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mum Janine was going up to North London to see some of her friends so it gave Emmie the perfect opportunity to go and meet Jake.
    Justin Bieber was blaring out on her iPod station when her mother opened the door and walked in. Emmie had put a sign on the door last year saying
No entry without knocking
but neither her mum nor dad had taken the slightest bit of notice of it since it’d been there.
    Emmie watched her mother eating a king size Mars Bar
as she sat on the end of her white leather double bed. There was no denying how much she loved her mother but she couldn’t help feeling ashamed of her; and having those feelings made Emmie feel ashamed of herself.
    She was always mortified when her mother turned up at school and it’d been especially difficult when the other kids had started teasing her.
    ‘Your mum’s so fat when she stepped on the scales it said to be continued. Your mum’s so fat even God can’t lift her spirits. Your mum’s so fat I thought she was a solar eclipse. Your mum’s so fat she has to wake up in different time zones.’
    The hurtful jokes had continued until Emmie, not being able to take any more of the taunting, had told her dad – and after a little coercing and the bribe of a new Chloe handbag, she’d pointed out the kids to him.
    Her dad had paid a visit to each of the children’s parents with a couple of dodgy looking friends and overnight the teasing stopped, but Emmie had continued to carry the guilt of her own thoughts. She loved her mum, but Emmie’s biggest fear was she’d become like her; she spent many hungry hours worrying about it, and hours after that feeling wretched for thinking such horrible things.
    ‘What are you going to get up to tonight, Em?’
    ‘Mr Lucas has given us a ton of biology homework; I swear I’ll die doing it.’
    Janine Jennings smiled at her daughter; she was always so dramatic and had been since she was a toddler. She would bet her Prada handbag the homework Emmie was complaining about was probably no more than one page of revision. Even though Alfie paid over eighteen thousand a year in school fees, it was hardly a school of great academic achievement.
    ‘I’ll be back late. Don’t wait up, but I’m on my mobile if you need me. And eat something, Em; there’s food in the fridge. You’ll be nothing but skin and bones if you’re not careful.’
    Her mother gave her a huge hug before heading out of Emmie’s bedroom, leaving the empty chocolate wrapper lying on her bed.
    Emmie waited until she heard the purr of her mother’s Range Rover
driving away, and as soon as she’d gone, Emmie went to the back of one of her closets and pulled out a shoe box which was well hidden under clothes. Taking the lid off, she stared down at the letters. She’d read them so many times she knew them all off by heart. She should really put them back where she’d found them but she couldn’t quite find it in her to do that yet. It had become a ritual; every time she knew she was alone, she’d open the box and just stare at the letters without taking them out. Feeling a surge of anger rising in her, Emmie put the lid back on and placed the box safely away from prying eyes.
    Turning on her iMac, Emmie scanned the screen to see if she had any messages. Not that she was really expecting any; the few friends she’d had she’d pushed away when they’d started to show concern over her eating.
    ‘Oh my days, Emmie, you’ve lost
so
much weight, you look like one of those lollipop girls; head too big for their body. You’d give the skeleton in the science lab a run for its money.’
    Emmie hadn’t appreciated them sticking their noses into her business; she got enough of that from her mother. So she’d slowly backed away from their friendship and eventually they’d stopped calling. She saw them at school but she didn’t sit with them in lessons or at lunch as she used to; she preferred to keep herself to herself.
    And so that only left the
OMG
girls, or as