TaraStPierre

I wake up the next morning, groggy as usual after another late night of homework. Yawning and stretching, I look at my alarm clock, which reads about an hour before it’s set to go off. I groan and flip myself over, burying my head under the blankets. I try to will myself unconscious, anything to get extra sleep so I can feel more like myself. There’s an uncomfortable sensation in my stomach that tells me that I had a restless night. It’s a hollow feeling, almost like something’s missing inside me. My eyes won’t stay closed, and I toss and turn. I can’t stop thinking about last night’s homework. I did

As Grace and I walk to AP English Literature together, I keep my head down, knowing she won’t lead me astray. Cole noticed my eye makeup, and now I’m terribly self-conscious about it. I don’t want any other guys—or anyone else, for that matter—to see me like this. I don’t want any attention at all. I just want to focus on school and pass all my classes. Even with my gaze focused on the hallway floor, I feel like I’m being watched. Being judged. I need to clean my face, wash it all away, and get on with my day. Fortunately, English is my best class and the easiest to get permission to go to the bathr

Grace Ling meets me in the school’s main lobby. She flashes a full, bright smile at me before skipping over, her black Mary Janes clacking on the tile floor. Like all the girls at Eastfield, we’re in the same shirt-tie-skirt combination, but she accessorizes her braided pigtails with color-coordinated school-spirit gold ribbons. “I’m sorry you were up so late,” she says in her high, bubbly voice as I cover a yawn. “Thanks for talking me off the proverbial ledge.” I keep walking like I’m on autopilot toward my locker, and Grace matches step beside me. “I wish I had gotten more sleep.”

I don’t like the way the reflection in my bedroom mirror judges me. I try not to look at her too closely, but I know I have to now and then or I won’t be able to brush the tangles out of the mousy brown hair hanging past my shoulders. To avoid direct eye contact, I give her only a sideways glance. The eyes are the windows to the soul, they say, and it’s not that I refuse to look at hers, but I don’t want her looking into mine. She knows me too well, and I know that when she glares right back at me, she’s at her most judgmental. So when I finish with my hair—it’s the straightest it’s going to ge

I was barefoot and standing as straight as possible against a blank stretch of wall in my bedroom. Since she was the tallest in the room, especially in her cute pair of wedges, Trish marked my height. After moving the pencil away from the top of my head, she guided me aside while Lauren unspooled my stepfather’s tape measure against the wall. The longer the metallic scraping lasts, the better, I told myself. “What’s the damage?” Though I had asked the question somewhat calmly and jokingly, my insides were all knotted. When the sound ended, I held my breath. “Five feet, five inches,” announced Lauren. R

After Trish posted photos of me and Todd on her various social media pages, there were comments about how wonderful I looked. My glorious night had gone viral, and everyone knew that Todd and I were a couple. There was a part of me—an admittedly catty part of me—that wanted to rub it in Janelle’s face, so I couldn’t wait for that Monday’s basketball game. However, I had difficulty finding clothes that fit properly. Almost every skirt and pair of pants I owned was loose. Only my tightest skinny jeans fit comfortably around my waist, but not as tightly as they should have. I didn’t need a new wardrobe or any

Late the next morning, I awoke in a cold sweat and still wearing my cheering uniform. I refused to weigh myself because I didn’t want to wallow in self-pity if there wasn’t a change. The sun was shining brightly, and it was unseasonably warm—about fifty degrees—for a mid-February morning. I took two more pills and left for an intense bike ride, stopping to rest periodically until either dizziness or double vision subsided. I knew they were side effects, but I didn’t let them stop me from exhausting all possible methods to melt away the remaining few inches. After my strenuous workout, I trudged to my room and cr

The next morning, the bathroom scale showed I had lost two pounds, but I assumed it was slightly off. I stepped off and on it at least a dozen times both before and after my shower to confirm the reading, which stayed the same. It was the day before the dance, and time was running out. No significant weight change meant no dress, which meant Janelle would win. Although I could have returned or exchanged the dress, I wanted that dress—it was beautiful, and I wanted Todd to see me as more attractive than Janelle when I wore it. I swallowed a couple more pills, downed a cup of black coffee to keep the ensuing dizziness at bay, and then he

Even a few inches can make a difference. The basketball swooshed as it passed through the net. Just a few inches off in any direction and it would have bounced on the metal rim, maybe into the basket or maybe away and into the hands of a jumping member of the opposing team. But with only two minutes left to play in the game, that accurate three-point shot finally put the Montvale Tigers ahead. The spectators in the gym started chanting Todd Pembroke’s name. He was the captain of the team, a four-year varsity player for Montvale High, top scorer the previous year, and among a handful of players in Tigers history to score over a thousan