Free Reasons to Be Happy by Katrina Kittle Page B

somewhere and protect him.
    Aunt Izzy understood how freaked I was. “What do you need to do?” she asked.
    I knew what I needed, but I couldn’t tell her that. With my SR, I wouldn’t have to feel anything. It would take away all this panic.
    My SR wasn’t so secret. Aunt Izzy talked about it all the time. She called it what it was.
    I couldn’t stand to be in my hot, itchy skin, but I held it together most of that first day.
    Aunt Izzy took me to Sugarcreek, this great nature preserve. We’d gone there with my mom once years ago. They’d taken me to see the Three Sisters, these enormous oak trees that were over six hundred years old. Me, Mom, and Aunt Izzy together couldn’t wrap our arms around one of the trunks, that’s how big they were.
    That day, when we climbed up to them, my eyes filled with tears and my back started shaking. Aunt Izzy put her arm around me, but I shrugged it off, hard.
    “Don’t touch me,” I said.
    She nodded. She didn’t seem mad.
    “I can’t stand to be in my own body,” I whispered. “I want—”
    “What?”
    “I wish I could zip it off, my own skin. I want to run. I want to run really hard.”
    “So run. You know where the car is. I won’t leave without you.”
    I left her standing there at the Three Sisters and I ran as fast as I could, more like fleeing. Like I was running from something. But, the problem is, you can’t run away from yourself. It felt good anyway, to sweat and breathe hard. Made the panicky swirl in my chest spin less.
    The muscles in my thighs and fat butt warmed up, then burned, as I kept running running running on the muddy trails.
    When I’d been on the track team, I almost always won.
    I missed track. I missed losing myself in the laps. It would’ve been a comfort. It was a comfort as I ran all the way down to the big wide creek—the actual Sugar Creek the place was named for—before I slowed to a walk, panting. I’d run almost three miles without stopping. Not bad for not having trained for over a year. I clutched my side and gasped for air.
    Maybe if I wasn’t so fat, Dad wouldn’t drink so much. Maybe if I wasn’t so gross and had to shoplift and do my disgusting habit, I’d still be in my own home and Dad would be fine and working and we’d be sad without Mom but okay.
    What was going to happen to me now?
    I limped my way back to the car where Aunt Izzy sat on the hood, cross-legged, leaning back, looking at the sky. She looked all content, like she would’ve waited all day for me.
    • • •
    We went to dinner at the greatest restaurant, The Winds, which we could walk to from Izzy’s cool purple house. Later that night, while she and her assistant Pearl discussed something in her office, I loaded my gym bag full of food from her cupboards and fridge. She’d stocked the house with all my favorite things which I shoved into the bag: a loaf of rye bread, a roll of sugar cookie dough, slices of provolone cheese, sliced turkey, the leftover chicken enchiladas we’d made last night, the leftover guacamole, the pasta salad, the tapioca pudding.
    I hid the bag in my room. After Pearl left, we went to bed. I lay awake until I was certain Aunt Izzy was asleep.
    It took over me again. It had been so long. Well, long for me anyway. I almost wept with relief, it felt so good, so comforting.
    The trance took over.
    I stopped feeling.
    No shame. No worries.
    Nothing . Lovely, wonderful nothing .
    • • •
    But the nothing didn’t last. When I came back to myself, my stomach strained with all I’d forced into it. Sharp pains stabbed me as I crawled to my feet, clutching my belly, and snuck to the hallway bathroom. Aunt Izzy had her own bathroom in her bedroom. Since her bedroom door was shut, I thought I was pretty safe.
    I quietly closed the bathroom door and turned on the light. I looked repulsive in the mirror, my face so bloated, a smear of something dark on my chin. I turned away.
    I rubbed my bloated gut. Revolting. Vile.
    I lifted