Why Can’t You Be Like Her?
I looked at my thighs — the thighs of an athlete that no longer touched one another.
“Why can’t you look like her?” you asked me, as we passed by a girl on the street, on our way to dinner.
I hadn’t looked at you and started to laugh as if you had told a joke. When I looked into your eyes, they burned like blackened coals into mine, I could no longer see the golden speckles in your brown eyes.
“You’re kidding, right?” As soon as the words left my mouth, I regretted it. I had just challenged your words as an argument. One that I knew had been long overdue, and yet, I had taken the bait.
I looked ahead at the girl you were so eagerly referencing as if trying to catch her attention. She was blonde, tall, with perfect skin, and the right walk and clothes to go with it. You know, the kind of girl that boys threw over their shoulders at the beach as if she were a trophy.
As we passed by a shop window I caught my own reflection. Studying myself like a doctor studying their patient. Looking for any physical ailments that gave away that there was something wrong with me.
But, I saw nothing other than myself.
My long brown hair in a ponytail, and messy from you pulling on it whenever you wanted a kiss. “Dame un beso mi amor” you would say to me while pulling on it — forcing me to look up at you while you kissed me with eyes wide open.
I was always a t-shirt and jeans kind of girl, but you knew that.
I checked to make sure that my shorts weren’t too long or too short. That my shirt exposed just enough cleavage and collarbone, that the nail polish hadn’t chipped from my fingers, and my shoulders were pulled back straight enough to give off the illusion that I was more.
I could still see light coming from between my thighs, the thighs of an athlete that no longer touched. The thigh gap you claimed to love so much.
In that moment I felt worthless. In that moment you taught me that my value only came from you. In that moment I wanted to become smaller, to be more introverted, and less noticeable.
I silently wished that I had worn jeans and a sweatshirt so I could hide my body, but the best I could do was wrap my sheer sweater around myself with my arms crossed as if to protect myself from your gaze. A gaze of disappointment, like a hyena not yet satiated from picking meat off a carcass.
I followed you into the restaurant like a child that had been caught eating sweets before dinner. My eyes cast down counting every step, waiting for you to speak to me.
After that day, you would always make sure to compare me to them. Each one having a different name and promising you a different high. Xanax. Brooke. OxyContin. Melanie. Cocaine. Emma. Ecstasy.
“Why can’t you be like her?” you would continue to ask me through half-shut eyes as you would come down from a weekend bender.
I had naively bought a ticket to a ride I couldn’t get off of. You.
