“Maybe if she didn’t stuff her face a thousand times a day, she wouldn’t be so hopelessly huge.”
Katerina paused, a burrito halfway in her mouth. She held herself so stiffly, you could have knocked her down with a push from a pinky finger.
How could Karen have traced her down to her secret location?
Another voice Katerina recognized to be Amie, one of Karen’s minions, continued. “You know I heard she goes somewhere secret to eat. I wonder where though?”
Karen chuckled mirthlessly. “I mean, she could attempt to hide her unladylike and gluttonous ways of eating, but we’ll find her eventually, wouldn’t we?”
As if the odds were perpetually against her, the empty packet of chips in her hand decided to make a crumpling sound as it fell to the floor.
“Is anyone there?” Karen called.
Katerina was sure she was beginning to hyperventilate. If Karen and Amie caught her eating in the restroom of all places, she was ruined. Steadily, she closed her eyes and counted to ten, wishing her already breaking world wouldn’t crumble any further.
She opened her eyes when she heard no more sound to see two pairs of eyes staring at her from above the bathroom stall with a phone that clicked the second she raised her head.
Shit! they just have climbed the restroom’s stools.
“O.M.G. You are just-” Karen squealed.
Amie didn't miss a beat. “So I guess you’re not just a weird, gluttonous junkie, you’re also a disgusting, unhygienic freak. That’s low, Fat Kat. Even for you.”
In that moment, Katerina was tired. Tired of all the hide and seek. Tired of the fact that since she’d transferred here, she hadn’t had a moment’s rest. From her weird, doll-like face, to her body, to the glasses she adjusted time and time again to the bridge of her nose. She was tired of running because she couldn’t face the girls who had sworn to put her down at every opportunity. Girls that had made her subject herself to the humiliation of hiding in the girls' restroom to eat. She was going to fight. She had no other choice and she would be damned if she let them trample on her one more time.
“Okay guys, you’ve won. Yes, I eat lunch in the bathroom of all places and yes, I’m a filthy girl who’s always going to be fat and always going to eat too much for her own good. But I’m proud of who I am. I won’t stop eating and become an anorexic beanpole because you choose to have a problem with what I eat and how I eat. You could try eating more if you’re tired of being a walking cluster of bones, but no pressure.”
Karen and Amie who had been too stunned to speak all the while erupted in outbursts of fury.
“Don’t you dare talk to us like that, Fat Kat!” Karen yelled from her place behind the door. “Whatever you say doesn’t change the fact that you’re fat and you’re ugly. Deal with it!” And with that angry outburst, she stormed out of the restroom, Amie hot on her heels.
Katerina took the final bite from her burrito and walked out of the stall she’d been eating with a dazzling smile on her face. If she knew standing up for herself would be so exhilarating, she would have done it long ago. Admiring her pretty frame in the mirror, she settled her glasses where they belonged on the bridge of her nose and vowed to embark on a big adventure. An adventure of self-discovery. Of appreciating her self-worth and learning to love herself completely.
Katerina knew that there would be many more Karens and Amies that would try to put her down in different aspects of life, but she would take them on with this new embarkment of hers. One at a time.
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