The Fat Girls Club

Chapter 4

Kallum and his dad are engaged in an intense staring contest and neither one of them are letting up. The room is deathly silent apart from Kallum’s ragged breathing. His chest falls up and down in a violent manner and his fists are clenched so tightly by his sides that I can see the veins protruding all up his arm.

“I’m sorry,” he grits through clenched teeth, turning to address Mr. Turner. The man shrugs it off, clearly not wanting to escalate the current situation. I don’t remember much of Captain Taylor from hen we were younger since he was a busy man but one memory that stands out quite clearly is that involves Kallum’s mom crying out and a nasty bruise that formed on her cheek soon after. I had never told anyone because she had begged me not to and I always feared that somehow Captain Taylor would find out.

Captain Taylor sits back down and takes a swig from his beer then continues conversation as if nothing just happened. Kallum is still standing next to me, and it’s only when his father shoots him a particularly deathly glare that he turns and stalks out of room.

“Hey dad, can I be excused?” I lean in close to my father and with his wink of approval, I’m up on my feet and against my better judgement, I follow Kallum. Deep down I know that this is a bad idea, but I do feel as though I owe it to him especially because he was essentially defending me and got in trouble for it. I catch him by the front door just as he’s leaving.

“Kallum, wait!” He’s walking so fast that I struggle to keep up with him and I don’t expect him to turn around, but he does so abruptly that I collide face first into his chest. He doesn’t even stumble at the impact. Out of all the ways I expected today to go, this was not one of them. I could have never though that Kallum would have not only spoken to me but also saved me from a number of humiliating scenarios. And now I stand before him with my hands placed on his firm chest to stop myself from falling.

“Why didn’t you tell me about the bullying?” He barks, and I step back involuntarily, not expecting him to raise his voice like that. A flicker of emotion flashes on his face from my reaction but it’s gone in a second as if it were never there. I stammer out an apology, hurt clearly evident in my voice. I hadn’t expected him to react in that way.

“When would I have told you?” I utter, surprised by his outburst.

“You don’t have a phone?”

“What the hell are you taking about, Kallum? You’ve been gone for three years and you expect me to just pick up the phone and call you like everything okay hen clearly it’s not and it hasn’t been for a long time!”

I’m shaking by the time I’m done with my little speech, my fists balled up at my sides and he just looks at me, “I was just checking to see if you were okay. You don’t need to be an ass about it.” I fold my arms over my chest, proud that my voice didn’t waiver.

“Oh, so you’re all tough now,” he scoffs, looking me up and down, “I’m just confused because it didn’t seem that way when I found you hanging out of a window with your bare ass exposed-”

“What is wrong with you?” I choke. Shame fills me and my confidence disappears to nothing. Instead of my folded arms showing my strength and resilience, they become a mechanism to shield my insecurities that slowly creep back in. 

I bite the inside of my cheek because I refuse to cry because of this boy once again. I spend months with an aching heart three years ago and I’ll be damned if he thinks he can walk right back into my life, just to tear it to pieces a second time. I square my shoulders and look him straight in his penetrating eyes. They are much darker than their usual deep brown color and instead almost look black and, in this moment, I don’t recognize this boy.

“How about you ask yourself the same question?” He fires back but his angry expression morphs into one of disappointment with his thick brows furrowed intensely and his lips pressed in a tight line.

“What is that supposed to mean?” I have no idea what he’s talking about.

“It means that you just let people walk all over you, Cora,” he gestures to my house behind me and I know he’s not only referring to what just happened, but the twins as well, “and you never do anything about it.” He runs his hands through his hair and talks fast, gesturing wildly with his hands.

“Much like you’re doing right now?” He doesn’t answer. The silence is deafening, and he must feel the same way because he turns and leaves without another word. I sit down on the front step of our porch and let out a shaky breath.

“What’s his deal?” Kallum’s oldest brother E.J. takes a seat next to me on the stairs before lighting a cigarette between his lips. I’m shocked at first because I  have hardly ever been around people that smoke, especially with my parents being so against the harmful habit, but I do my best to school my features into neutral nonchalance and try not to inhale too much of the second hand smoke. E.J. is twenty-five years old and he does not need an eighteen-year-old judging him for his actions.

“What ever happened between you two, anyways?” He looks to me thoughtfully and loosens the constricting tie around his neck. “Last I remember you two were thick as thieves.”

I open and close my mouth a few times because I genuinely am not sure what to say. It’s not that simple because it’s not like we had some big argument or anything like that that caused a big fall out, we kind of just… stopped talking. Even before the doughnut incident, we had spent little to no time talking over summer vacation and I had initially thought that it was because of the Pokémon argument but it became evident that there was more to it than that.

“I never asked him what happened. I sort of accepted that that was the way things were going to be and there was nothing that I could do about it.”

“Wait so my shithead brother just stopped talking to you and you just never asked him?” He asks incredulously, flicking the little bud of his cigarette onto the ground before stomping on it twice.

“You can’t force people to be your friends if they don’t want to be,” I point out, feeling a little defensive. If someone is avoiding you then it sends the message loud and clear, I will never make a fool of myself begging people to be my friends.

“It’s just a bit odd, I always thought that boy was obsessed with you,” he ponders, not really noticing my shift in attitude. Feeling drained from everything that’s happened today, I discard his words. I get up, picking up his cigarette bud from the floor and bid E.J. a brisk goodbye.

“Good seeing ya, Puff,” he calls out and proceeds to light another cigarette.

Kallum is the exact opposite of being obsessed with me and today he’s proven that just like before, he wants nothing to do with me. I won’t have someone hanging out with me or doing “nice” things for me because they feel bad for me. I don’t need his sympathy and I can take care of my own problems as I have done so my whole high school career.

I pass my mom in the living room and she beckons me over opening her arms invitingly. I don’t hesitate before fitting myself against her small frame and I’m grateful that no one else is in the room because a few tears trail down my cheeks when she starts to rub m back in comforting circles. She hushes me gently and hugs me even tighter. I’m not sure what has just come over me, but it feels like I have been rejected all over again. His stinging words rush back to mind and a fresh wave of tears escape from my treacherous eyes.

“It’s okay, sweetie. How about we get you to bed?” My mom speaks in her gentle voice and I nod pitifully, ashamed that Kallum’s actions have affected me so deeply. This is the exact opposite of what I wanted to happen.

"Go on, I'll bring you up some leftovers," she ushers me upstairs and I have never been more grateful for my mother. She knows exactly when to ask questions and when to just take care of me, no questions asked.

The moment my head hits the pillow, I am losing consciousness and the last thing on my mind before I completely give in to sleep are his words.

You just let people walk all over you, Cora.

And you never do anything about it.

Not for long.

--------------------

The next few days at school go by smoothly with little to no incidents and things are back to normal. Well, as normal as they can be with a fist sized dent in my locker that has yet to be fixed. I’m too afraid to follow up with Principal Turner about the dent because if she finds out that the locker belongs to me, she might tell my mother and then the question of who did this would be bought up and like I said before, I cannot lie to save my life. I wonder everyday about what could have possessed someone to punch my locker and I wonder who that someone is. I might have an idea, though.

This minor inconvenience, however, has impacted my everyday routine in a major way. Every morning I walk to school extra early, making sure to leave before my dad gets up and by that time my mom has already left for the restaurant with a sweet note left on the counter next to my packed lunch. This way, I can get everything I need from my locker for the day and no one gets the chance to see me use it during the day. Hopefully, it gets fixed soon because I am tired of waiting an extra hour after school until the halls have completely cleared to pack my stuff and leave.

It’s after a particularly long day that I make my way downstairs to the basement, my former place of safety that’s now a reminder of what happened that day. I need somewhere to wait until the halls are empty. I haven’t been down here ever since that day and as I walk down the dingy hallway all I can hear are his words repeating over and over in my mind.

When I found you hanging out of a window with your bare ass exposed.

I unconsciously tug my skirt down, feeling exposed and insecure. I almost turn and leave but stop myself because I need to face this, I can’t let these people rule my life and ruin the things that are dearest to me. I do, however, make sure to prop the door open with a chair just in case someone tries anything. I’m not really all that worried though because school ended over 30 minutes ago and the Turner twins should be in their own respective extracurricular activities.

I stand in the middle of the barely furnished room and almost wish that fire had been real so I wouldn’t have had to experience everything that happened afterwards. I slump down in one of the chairs and rub my fingers against my temples, closing my eyes and trying to rid myself of the traumatizing memories. I need to get that day out of my head. It was a glitch in the matrix, something that was not supposed to happen but did anyway. There is nothing I can do about it now but move on.

“I told you that we can’t stay together if you don’t lose weight,” my eyes snap open and I spring up from my position.

“I’m trying, Landon,” a female voice pleads, “I promise, I’m trying my best. It’s just that I get really hungry sometimes and my dad always makes me big dinners.” From the tremble in her voice, I can tell that she’s crying. Rage erupts inside me.

The two voices are coming from outside the window I was stuck in a few days ago and this time I don’t make the same mistake and try to look through it, rather I snatch up my backpack and make my way upstairs as fast as I can.

 No girl deserves to be treated like that. Ever.

I find the couple standing in the same position, nearby the tiny basement window. The boy has his hand tightly wrapped around the girl’s arm and when I look at her flushed face, I immediately recognize her as Zenaida from my math class. The guy on the other hand, I have never seen in my life and when I get a closer look, I am one hundred percent sure that he does not go to our school. He is significantly tall for a teenage boy, his long scraggly limbs swing bac and forth as he yells animatedly. 

Zenaida has tears streaming down her face and she is pleading with this boy and even though I can’t hear them from where I stand, I can tell she’s begging him not to break up with her. Her usually intricately braided curly hair falls done in strings over her distraught features. I have never spoken to this girl but every single time I have seen her in class she was either smiling or laughing. 

“Zen! Hey girl, you left me behind,” I jog towards them, smiling broadly to support my act.

 Who’s this?” The boy asks and possessively pulls her behind him. His breath hits me like a bag of bricks and I instinctively step back at the pungent reek of alcohol. When I get a closer look at his profile, it becomes evident that this man might not be a boy after all. His muddy brown hair is greasy and very clearly unkept. His cheekbones are sharp and there’s a light stubble that dusts over his sharp jawline. If he were not as dirty and unkept, I would actually find him attractive. 

“Cora, her friend,” I say as if it’s obvious, “You promised to help me with the math homework, I hope you didn’t forget. My mom is picking us up remember?”

“Oh, uhm, yeah,” she stammers unconvincingly when he snaps to look at her. He looks at least a few years older than us and the look he’s giving her makes an icy chill run up my spine.

“C’mon let’s go. My mom is waiting.” I grab her honey colored wrist and try to pry her away from the man, but he only tightens his grip, and she winces.

“How about you mind your own damn business, little girl?” He growls at me, but I don’t let up on my grip on Zenaida’s arm. I can’t let her leave with this man and the pleading look in her eyes makes me think that she realizes that too. The pure fear behind her hazel eyes breaks my heart and I don't want to think of what will happen if I don't stop this man.

“How about you let her go,” I counter, willing to do anything to protect the crying girl even if that means getting hurt myself.

“Let her go.” The man balls his hand into a fist and repeats himself, this time each word is laced with venom.

“No,” I say and the hint of fear in my voice is very evident.

“Let go of her or I’ll make you.” He smirks and bile rises in my throat.

“You do not want to do that,” Kallum appears out of nowhere, casually leaning against the wall while twisting one of the rings on his fingers