Starfish

by Lisa Fipps

To every kid who’s ever been told, “You’d be so pretty or handsome, if . . .” You ARE beautiful. Now. Just as you are. You deserve to be seen, to be heard, to take up room, to be noticed. So when the world tries to make you feel small, starfish!

As soon as I slip into the pool, I am weightless. Limitless. For just a while.

I wish I could tell everyone how they made me feel that day— humiliated, angry, deeply sad. But every time I try to stand up for myself, the words get stuck in my throat like a giant glob of peanut butter. Besides, if they even listened, they’d just snap back, “If you don’t like being teased, lose weight.”

Some girls my age fill diaries with dreams and private thoughts. Mine has a list of Fat Girl Rules. You find out what these unspoken rules are when you break them— and suffer the consequences. Fat Girl Rules I learned at five: No cannonballs. No splashing. No making waves. You don’t deserve to be seen or heard, to take up room, to be noticed. Make yourself small.

The first Fat Girl Rule you learn hurts the most, a startling, scorpion-stinging soul slap.

How does anyone have the right to tell you how to live just because of your weight?

One minute you were like everybody else, playing around, enjoying life, and then, with the flip of an unseen cosmic switch, you’re the fat girl, stumbling, trying to regain your balance. Acting as if you know what you’re doing, like when you used to play dress-up and tried to walk in high-heeled shoes.

But instead, I give each girl the gift of more days, weeks, and months of a normal life. Whatever that is.

Fatphobes give off this vibe. Part discomfort. Part shock. Part fear. Part anger. And all hatred.

Fat Girl Rule: Move slowly so your fat doesn’t jiggle, drawing attention to your body. But that uncomfortable-in-my-own-skin feeling fades as the music blares and Catalina squeal-screams, going all bananas with us, during the tribute to Selena. If dance partners were food, Catalina and I would be peanut butter and jelly. Cookies and milk. Chips and salsa. We’re different, but make a perfect combo, heads, hips, and hands moving in sync.

She’s happy with her round body. Content. Comfortable. And no one bullies her because of it. Lucky dog.

Dad’s always had my back. Not the knife in it.

Remember, the devil you do know is better than the devil you don’t! Yeah. But they’re both devils.

School lunch is for bullies to dine on their prey. Bon appétit.

She’s the first person to smile at me today. The first to make me feel wanted. Understood. I blink back tears. It’s unknown how many students’ lives librarians have saved by welcoming loners at lunch.

You can take the man out of the ranch, but you can’t take the ranch out of the man.

My therapist is skin and bones. Couldn’t they at least have found a fat one who might understand me?

Why aren’t kids allowed to tell grown-ups when they’re wrong? They don’t know everything. Sometimes it’s as if they don’t know anything.

Mom always says, “You’d be so pretty” —and all the big girls in the world can finish this sentence in unison— “if you lost weight.”

My eyes lock onto an orange peasant top with embroidered turquoise flowers, my two favorite colors. At first I think it’s probably not in my size. But I discover it is. Everything is! I’ve never had so many cool clothes to choose from. Or had a store like this to shop in. Even the mannequins here are my size. I’m Charlie in the chocolate factory.

I feel a twinge of envy thinking about having a mom like hers, someone who accepts us and adapts the world to fit us, instead of trying to make us fit in the world.

Now I want the pool to be something more, not only a place to escape, but also a place to express myself. As I float, I spread out my arms and my legs. I’m a starfish, taking up all the room I want.

“Don’t let your mom’s issues with weight become your issues with weight, kiddo.”

“People laugh at jokes,” Viv says. “They shouldn’t make us want to go home and cry our eyes out. What can we do about it, though?” “How about we sit on them?” Viv laughs at my tired joke until she cries. I join her, and our tears have nothing to do with laughter.

“That’s enough,” Dad scolds my brother, after waiting a beat, like he often does so Mom can say something in my defense. But she never, ever does.

You can miss someone even when they’re with you.

My dog’s a better person than me.

“Dr. Wood was my idea.” “What? Are you kidding me, Dad? I thought you were on my side! I thought I could trust you! I thought you loved me!”

“For a while your mom’s pushed for you to have surgery, but I think you’re way too young. I’ve pushed for therapy because I see the hurt in your eyes from what people say and do to you.” Tears well up in my eyes. Dad’s noticed. He cares. Why hasn’t Mom? “It breaks my heart, Ellie. I just think it’d be good for you to have someone to talk to about it all.” “But if therapy doesn’t help me lose the weight, then—” “No surgery. I promise. If I’m lyin’, may Oklahoma beat Texas in every Red River Showdown until I die.” Ever since the first time Mom said the word surgery, it’s as if fear-filled balloons have been lodged in my lungs, keeping me from taking a full breath. With Dad’s promise, they pop. I can breathe again.

As an editor who prefers to copyedit with red pen on paper, Mom makes articles crisper, tighter, leaner. And when she’s unhappy with an article— when she can’t fix it and it’s beyond hope— she puts a giant X on it. If I were an article, she’d put a giant X on me.

“It’s hard to fit in when you’re the new kid.” “I hear you. It’s hard to fit in when you’re the fat kid, too.” “Well, at least we have each other. That’s something.” We don’t say a word, yet we understand each other. A friend hears what you say with silence.

“You really want to learn?” Mom asked. “More than anything,” I told her. “Fine,” she told me, and stood up and shut the lid. “When you lose weight.” So now I never let Mom know what I want because she’ll keep it from me as punishment for being fat disguised as motivation to lose weight.

If you’re fat, there are things you can’t have.

No matter what others say or do, embrace what makes you, you.

But even eating a healthy snack is a crime for a fat girl.

Like a police detective hot on the trail of a hardened criminal, Mom goes through the trash, looking for evidence that I’ve cheated on my latest diet. Bags. Wrappers. Boxes.

But I chose both religions. It’s part of my self-imposed peacekeeping mission, since I already cause a whale-sized rift between my parents.

I feel powerful and powerless, free and bound, all at the same time.

War is a fitting name since middle school’s one big battlefield.

This is how I’m going to die— with people laughing at me— same as how I’ve lived.

“Mind? Heck no. I prefer dogs over humans.”

“Dogs are powerless when people are mean to them. And lots of people are.” “Hearing you talk about Gigi and watching you with Patches tells me you’re a kind and caring person, Ellie.” “Dogs listen when people don’t.” She tucks her hair behind her ears. Wiggles them. “I’m listening.”

Doc used Patches to get me talking. Doggone good trick.

“Everyone would leave you alone if you just lost weight, narwhal,” he tells me as he gets up to go. “Have you ever thought about dieting?” And there it is. The question everybody asks if you’re fat, as if they’re doing you a favor to suggest it, as if an overweight person’s never thought about going on a diet. Oy!

Technically, Mom used fat as an adjective to describe me, but with her tone, she made it a noun to define me. Until that moment, I had never thought about my body being big and big being bad, something to be ashamed of, to hide, to hate. But since then, I haven’t stopped thinking about it.

Sometimes shock breaks all the words out of you like candy from a piñata. “I think my mom hates me,” I begin. “And I hate thinking that, so I make myself think about the times she was nice to me.

I guess I cling to those moments like a drowning girl to a life preserver whenever Mom’s words gut me like a fish.

Sometimes when you’re nauseated, the only way to feel better is to hurl. And it’s as if I’ve puked up all the sick feelings I swallowed that movie night.

Write down the hurtful words people say so you don’t have to carry them around in here.” She taps her head and heart.

“Kinda early in the year for a mental health day, isn’t it?” “I’ve been dealing with this stuff since kindergarten. I’m overdue.”