believe that you’re old. You’ll walk around picturing yourself young. Right, Gray?”
I moved my eyes from Eden to Lewis. “I’m not old.”
“See?” Lewis said. “Every day you’ll think that you might wake up and be eighteen, that you’ll pop out of bed and do the things you used to be able to do. Then you’ll catch a glimpse of yourself in a reflective store window. Or in someone’s car mirror. And you’ll be filled with uncontrollable hatred.”
Spider said, “But hatred is—”
“And hatred makes everything worse. It makes you older, fatter, and uglier. It gives you back pain. It makes you do hurtful things to the people who love you.”
I looked at Eden again, to see if she was listening. She was watching Whitney and chewing her lip.
“One day you’ll have to let go,” Lewis said. “Anger will not serve you.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Dear Fat People,
Please get me out of this retarded, gay-ass camp.
Miss
Dear Quina, Chouji, and Don Corneo,
Even though you’re fat, you’re three of the coolest anime characters. Quina, it’s so cool that you can eat almost any kind of monster, and everyone thinks it’s funny to call Chouji a fatass, but I bet they don’t laugh so hard when he turns them into a giant meatball and flattens them, haha. Don Corneo is fat, but you know what? Every girl falls in love with him. So there!
Love,
Spider
Dear Fat People,
I wish you weren’t all related to me and getting your genes all over me. I want my relatives to be swimsuit models.
Not yours,
Eden
Dear World,
What if everyone was blind? You wouldn’t know who was fat and who wasn’t. I learned on TV that if we were all blind, we would smell each other. Instead of hating on someone for having a double chin, we’d hate on him for smelling like butter. I used to know this kid who was really skinny, but he always smelled like butter, and everyone hated on him in real life and also would have hated on him if everyone was blind, but you know what? I didn’t care what he smelled like or looked like. I don’t care what anyone looks like, smells like, or even tastes like! (Kidding!) I think we were all created equal.
Whitney
Dear Fat People,
I don’t have anything to say. I don’t like writing when I’m on summer vacation.
Good-bye,
Harriet
Dear Fat People,
Now is the time to stop pointing fingers.
You cannot blame your fat on bad genes. Maybe you have a fat relative, but you do not have only fat relatives. And even if you do, that is no reason to give up and be fat. Remember: Had you been born in a different era, all of your relatives might have been racist, or claimed Earth to be as level as a ballroom floor, or watched you burn for being a witch. Anyway, do you really aspire to be just like your relatives?
You cannot blame your fat on your thyroid. Seriously. Stop it. You don’t even know what a thyroid is. Thyroid problems are far less common than fat people want to admit.
You cannot blame your fat on your bad knees that keep you from exercising. If you exercised, you wouldn’t have bad knees, because you would not have extra weight bearing down on them, making them, as you say, “bad.”
You cannot fix fat with a fat-sucking vacuum, or with ultrasound vibrations or lasers, or with a surgery that shrinks your stomach to the size of a pearl. These are just Band-Aids, and Band-Aids fall off. You love food so much, love the pressure of it on your back molars, the richness of it on your tongue, the satisfaction of swallowing the messy, chewed-up ball of it, you will find a way to return to the eating you crave, and then the fat cells will find each other, and bind back together like long-lost lovers, and your stomach will pop its staples or snap its band, and inflate again like a beach ball. You don’t believe that? Well, it’s true. The way you got fat in the beginning is the way you will get fat again.
If you don’t do something now, if you don’t make honest and drastic changes, the way
I moved my eyes from Eden to Lewis. “I’m not old.”
“See?” Lewis said. “Every day you’ll think that you might wake up and be eighteen, that you’ll pop out of bed and do the things you used to be able to do. Then you’ll catch a glimpse of yourself in a reflective store window. Or in someone’s car mirror. And you’ll be filled with uncontrollable hatred.”
Spider said, “But hatred is—”
“And hatred makes everything worse. It makes you older, fatter, and uglier. It gives you back pain. It makes you do hurtful things to the people who love you.”
I looked at Eden again, to see if she was listening. She was watching Whitney and chewing her lip.
“One day you’ll have to let go,” Lewis said. “Anger will not serve you.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Dear Fat People,
Please get me out of this retarded, gay-ass camp.
Miss
Dear Quina, Chouji, and Don Corneo,
Even though you’re fat, you’re three of the coolest anime characters. Quina, it’s so cool that you can eat almost any kind of monster, and everyone thinks it’s funny to call Chouji a fatass, but I bet they don’t laugh so hard when he turns them into a giant meatball and flattens them, haha. Don Corneo is fat, but you know what? Every girl falls in love with him. So there!
Love,
Spider
Dear Fat People,
I wish you weren’t all related to me and getting your genes all over me. I want my relatives to be swimsuit models.
Not yours,
Eden
Dear World,
What if everyone was blind? You wouldn’t know who was fat and who wasn’t. I learned on TV that if we were all blind, we would smell each other. Instead of hating on someone for having a double chin, we’d hate on him for smelling like butter. I used to know this kid who was really skinny, but he always smelled like butter, and everyone hated on him in real life and also would have hated on him if everyone was blind, but you know what? I didn’t care what he smelled like or looked like. I don’t care what anyone looks like, smells like, or even tastes like! (Kidding!) I think we were all created equal.
Whitney
Dear Fat People,
I don’t have anything to say. I don’t like writing when I’m on summer vacation.
Good-bye,
Harriet
Dear Fat People,
Now is the time to stop pointing fingers.
You cannot blame your fat on bad genes. Maybe you have a fat relative, but you do not have only fat relatives. And even if you do, that is no reason to give up and be fat. Remember: Had you been born in a different era, all of your relatives might have been racist, or claimed Earth to be as level as a ballroom floor, or watched you burn for being a witch. Anyway, do you really aspire to be just like your relatives?
You cannot blame your fat on your thyroid. Seriously. Stop it. You don’t even know what a thyroid is. Thyroid problems are far less common than fat people want to admit.
You cannot blame your fat on your bad knees that keep you from exercising. If you exercised, you wouldn’t have bad knees, because you would not have extra weight bearing down on them, making them, as you say, “bad.”
You cannot fix fat with a fat-sucking vacuum, or with ultrasound vibrations or lasers, or with a surgery that shrinks your stomach to the size of a pearl. These are just Band-Aids, and Band-Aids fall off. You love food so much, love the pressure of it on your back molars, the richness of it on your tongue, the satisfaction of swallowing the messy, chewed-up ball of it, you will find a way to return to the eating you crave, and then the fat cells will find each other, and bind back together like long-lost lovers, and your stomach will pop its staples or snap its band, and inflate again like a beach ball. You don’t believe that? Well, it’s true. The way you got fat in the beginning is the way you will get fat again.
If you don’t do something now, if you don’t make honest and drastic changes, the way
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