Free Skinny by Ibi Kaslik

them, holding back the urge to run after him. Suddenly a funny thought jumped into my head: I had called him and he'd come, I thought, watching him dissolve into the green field and dandelion fluffs. Something told me if I did run after him, want
     him too much, he wouldn't
    come back again. Not a second time.

chapter 9
    Cardiovascular activity increases serotonin levels as well as the rate of blood pumped to muscles.
    Holly runs twice a day in preparation for her next big race on Friday, and the rest of the time she's locked in her room,
     with Jen, laughing her head off. Holly complains that I am becoming more like Mom since I started working at the hospital.
    "How?" I ask, disturbed.
    "I don't know, you give me that look and use her voice sometimes."
    Agnes has also been difficult lately. Today she started in about my hair. It seems, among the many things she hates about
     me, she hates my dreadlocks most.
    "What are you? Black or something?" she quipped when she first saw me. "Can't you wash yer fuckin' hair?"
    "I'm blond, Agnes. I'm white. It's just a hairstyle. They're clean, clean as they can be," I explained pointlessly
    "Nobody's white! Not when girls are boys and boys are girls and blond girls make their hair up like darkies. Nobody's nothin'
     then!"
    I took her to a coffee shop. She was wearing two heavy men's . watches and had pink lipstick smeared all over her teeth. When
     she told me that they put dope in the doughnuts, I laughed and said I hoped so. Nobody told me that you don't joke with Agnes.
     She swallowed a lit cigarette and fell off her chair. It's not getting-to-know-you time, Mom explained to me later.
    After my shift with Agnes is over, I pick up Sol from the newspaper. He climbs into the car, his long lashes drooping, his
     eyes tired and sad. Sol's a journalist, like his dad, but has, like, an intern position or something. He works at the Sun and does research. He spends all day in his father's shadow, chasing other people's words and stories and then comes to me
     with his hands coated in newspaper ink, black streaks on his face, clutching three newspapers and bitching about ad space.
    When he climbs into the car he kisses me. It's the first time he's done this and the soft flesh of his lips sends a shock
     wave through my system. Automatically, I put my knuckle on the motor that lies beneath his rib cage, in the pit before his
     stomach, to feel his energy course through the rest of him. He's warm and I want to feel him close to me, feed off his warmth.
     As soon as I start thinking about it too much, I pull my hand away from his stomach, which gets him breathing faster, and
     when our mouths get hot he turns away. He fixes his eyes on the road and wipes his mouth, as if he's just said something wrong,
     and ends up smearing more black ink across his lips.
    We get to the track and enter the stadium. He grabs my hand and holds it, tracing the bones in my fingers. I see Holly stretching
     and doing jumping jacks in her running tights and sweatshirt—she's decided against the sassy red shorts. If she places in
     this race, she goes to track-and-field camp. On the other hand, if her team wins next week, she gets to go to basketball camp.
    Sol buys one of those huge red, white, and blue rocket Pop-sicles. "Want something?" he asks, pulling a ten out of his jeans.
     I shake my head.
    "Two Pogo-Sticks, please."
    "Sol!"
    "What?" He smiles, his delicate eyebrows piqued. "Come on, you're Eastern European . . . What've you got against breaded stick-meat?
     Eat one, Giselle, I'll have the other." A little teenage girl with about eleven ear piercings hands him the food.
    — This is a test. You are being tested.
    —By a Pogo-Stick?
    I pluck at my hair, desperate not to show Sol that the idea of eating a goddamn Pogo-Stick is enough to set me off. I feel
     ridiculous about the panicky state I'm in, then I remember when I was in the clinic how the nutritionist took us to a doughnut
     shop and made us eat