Sugar

by Deirdre Riordan Hall

lean against the doorframe, heavy with the truth. I am always in the way. I’ve known this for as long as I can remember.

For some reason, my size made me unwanted, a nuisance, and, specifically, about as desirable as accidentally touching a wad of chewed gum on the underside of a desk.

Mostly, I just know shame.

hanging on to a thread of something like hope.

I want to get away from them, but almost more than that, I want to get away from myself.

What’s wrong with me? What’s missing inside of me? I look toward the spot where the sun twinkled and winked good night; now it’s just dark.

I sit on a deck chair and look up to the stars, wondering if there’s one for me up there, if somehow, something far, far away will make this get better.

Then I catch his clear blue eyes and feel his warmth, alive, courageous, so close to me. Real.

“It’s always cooler by the sea, the breeze,” he says. “I think it’s refreshing. It’s like the air itself is alive.”

“She wrote about her hopes and dreams. And the future.

We watch the waves a moment, the sun dancing off the Atlantic.

I think about how all my life it’s felt like something is missing or broken inside me, too.

I’ve felt like part of me is missing, like I’m being called home. A home before this home or something. Maybe just a place away”—

shell like this one, beautiful to begin with, can get cracked and slivered, and then time, the tides, maybe even the wind, tumble and toss it, and it becomes something new, a perfect version of itself.”

“You’re a beautiful person, Shoog. Don’t let anyone, not even the people you think you’re supposed to trust, tell you different.”

I grasp at his words, hoping to memorize them so that, like a ship, they’ll carry me to safer shores. He places the shell in my hand, and I know I will never forget. At least not entirely.

I chase after him and our laughter carries on in the wind.

The wind breezes my hair behind me. A star emerges like a light turning on in the sky. I make a wish.

I think it’s time you learned how to ride. Become your own driver in this thing called life.”

The block of time between now and someday is too long.

He looks like time is waiting for him; there’s no rush, no urgency.

She’s the same girl who, because of the absence of care, concern, and kindness, put on a shield made of donuts, cookies, and cakes to hide from the pain of dismissal, of being told that she is less than valuable and that she’s utterly unlovable.

if we all looked just alike or worse, acted alike, this world would be a boring place.

my fat does not make me who I am. This layer of extra flesh hides the real me, even from myself. It conceals emotion and truth. I take this with me as I drift away on a bed of water, out into my memory of the ocean on that blustery day in October, and then I am asleep.

We’re free, for just this moment.

Tears come to my eyes as I’m struck with wonder, with a sense of how bittersweet and fleeting life is. All we have is this one moment, really.

As we drive back north, his hand reaches for mine in the darkness. Wherever life takes us, I don’t ever want to let go.

Like a tangled piece of yarn, we unravel my story into one long strand of events, thoughts, actions, and consequences, so that I can see them all clearly stretched before me. Then she helps me spool it all back up again, neatly, in a way that makes sense.

She tells me something revolutionary: I’m worth it.

there was nothing I could do to change myself that would change the way they treated me.

His appearance in my backyard that day was the catalyst. I didn’t know it at the time, but since meeting him all those months ago, I slowly started to crawl out of my own personal hell.

Tears stream from my eyes. Even, Even, Even. There’s a hole inside me that longs for him, an emptiness that hurts with his absence. I want him to appear, so we can talk about it. I’d tell him about the donuts and my big speech. I wished he’d talked to me about this back then. Maybe none of this would have happened, and maybe we’d still be at JRHS as a couple who’d gone to prom together—or somewhere else.

Hang in there, though. I know things aren’t always easy for you. Someday, it will be different. I’m sure of it.

I can hardly feel my body. All I am is head, and heart, and the hands that hold this piece of Even.

I wasn’t saying everything I meant or I wasn’t saying enough I guess. I’ve come to realize over these months since we met, went to the lodge together, then to New York, those big moments and then all the other little ones in between, that you and I fit together like two pieces of a puzzle, maybe the most important pieces. Maybe that isn’t the best analogy.

And that is it. But he isn’t here to say it. I see how he wanted this moment to unfold—passing me the note, me reading it and then—but he’s gone. My lips tremble. “I love you, too,” I say. In the periphery of my vision, a shadow moves across the sun, and that is exactly how I feel. Happy beyond happy and at the same time the saddest I’ve ever been. I look up expecting to see the cloud-covered sky. I want to shout why? But the eagle’s there. It circles once, twice, and then flies off. “Oh, Even, I love you, too.”

I look around the room, where Even lived, making sure I never forget,

With one last glance at the spot where Even and I used to meet,

‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times—’” I remember it from English, too. I join in, our voices in harmony. “It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us . . .”

We sit there for a moment, letting the words cast their nets around us, picking up shards of our lives and holding them as truth and letting others slip through. I imagine Even sitting in the empty chair across from me.

I will float in the wind, like I have feathers, like a bird.