
ran into someone I haven’t seen since we left school.’
    ‘Does this someone have a penis?’
    ‘You’re too young to be thinking about
penises.’
    ‘Come on Ms. Markham, don’t be a prude. It
was a bloke, wasn’t it? See? Aren’t you glad I made you go?’
    Actually I was. When I’d mentioned the
reunion as a cautionary tale in the course of one of our sessions,
Kate wouldn’t let it drop. Who was I to counsel her about standing
up to her bullies and putting her past behind her if I wasn’t
willing to do the same? She was right. Which was why I went last
night. ‘Yes, I’m glad I went. Now, how about asking your Mum about
that sports bra?’
    By the end of the session I’d wrenched a
promise to talk to her mother, and a small sip of water, from Kate.
Sometimes my successes were measured in baby steps.
     
     
     
     

Chapter 4
    Most of my other clients were easy compared
to Kate. Mrs. Clements was starting to control her diabetes with
the meal plan we devised together. Wheat-intolerant William now
knew the joys of gluten-free cooking. My allergy sufferers could
cut out the causes of their discomfort. But there was no
straightforward fix for an unpopular, overweight teen. To solve the
chicken-and-egg problem, Kate had to believe that she deserved a
solution. I just wasn’t getting through to her, even though I knew
exactly how she felt.
    I’d been so afraid to go to university that
I nearly gave up my place. Christy might have been safely in
France, but there were other Christys out there, and they had a
knack for finding me. I only went through with it for fear of
disappointing my parents. Mum and Dad were so hopeful and
supportive. They were desperate to give me a new start. I thanked
them by vomiting down the side of the car when they drove me to
Leeds for Orientation Week.
    Everyone in my dorm seemed pretty friendly
but I kept to myself. Better safe than sorry. The dining room posed
the usual problem. It was, along with the changing rooms, prime
hunting ground for bullies. Eating without being noticed is an
important survival skill in the fat person’s meagre arsenal. At
school I’d had no choice but to have my lunch when everyone else
did, but at university the dining room was open for several hours,
and fortunately empty near closing time.
    My camouflaging wasn’t as effective as it
might have been though. Laura Dunstable started paying attention to
me. At first it was just a friendly hello when we crossed paths.
Then she’d look into my room when she passed and the hellos
continued. Over time she started popping her head through my
doorway to ask what I was up to. Finally she asked me to join her
for meals with some of the other girls. Eventually I said yes.
    Laura Dunstable walked every day, in fair
weather or foul, irrespective of sore heads or period cramps. When
she first asked me I thought she was joking. ‘I’m not really a
walker,’ I said.
    ‘But