I'm Not Perfect

Spencer looked down at the red numbers down at her feet. Completely naked and she still weighed 218 lbs. She had tried everything in her power to get the weight to go down from peeing to get rid of any extra water weight to stripping her self of every article of clothing.
This diet is bull.

As many times as her family told her she knew she wouldn’t be able to stop. Dieting was something she was moderately good at. Keep track of pounds and calories was natural to her now. She stood in front of her mirror scrutinizing her true appearance. She hated how her stomach poked out, how pasty her face looked, how her thighs rubbed against each other, her butt lumpy and misshaped. Back home she wouldn’t have to worry about crap like this. Back in Alabama, she might be considered curvy or “thick” as the boys liked to call it. She was considered a pretty girl back home, winning the Miss Teen Alabama contest three years straight. Everyone was big back home. Bigger was better. Ever since they moved closer west for her dad’s construction job, the only thing she ever heard was “fat”.

“Spence, momma said hurry up in the bathroom!”

“I’m hurrying Beth!” Spencer moved quickly into the shower knowing that her younger siblings had a history for bursting into the bathroom.

When she exited the bathroom and moved downstairs, instantly her stomach growled. Her two little sisters, Beth, 9, and Sara, 5, and her little brother, Haden, 8, were already at the table, chowing down on the stacks of pancakes their mother was making in celebration for back to school,

“And for ya’ll getting the hell outta my house!”

“How many ya want Spence?”
“None,” It pained her to walk past the hot plate her mother was holding out for her and going for the bowl of fruit instead.
Instantly her mother feared the worse. When her children started to turn down food she knew they were sick.

“Doll, are you sick?” Mrs.Gordan put a cool hand on her daughter’s forehead.

Quickly Spencer brushed the hand away, “I’m fine, I’m just not that hungry.”

“Oooh! Can I have her plate?” her younger siblings immediately asked, their chubby faces all ready stuffed with the sweet bread.
“Are you sure hun?” her mother asked in a low voice, ignoring the chatter of her younger children, “You can stay home if you don’t feel good.”
Spencer nodded firmly, “I’m sure. I’ll just be sure to eat a big lunch.”
“Okay…” her mother regarded her skeptically, “Hurry and finish getting ready. Your dad needs to be to work early and he still has to drop off all you.”

“Bye Daddy,” Spencer waved once more to her father before he drove away leaving her to walk into the courtyard by herself as she waited for her friends. A few people recognized her and waved to her and smiled walked over and had polite “first day of school” chit-chat.

She spotted Luvy right away as her silver little Volts Wagon Beatle pulled in. A few rows down Luvy’s brother was pulling up in his car. Luvy jumped out of the car face tinged pink as she raced over to his car and started screaming at him in Korean. She kicked the car with her silver sandals before walking where Spencer waited with a perplexed look on her face.

“What was that all about?”

“My brother is a jackass and thought it would be funny to try and run me off the road.”

Spencer laughed, “Y’all are so cute.”

“Whatever, my brother is a prick.”
The two walked quickly to find a good spot before the courtyard filled up too fast.

“I’ve changed.”

“What?” Spence looked over at Luvy with a questioning glance, “what do you mean you’ve changed ?”
“I meant my goal. You know, from the other day? I’m going to try and get Tim Abott to date me.”

Spencer twirled a piece of her auburn colored hair,” but your goal from yesterday was fine, I thought it was a big step for you to…”

“Yeah, Yeah I know.” Luvy interrupted, “Everybody expects me to be this perfect princess or something, and yeah I want to impress my parents, but I need to work on me first.”
“By dating some guy?”

“Tim is a good guy. He’s on the football team, he’s friendly to everyone, and he makes good grades. Maybe some of that will rub off on me. Besides you know I haven’t been good at making decisions with guys, maybe he’ll change that.”

It was true. Luvy was very…easily succumbed to what guys wanted her to be and doing what she thought they wanted her to do, which worked out perfectly fine until they broke up with her a few weeks afterwards and spread nasty rumors about her.

“Okay, if that’s what you want…” Spencer said skeptically.

“Crap, here comes September. Don’t tell her what I told you, she’ll only tease me about it or try to go after Tim herself.”
“She’s your friend she wouldn’t do that…”

“Spence, sometimes there isn’t good in everybody and you have to realize that September is a jealous bitter bitch.”

“But…”

“Hey Bitches,” September greeted them coolly as see joined the pair.

“Hey,” they both greeted in an even tone.

September eyed the courtyard as she applied more lip gloss, “So where’s the rest of our group?”

“Late as usual. Flare had to pick up Von and you know how they are ,” Luvy commented.

“But they’ll be here soon enough, so no worries,” Spencer chimed.

“Worried? Please, I’m just making sure they didn’t skip and leave me behind.”

Luvy rolled her eyes and mouthed to Spencer, “She’s lying.”

Trying to clear the tense air Spencer began talking about her schedule, discussing the classes she most likely had. She was very relieved when she saw Von and Flare parting through the thickening crowd and made their way to the group.

Spencer sat in her third block class after lunch completely ignoring the words of her history teacher. Lunch was a little tense with the fight going on between Luvy and September. Her stomach growled and she rummaged in her bag for a piece of gum to settle the noise. She wasn’t surprised her stomach was so loud. After skipping breakfast, her lunch only consisted of a salad with no dressing and a fruit cup. She chewed furiously on her piece of gum, hoping her chewing would burn some of the calories from her lunch. This was going to be the one for her; this diet was going to work.