Free Skinny by Ibi Kaslik Page B

"break up all the air molecules," and so Lucy does all the work for three long laps around until
     Holly cuts in front of her in the last stretch. I close my eyes, feeling the greasy food settle in my contracted stomach.
     I hear Sol's breathing as if it were in my head.
    Oh, he says, and, Holly.
    I open my eyes. The white lines of the track have exploded and Holly is straddled out on the grass. Her elbows are bloody
     and covered with gravel, her ankle bent under her body. She gets up without looking anywhere, skilfully, automatically, as
     if being pulled up by some invisible cord. She leaps back onto the track. It seems I've spent my whole life watching Holly
     steal bases and careen into asphalt.
    Oh Holly.
    Lucy sidesteps her cleanly, coming in first. Holly comes in second and keeps running, her hands on her hips. Saleri is at
     her side instantly, wiping her soaking head with a towel, pulling her arm to look at where she fell. She unravels herself
     from him and walks to the fence, where she finally sits down and drops her head to her knees.
    Oh.

chapter 10
    Damn body never does what you want it to. Your knee stiffens and catches in the cracks, and the pain in your calf never goes
     away, no matter how long you stretch. The hole in your shoe lets the rain from the grass into your sock and makes your foot
     shrivel up so it looks like a dumb raisin afterwards. Your stupid friends at the sidelines going, "Go Holly! Go Holly!" And
     then there's the prayer you forget to say and remember to start when there's only thirty seconds left in the race: Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom done, thy kingdom done, thy kingdom, thy kingdom. And you're breathing out the words not breaths and God's mad at you now anyway. Then there's the start gun blasting through
     my head over and over like the snap of my neck cut down from a noose.
    . . .
    After the race I go home alone even though Sol and Giselle want to take me out for ice cream and Sol promises to buy me a
     Peanut Buster Parfait (my favourite) at the DQ. The house is quiet. I run a bath and sit in the tub till the water gets cold,
     till the skin on my toes is transparent and I can rip up the little holes in them. My feet are really awful things. Mom and
     Giselle keep threatening to take me for a pedicure. Once, last summer, Mom came at them with a pumice stone and a bottle of
     foot lotion, and after she massaged my feet, filed my toenails down, and painted them a pretty shade of pink, she held them
     to her face and kissed my blistered soles. Of course, not two days later I ran a cross-country race in the rain and wrecked
     them. Then I crawled into Mom's bed after a hot bath, showed her my chipped toenails, and asked her to redo them. "I can't
     always be doing these things for you, Holly, you've got to learn to do them yourself," she said. But then she sighed and asked
     me what colour I'd like and I picked a deep berry purple.
    It seems she's right; it takes a lot of time and care to keep a body together, to be a girl. Sometimes it seems too hard,
     and I can't really be bothered. My hair is cropped short and when I'm not wearing my uniform I wear jeans and men's button-down
     shirts and sneakers. I do like baths, but the rest of it—the plucking, the shaving, the eyeliner application—it's bad enough
     having to watch Kat and Giselle do it. I remember being about seven and sitting on the hamper in our shared bathroom, watching
     Giselle do her makeup. She spent hours in front of that mirror in high school, but now she's more like me and doesn't spend
     a lot of time on her looks. The only concession she makes is washing her face and plucking.
    "Doesn't that hurt?" I asked her as she plucked her eyebrow at a severe angle.
    "It hurts like hell. Don't ever pluck or shave, Hoi. If anyone can get away without doing it, it's you."
    My feet are soaked enough to peel now but I feel lazy, so I turn on the hot water and splash it on my legs and wash