Glitter on the Web (34 page)

So we played to win. She followed my lead as I goaded both boys, which they found amusing as hell, even though they were losing. Eli started to make noises to distract us as we lined up our shots, but apparently this was something that Gabby was used to. She blocked it all out to focus, and ended up playing better as a result.

I, however, called him out on it. “Courtesy!” I chastised.

“All’s fair in love and disc golf, babe,” he grinned. “Maybe we should make a new wager.”

My eyebrow arched. “Replacing the old one?”

His voice was soft. “Who says they’re not one in the same?”

A shudder ran through me. It was his kid-friendly way of putting a tussle in the sheets back on the table. “And if I win?”

He chuckled. “I think you know what will happen if you win. Multiple times,” he added, a not-so-subtle reference to the epic fest of orgasms he had given me before. That teasing smile only confirmed it. Just looking at that sensual mouth made my body came alive at the memory, much to my chagrin. I made my shot anyway.

When I reached him, he said low enough for me to hear, “Looks like somebody wants it.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” I muttered as we watched Gabby and Michael interact. “She needs this win. Every girl needs to know that she can win without the help of her man. And every man needs to know it too.”

He linked his fingers with mine. Our eyes met, but neither of us said anything.

To his credit, he didn’t throw the game. He made it every bit as challenging for her as she needed it to be. Neither of the guys went easy on us, which only made us go even harder. Eli amended the wager to include Michael and Gabby, by making the bet non-sexual. The winner got to pick that night’s entertainment. Since we won by three strokes, Gabby decided that she wanted to go camping for real this time, not just some tent erected in Eli’s media room.

Unfortunately this meant we had to go back to the house to get our camping supplies. Ever the good boyfriend, Michael invited Beth to join us. Ever the needy girlfriend, Beth agreed, though it was apparent that camping wasn’t necessarily her forte. She basically wanted to take all her modern conveniences with her, rather than rough it in some tent on the cold, hard ground.

I regretted bringing her along from the moment she complained about riding in the back of the truck.

Gabby didn’t fare much better. Her mood took a nosedive, and I knew she was feeling out of control again. It was her idea to stop for supplies for s’mores. Encouraged that she actually wanted to eat, Eli indulged her.

He had no idea he was loading her gun.

Tall clouds had billowed into the brilliant blue sky by the time we reached the secluded campground set among the Ponderosa pine. The elevation was over 10,000 feet, which felt and looked pretty close to God. I felt the rigors of life kind of pass away with each mile, breathing in the sweet mountain air. It was completely zen, thanks in part to the fact that both Beth and Michael rode in the back so I didn’t have to hear her whine all the way there. Instead she had to save it up for when we finally reached the campsite.

“Ew. It smells like a toilet here.”

“That’s because we are near the outhouse,” Eli informed her with a wry grin. “We’re going to be camping over there,” he said, pointing to a sweet little spot among the trees, complete with its own fire ring.

“Can’t we just go to a hotel or something? We’re out for the night anyway.”

“Because this was what Gabby wanted,” Michael told her patiently. “She won the game. She got to choose.”

“Of course,” Beth sighed, clearly beleaguered by her baby sister. She quickly got lost in her phone, and didn’t come back out again as we all set up camp. Despite her bratty behavior, Michael bent himself over backwards to make her happy. This was extremely dangerous territory for me, especially as I watched Gabby analyze every word, every touch and every kiss. She tried damned hard to hide that was what she was doing, and I was relatively sure that Michael and Beth remained clueless.

One look at Eli, though, and I sensed that he picked up on all the things Gabby didn’t say. It was one long silent scream, and finally—
finally
—he had heard it.

While Beth continued to soak up all of Michael’s attention, Eli and I kept Gabby occupied. We went for a hike along the trail. We studied rocks and plants and tried to spot some wildlife, and we allowed Gabby to educate us on all the things she had learned in her science class, to give her another moment to shine. Eli walked in between us, one arm around me, Gabby’s hand in his. I knew that he was trying hard to keep her from thinking about the giggly, kissy couple who lagged behind. Despite the fact that Beth squealed at every bug, or turned up her nose at the natural beauty around us, Michael did his best to make her smile. The best way to do that? He showered her with affection.

It all felt painfully familiar. By the time we returned to camp for dinner, I was just as ready as Gabby to drown my sorrow in hot dogs and s’mores. It was dangerous. So dangerous. I found myself analyzing every bite I took, to ensure I ate for sustenance rather than comfort. Like any addiction, it was a lifelong battle.

Beth ate about a quarter of one before she thrust it at Michael with a look of utter disgust. “Ew! Look at my fingers! They’re so gross. Take it!” He ate it in one bite before he reached for a kiss, which she resisted at first among playful giggles.

I stole a glance at Gabby, who put the other half of her uneaten treat on the ground, making it gross so she wouldn’t eat it all no matter how tempting it was.

She was teetering on the verge of a binge. I was thankful that night we shared a tent with her, much like we did in Malibu. I didn’t go to sleep. I couldn’t. Gabby needed me and I wasn’t going to let her down.

Just a hair past midnight, I heard her unzip the bag. I pretended to be asleep so that she could make her escape. I waited only a minute or two before I followed suit.

As I suspected, the remaining bag of marshmallows had been taken from our bags of supplies. I made my way towards the outhouse, expecting to hear her purging her latest binge, but it was empty. I kept walking along the dark trail, with only my phone for illumination. I retraced our steps from earlier that evening, where we’d found a particularly secluded trail. I knew this was where she’d be.

I found her footprints easily in the dirt, so I followed them. Finally I could hear the crinkling of the plastic bag, right before the violent retching sounds of someone vomiting. “Gabby?” I called softly. “You okay?”

She didn’t answer for a second, probably hoping I’d just keep walking.

“I know you’re here, honey. Come out and talk to me.”

“I don’t feel good,” she muttered from behind a rock. “Go away.”

“I can go away but it won’t make you feel any better about your binge. Purging won’t make it better, either.”

A long silence followed. She had finally been busted. I knew she was scrambling for what to do next. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she finally said.

I took a deep breath. “Yeah, I do. Because that’s what I used to do.”

It took a few minutes, but at last she walked around the rock. She held the almost empty bag of marshmallows in her hand. She’d killed half the bag within minutes, and probably didn’t even realize that was what she had done. In a panic, she threw up to undo the damage.

But that never worked. And she needed someone to tell her that.

“What do you mean?” she asked softly.

I walked over to join her near the rock, which I sat upon. “I have a binge eating disorder.”

It had been a long time since I had said those words. But I needed to say them now. She needed to hear it now.

“It came on after my parents’ divorce when I was eight years old. I didn’t start purging until later, after I fell head over heels in love with my sister’s boyfriend, Wyatt. He told me that I would be so pretty if I just lost weight.” I sighed. “I started my first diet when I was nine years old. I didn’t lose weight fast enough because, when you’re nine, your body is already changing, storing fat in your chest and hips, filling you out as you mature. Only I didn’t look mature. I looked like a garden gnome. I hated it. Every time I looked in the mirror I hated it. I saw what he saw, which was essentially what my dad saw every time he looked at my mom. That’s why he looked elsewhere, and everyone excused him for doing it.”

She didn’t say anything, just looked up at me with bright eyes filled with unshed tears.

“So of course I knew that if I didn’t fix myself, I’d be alone. Forever. But as an emotional eater, I dealt with stress and all those feelings of having everything out of my control, my family, my crush, even my own body, by consuming large amounts of food. I knew it was bad for me. I knew I was messing up. I was making everything worse. But I couldn’t stop. And food was everywhere. There is always this pressure to eat to have a good time. Holidays, birthdays, summer barbecues. Funerals,” I added ruefully. “And I came from the south. People wouldn’t cuss, dance or watch TV, but they could murder a plate of ribs quicker than you could say yeehaw.” She laughed a little. So did I. “It’s the only addiction people around you deliberately feed, then blame you for your inability to withstand temptation. No one would take an alcoholic into a bar and line ‘em up with shots, but everyone will tell you, ‘One bite won’t kill you,’ when they’re finding reason after reason to give you something bad to eat.”

I took a deep breath and she watched me carefully.

“The more weight I gained, the more I hated myself, every bit as much as everyone else hated me. I wasn’t pretty, like my sister. Mom always loved her best,” I confessed softly. “With me she saw her own failures. She hated me for it.” I paused only for a moment. “Still does.”

Gabby joined me on the boulder.

“I was twelve when Wyatt proposed to Amber. She made me a bridesmaid. I had to wear this ugly pink dress, a strapless sheath that showed every flaw. By then the binges had caught up to me and I was about twenty pounds overweight. I had to lose the weight fast, but every time I thought of the two of them together, married forever, with him at every family function for the rest of my life, I wanted to eat everything in sight. So I started purging,” I said. “I hated vomiting. I couldn’t bring myself to do it very often. I was so afraid that people would find out. If they knew about the purging, they’d know about the binges. Then everyone would know how weak I was, including Wyatt, who had finally started treating me like a girl thanks to my growing curves. He’d say stuff,” I confessed softly. “He’d notice.”

I slid from the rock. I had to move or do something or I’d finish off her bag of marshmallows, even though I could smell the stench of her vomit nearby.

“I gained five pounds by the wedding, most of it in my bra. The dress was so tight. I felt every bulge as I walked down that aisle. And Wyatt had this look in his eyes. I’d never seen it before.” I took a deep breath. “After they married, she moved in with him. Since Amber and I never had much in common, I only saw them on weekends and holidays. I spent most of the time in between those visits on some sort of diet, just to prove…,” I trailed off. “Just to prove I could, I guess. I was sixteen when I finally got to my goal weight. It was Thanksgiving.”

I turned back to her. There were tears running down her face.

“He couldn’t stop telling me how pretty I was, and how I would make some man very lucky one day when I finally decided to marry. He told me,” I started, but the words refused to come. I cleared my throat. “He told me that I had learned how to catch a man, but the real trick was learning how to keep one.”

God, I wanted a fucking marshmallow.

“Amber was pregnant with baby number three by then. She’d gained twenty pounds with each pregnancy, and was way bigger than I had ever been. They weren’t as affectionate anymore. He didn’t touch her or kiss her anymore, unless beer was involved. Instead he saved his charm for me, rewarding me with praise and approval whenever I pushed away my plate. He told Amber she could learn a lot from me. She got super mad. They went home. The next day he called me to the house to babysit because Amber had gone Christmas shopping on Black Friday with my mom, and they would likely be gone all day. They had always shopped till they dropped, usually closing down whatever mall they happened to be in at the time. Wyatt said he didn’t want to be stuck at the house all day.”

I cleared my throat again. This story never got any easier, no matter how many times I told it.

And this was a ten-year-old girl. A mature ten-year-old girl, but a ten-year-old all the same. If the situation weren’t so dire, maybe I could have spared her.

“At first he said he wanted to go play football with his friends. But then they canceled, so we watched a movie instead at the house. He encouraged me to stay even after he sent them to bed at eight o’clock. He said that I should just stay at the house and go home with my mom after she dropped off Amber. He suggested a movie to kill the time. It was an R-rated movie with lots of stuff I shouldn’t have been watching with him, but he told me that he knew I was mature enough to handle it.”

Gabby was already shaking her head, like she knew where this was going. But the bandage was only halfway off.

“He got close. He talked to me about crushes. He asked me if I still had mine.” A sob I didn’t even know I was withholding erupted from my throat. “Next thing I knew he was kissing me. And I knew I should have pushed him away, but I had wanted him to love me since I was nine years old.” ’

I took a deep breath, sparing her the dirty details, like how it my pants were off in a second, and how it was over before I could even figure out if I wanted to say no… which I really hadn’t—despite his being married to my very own sister.

I had felt loved, or at least wanted, for the first time ever. And it was over as quickly as it started, which fucked with my head for years afterward. “After it was over, I realized that no matter how I fixed myself on the outside, inside I was the same old person. Everything else was just a lie. That weekend I ate all of the Thanksgiving leftovers. My mother criticized me, so I headed to the mall to get away from her. There I made an around-the-world pass at every restaurant at the food court. I ate so much I made myself sick, no purging required. Nothing helped. My life had spun completely out of my control, and Wyatt kept finding excuses for us to be together, where he’d make his moves when nobody was looking. He wanted me, but I didn’t want him anymore. Within a year, I gained back all the weight I lost. Wyatt finally left me alone after that. At my graduation party, he made a drunk toast congratulating me on making it through high school, but cautioned that I should really be careful during my first year of college, because I couldn’t afford to gain the Freshman 15. The audience didn’t know whether or not to laugh. Was it mean-spirited? Or just brotherly teasing?”