Chapter 4

For the remaining six weeks, I stayed out of the class group chat.

They still dragged me out to laugh at me now and then. I never answered.

Every morning at first light I went downstairs and walked.

Half an hour at first, then an hour, then two.

Strength work in the afternoon, skin care and posture work at night.

It was only after the weight started coming off that I realized Eleanor wasn't ugly.

She had naturally good features. She was simply heavy and covered in acne, and that was enough for people to mock her.

When she smiled, she had dimples.

After one month I had lost thirty-three pounds.

My insulin numbers were normal and my knees had stopped aching.

In the second month, I focused on building muscle and definition.

The muscle memory from more than ten years of dance came back to me even in this body.

I stood in front of the mirror and ran the basic dance drills over and over.

Marianne saw me and thought something was wrong with me.

"Baby, why are you standing pressed against the wall like that?"

"Posture training."

She circled around me, laughing. "My baby is beautiful. You look like a movie star."

I couldn't help laughing.

A sincere compliment. I'd never had one before.

When I took gold at a dance competition, Vivian had only said coldly, "Don't think winning one award gives you the right to be proud."

And now the smallest improvement was enough to make someone genuinely happy for me.

The week before school started, I went back to the hospital.

A hundred and forty-five pounds.

Fifty-five pounds in just under two months.

The weight had come off fast, but every health marker was still in the normal range.

The doctor read the report and smiled.

"Keep it up."

At home I stood in front of the mirror and looked at myself for a long time.

I still wasn't what they would call thin.

There was soft flesh at my waist, and my upper arms were no longer thin enough to encircle with one hand.

But the girl in the mirror had color in her skin and light in her eyes.

That was what beauty really looked like.

That night a poll popped up in the school group chat.

[Vote for this year's head cheerleader.]

There were only two candidates.

Eleanor.

Corinna.

The people who had laughed at me came swarming back.

[Eleanor? She thinks she belongs on the same list as Corinna?]

[They're not even in the same league.]

[I'm not voting for Eleanor. She'll embarrass our whole school at the competition!]

They all said they weren't voting for me, and my count shot to first anyway.

Under the rules, whoever received the most votes had to organize homecoming once school started and choreograph the new cheer routine.

Eleanor, still wearing my name, sent me a DM.

[Do you like the surprise I set up for you?]

[I had someone add you to the ballot specially.]

[Homecoming gets streamed to the whole school. The second you step out, everyone will watch a two-hundred-pound pig try to dance.]

[You wanted to compete with me, didn't you? I'm giving you the chance.]

Right after that she sent a photo.

A long gold gown, with a twenty-one-inch waist.

It was the couture piece the woman who used to be my mother had ordered for the opening ceremony.

But the Eleanor in that photo didn't look well in it.

She was thinner than she had been two months ago.

Her cheeks were hollow, her face almost skeletal, and exhaustion filled her eyes.

So the last two months had clearly been treating her well.

I was about to close the chat when another message came through.

[Carl's getting ready for the game too. Want to guess whether he'll be disgusted when he sees you like that?]

I looked at the screen and smiled, then hit the button and cast a vote for "Eleanor."

I sent her a message.

[Thanks for putting me onstage.]

She kept demanding to know what I meant. I didn't explain.

On the first day of school, Marianne insisted on taking me shopping.

I changed into a forest-green high-waisted tank and an A-line skirt that stopped just past the top of my thighs.

Marianne looked at me in it and said nothing.

"Mom, does it not look good on me?"

"It looks good. My baby looks good in anything."

Homecoming night was held in the school gym.

The bleachers were packed, and the number of people watching the stream kept climbing.

The school group chat was scrolling too fast to read.

[Why isn't Eleanor here yet? She didn't chicken out, did she?]

[She picked her own cheer squad, and not one of them has posted a photo of her.]

Up on the stage, the announcer was already calling out, "Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for the Westbrook High cheer squad!"

Laughter went up inside the gym.

At that same moment, I stood outside the doors and pushed them open myself.