Free Wreckage by Emily Bleeker

from sagging and showing off an embarrassing amount of cleavage to the camera.
    It was hard to get used to her new bra size. She’d been a steady B cup for the majority of her life, even during pregnancy and nursing, but in the past few months she’d suddenly filled out like a girl going through puberty, and she wasn’t just expanding in the chest.
    After a year and a half of near starvation, Lillian was never full. It didn’t take much, a tiny stir of hunger in her gut, and then bam , this overwhelming surge of panic, an animal instinct, took over. Eight months after their rescue, she was holding strong at twenty pounds over her “before” weight and fifty over her “almost died on an island” weight.
    Somehow, even as a woman who had always been effortlessly thin, she loved her new, fuller figure. The simple tug of fabric against her waist was a constant promise that she didn’t have to be hungry all the time, that she could feel pleasantly full with a quick trip to the pantry.
    When she walked out of the hospital with Jerry more than two weeks after the rescue, she leaned into his side, flinching away from the flashes and camera lenses. Jerry didn’t pull her in, though. Instead his arms hovered around her thin form, barely touching her skin, as if she was made of glass.
    She was sure it was a sign he didn’t love her anymore, or that maybe he was disappointed she was still alive. But standing in front of a full-length mirror at the hotel, Lillian finally understood why he kept her at arm’s length.
    Her body was more than lean; it was skeletal. She traced curious fingers along her hipbones. They jutted out so violently that she was afraid to push too hard for fear of puncturing the skin stretched between them. She let her hands travel up to her stomach. Loose skin laced with silvery stretch marks hung sadly under her shriveled belly button. She pinched the wrinkly skin between her fingers nostalgically, finally glad for the marks that reminded her why she’d fought so hard to stay alive.
    Other than those nearly invisible lines, the body in the mirror belonged to a stranger. Or perhaps it was more like a once-familiar landscape ravaged by a terrible natural disaster. As she counted her ribs, visible beneath a thin sheet of skin, tears dripped down her cheekbones, her once-bright eyes nothing more than sunken holes. She suddenly understood Jerry’s revulsion, and couldn’t blame him for shrinking away from the woman in the mirror. She was repulsed by this stranger as well.
    Things were different now. Lillian rubbed her tingling feet, smiling. Lately it felt like they were newlyweds again. Whenever she stood close to him, his fingers would sink gratefully into her smooth, cushioned skin, and when she woke up in the middle of the night, like she always did, she found his body wrapped around her from behind, his head on her pillowy shoulder or arm.
    If it took a few extra pounds and a new wardrobe to keep that spark, she didn’t mind. Shoving her shoes back on, she pulled the straps over her heels reluctantly. It felt like her feet had gone up a size in the minute she’d had them off. Trying not to wobble, she pushed open the door to her room. Jerry lay on their bed wearing his reading glasses, typing furiously, his light brown hair combed into a neat part. He was dressed in a full suit, the blue pinstriped one reserved for weddings and funerals. The one he wore to her funeral.
    He rubbed his socked feet together unconsciously, like Daniel did when he zoned out watching a movie. If it wasn’t for the shiny black work computer on his lap and papers sprawled across the entire king-size four-poster bed, she would’ve tackled him with a bear hug. Instead Lillian crept across the room, feet silent on the loose shag of the chocolate-colored carpet in their bedroom.
    “Hey there, how’s work?” Lillian whispered, caressing the smooth cherry finish on one of the posts. Jerry glanced up from his computer and took