Beauty Read Online Free PDF Page B

embarrassment or humility if anyone ever found out, but that’ s not what settled in my chest as I watched her reach for my wrists, her fingers gentle as she unraveled the gauze wrap. I wanted to close my eyes as my skin finally came into view, but what I saw wasn’t what I expected. I’d buried the razor almost a half inch deep and even longer across, but all that was there was a faint pink scar. My breath held as she ran her thumb lightly over the mark before meeting my gaze again.
    “I’ve given you a second chance… this …is your reminder…” she murmured, balling up the stained gauze and throwing it in the trash can under her desk.
    I hadn ’ t asked for a second chance, but - as much as I didn’t want to admit it - I did nee d help. Somehow…she’d seen that.
    “I just wanted to take away the pain…” I whispered, my voice catching as she slid from the chair onto the bed, beside me.
    She didn’t try and touch me. She sat with a few inches between her knee and mine, her eyes watching my face intently as I broke down for the first time in front of anyone. I’ d never talked about how I felt on the inside. I wasn’t sure why words started flowing from my mouth now.
    “I was so fat! And then Brice… And he… I’m a good person! I’m always helping others. Even when I know they’re using me, I still try and make everything right for them and forget all about me . Apologizing for being me! Apologiz ing for being so fucking fat! S o damn ugly! I never wanted to kill myself. But he took it from me. He…he…”
    “Raped you…” the witch fini shed for me, her voice soft, her hands softer as they settled over mine.
    “Yeeeeeeees…” I sobbed, curling over into her chest, my shoulders shaking uncontrollably now.
    I didn’t have to explain my whole horrible life story to her. For some reason she wrapped her arms around me and cradled me like a baby. She rocked and I let her. I cried for the yellow flowers I’d tried to give Danny Thompson, I cried for the time Sherri Dodd knocked me off the merry-go-round, I cried for the real friends I never had, I cried for Brice raping me, but most of all I cried for being…fat.
    We sat for what seemed like an hour, her rocking and me sniffling through the storm of tears that still ran silently down m y face. I’d almost drifted off from the exhaustion of it all when she finally spoke, her voice soft.
    “It’s real ly quite simple Evelyn… Your heart’s desire was to be skinny. Now you are. You may not be able to see it right now, but you had a very beautiful life before, helping others was only part of it.”
    “So…that’s it…I stay skinny forever…” I whispered, straightening so that we were once again eye to eye.
    “I said simple. There are rules,” the witch hesitated, rising into a stretch before she crossed the room.
    I watched as she picked up her discarded book bag, pulling free one last item. It was a brand new scale, still wrapped in its cellophane and decorated with a shiny orange price sticker.
    “As long as you stay the same good person on the inside, your weight will stay the same. It’s when you let your dark side out that you begin to lose your precious gift. You will gain weight Evelyn. Not fast at first…but the more dark things you allow in your life the faster you gain. It’s a one— tim e deal…you weighed in at three hundred and fifty-three pounds . As it has always been, your fate is in your hands .”
    “You weighed me?” I whispered, the weight of the s c ale heavy in my tiny hands as she handed it to me.
    “It was necessary…”
    “But what if I…don’t…” I gulped, feeling the skinny body I now had. It felt great. “…want to be skinny…?” I finished in a whisper, watching as she opened her bedroom door, signaling that our conversation was already over.
    “Be ca reful what you wish for Evelyn.”
    **********
    I wandered back to my dorm suite in a fog, the scale clutched tightly to my chest until