Free 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl by Mona Awad Page B

hearing.
    My boots. I just need to find my boots. There’s that song about boots and walking that my mother loves, that I used to sing. Sung by another woman. Not Peggy but of that era. She was poised. She was thin. She was freedom dancing in high-heeled white boots. Stomp stomp stomp. That’s all I have to do through the white snow. Stomp stomp stomp. And not look back.
    I get up and get into my combat boots, which I don’t lace. I pull my cardigan on over my mother’s slip.
    I stumble my way toward the door, but it isn’t easy with the drugs, my heart thumping in my chest, the air around me like invisible water, like I’m at the bottom of a lake, feet sinking in tangly weeds, pawing my way forward.
    I fall twice on my way up the basement stairs and then stumble out the front door. Now I’m outside in the gently falling snow walking toward where I think, hope, the bus stop is. He’s calling my name but I keep walking, trying to quicken my pace without slipping.
    I just need to keep that song in my head about boots being made for walking and that’s just what they’ll do and I’ll be safe. The road is sheer ice and I slip a little as I walk.
    I can hear his voice getting closer, but I keep walking, slipping, until I feel him touch my shoulder. I turn around and he is in the snow on his knees. He looks up at me.
    He is going to make a speech. He is opening his mouth to say God knows what. More about how he can’t let me go, but he’ll understand if I never want to see him again. More about how unworthy he is of me. More about how insane Britta is. More about how I am the one he really wants.
    â€œLizzie,” he says, hugging my knees, and I am trying to pry myself loose.
    â€œAsshole!” Britta screams.
    I turn and see her charging toward us in the not-too-distant distance, waving a harmonica in the air like a gun. She hurls it and her aim is remarkable. It hits him right in the face. In the mouth.
    For what feels like minutes, we both just stand there. Watch the blood gush beautifully, hideously out of his mouth while he burbles, presumably in shock. Eyes blinking. Then she runs over to him. Takes off her terrible cardigan. Underneath, she’s wearing one of those basic scoop-neck tops I have a dozen of at home. She stoppers his mouth with the sweater. Wraps him in her ridiculous scarf. Now she’s saying sorry, I’m so sorry. I’m watching the scene like it’s a still. Then I realize she’s looking at me. “Can you call a taxi?” she says, handing me her phone.
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    In the hospital waiting room we sit side by side with one empty chair between us for our purses. Archibald is semi–passed out on a gurney nearby. Every now and then we hear him mumble for his harmonica through a mouthful of gauze. From the look of the emergency room, lots of people have been shot and stabbed tonight. Lots of deep cuts and chest pains. Lots of sick babies. Getting hit in the mouth with a harmonica—even a chromatic one—is way down on the list of the doctor’s priorities. The nurse told us it would be a while.
    Britta is pretending to flip through dated magazines. I’m staring at the TV.
    â€œYou can go, you know,” she says. “Really. I’m the one that hit him. Besides, I think it’ll be a while.”
    â€œNo, it’s okay,” I say, like my staying is some sort of sacrifice, like we’re in this together. But actually in my haste to go, I left my wallet in his apartment. Not to mention my keys, my clothes. I’mwearing nothing but the unlaced boots I wedged my feet in when I staggered out the door, my mother’s red night slip stained with Chinese food, and a cardigan splattered with Archibald’s mouth blood. I can’t bring myself to borrow money from Britta and I’m at least an hour’s walk from our apartment. I called Mel a couple of times on the