The Lying Game
Sabrina Stanich
1.
She reaches up, releasing stringy dark hair from her ponytail, then wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. Clang, clang… She cringes at the metal slam of the stall door behind her. Leaning forward into the mirror, she studies herself. Sallow skin, bruised under-eyes, cracked edges of lips. She splashes cold water on her wrists, her neck and her face. Reaching into her back pocket, she pulls out a piece of spearmint gum and drops it lightly into her mouth. She leaves the bathroom.
“Yo, did you study for APUSH?” A boy calls to her from across the hall.
“L-o-l, of course not. I’m so over it.” She giggles, hyper-extending the “o” in “so,” and tosses her hair casually over her shoulder.
“Oh, word.” He calls back, nodding in agreement. Her face erupts into a knowing smirk but her mind flashes back to last night at three in the morning when she sat on her bed desperately attempting to memorize the entirety of 1930’s America. As she climbs the stairs to her history test, her stomach growls. Immediately, she places a hand over the mumbling alarm clock and takes a swig of water.
As she scrawls out the fourth page of the essay, her finger begins cramping. Releasing her pencil gently to the wooden desk before her, she flexes each hand and rubs them together for warmth. Her head drops violently with the slightest movement downwards. She is dizzy, weak. While FDR was considered a socialist by some, his implementation of… what’s the word? Oww— Stop. Focus. The implementation of the programs… Ow—focus. But it hurts. Oh, shit. What were the names of the programs? AAA, TVA, umm, FDIC… fuck. She massages her temples, straining her mind to focus on the essay, to remember the Great Depression. Instead, it remembers that she hasn’t eaten lunch yet. It remembers the clanging of the bathroom stall, the running water, the taste in her mouth. It remembers that the only thing she put into her body in the last sixteen hours is now mingling with shit-laden toilet water and dirty metal pipes.
****
2.
She turns to the side, scanning her image in the mirror. Strawberry blonde hair tumbles down her shoulders, and a diamond necklace decorates her collarbone, slightly concealed by the collar of her pastel J. Crew button-down. She folds the bottom of the shirt upwards and traces her fingers from her belly button to the waistband of her jeans. She sucks in her stomach, feeling her hipbones, then reaches up, fingers slowly outlining her ribcage. Groaning, she tugs down her shirt, hits the lights and slams the door behind her.
She jogs down the stairs, kisses her mother goodbye and promises that she’ll grab a bagel at the train. But she averts her eyes from the bakery stand as she walks through the station and fights the barbaric clawing of her stomach. She clutches the sticky pleather seat-tops for balance as she maneauvers through the still car, then falls into a vacant chair, pops three almonds into her mouth, and opens up Glamour magazine.
3.
She giggles loudly, intertwining her hand with his, as her worn boots clack against the wooden hallway. Her skirt is three inches too short, but she paired it with ripped black tights, so I’ve been told that it looks cool not trashy. Her disheveled, rusty hair falls lifelessly against her back and shoulders. Smudged black eyeliner degrades her bright smile, and her glazed eyes and dark circles share the truth about her weekend. Her collarbone protrudes visibly through ashen skin and the light fabric of her T-shirt fails to mask her skeleton. The sharp angles of her ribcage and sliding waistband of her skirt fight for my attention. My stomach coils instictively and my face contorts itself in pain, as I divert my eyes from “the hottest girl” on campus.
****
“Let’s hit up the diner. I’m feeling french fries.” Thomas grabs his backpack and car keys. The others nod in agreement, she bites her lip and folds thin hair behind her ears. After a few moments, they designate who will drive whom and they walk to the parking lot. Slam. The wooden door swings back into the doorway, just as she goes to take a step outside. Whimpering, she throws her back against the metal bar of the door, pushing herself outside with the weight of her body. The door was heavier than she remembered, heavier than she realized. Stumbling, she falls against the cold trash can adjacent to the building.
“Yooo! Are you coming?!” Someone calls from the group, thirty paces ahead.
“Yeah!” She forces a smile, “Just left my phone on the table! I’m coming!” She exhales, counts to ten to orient herself, then races to join the group. Fifteen minutes later, the waitress begins taking orders.
“Sweet potato fries and a chocolate milkshake.”
“Chicken caeser wrap with fries.”
“Chocolate chip pancakes and bacon.”
“Diet Coke, please.”
Pause. I look up from my menu to see Whitney raising her eyebrows at me, then tilting her head over at the girl ordering. Very softly, subtly I shake my head, then look back down at my menu.
“Is that it?” The waitress smacks her gum, pen poised to transcribe the next order.
“Yes.” The girl smiles sweetly and hands the waitress her menu. The rest of the group finishes ordering, then begins complaining about too much stats homework and joking about Russia annexing the Ukraine.
“Everyone, please take some of these french fries.” Shelton gestures to his plate, “I’m not going to finish them all.” Excitedly, several hands dig into the plate while hers stay folded upon her lap. He turns to her, his eyes wide in concern, “Do you want some? Aren’t you hungry?”
She smiles, then politely declines, noting that she ate a huge lunch like an hour ago so she really isn’t hungry, but don’t worry. He smiles, accepting her answer, and the conversation about Eastern Europe turmoil continues.
****
Drunk in love, I want you
We woke up in the kitchen saying,
“How the hell did this shit happen?”
Oh baby, drunk in love
Beyonce blares from the speakers in the impromptu dressing room. Scattered party clothes and littered high heels dust the floor. “We be ALL NIGHT!” Taylor shrieks, throwing her hands up and flipping her hair. “Loooooooove, loooooooove…” Whitney and Sarah join in, twirling around the room. I wiggle free from my jeans, adjust my bra straps and dance my way over to my dress. As I whirl around, I catch her watching me. Her eyes travel slowly from my collarbone to my ribcage, searing every inch of skin in between. Scathing, critical, and painful. Her gaze lingers around my hip bones and thighs, until I am utterly uncomfortable and I shove the dress I’m unzipping against my body and excuse myself to go to the bathroom.
She stays behind, carefully scrutinizing every curve, angle and blemish of the five other girls. While they karaoke and throw their double-digit bodies against the surrounding air, she sits silently, alone.
After we finish changing, we take turns at the mirror—concealing under-eye craters and oily pores, illuminating lips and lengthening lashes, and coughing up the Chance by Chanel flavored air. The six of us file out of the room, grabbing purses and cellphones, but she stays to fix her hair.
Five minutes later, she enters the kitchen-- the part of her hair has indeed flipped, but her cheeks are flushed and her lips are swollen and pigmented like maraschino cherries. As she takes a sip of water, and her mouth departs the glass without a bright imprint, it becomes clear that the bright color was not a result of fresh lipstick. As the girls gossip about their crushes, she quickly scans the group, then reaches into her bag and pops a mint into her mouth.
****
“Do you have any Advil?” she whispers, patting my leg under the table.
“No, sorry.” I frown, copying down notes from the board ahead of us. Properties of the natural logarithm, lnex = x , ln(xy) = lnx + lny , ln (x/y) = lnx - lny…
“My head really hurts.” She keeps tapping my leg. “Feel my hands. They’re so cold. Make them warm.” She folds them into the crease behind my knee. Instictively, my leg slides forward, I can feel it through my jeans.
“Have you eaten anything?” I ask softly, casually. Her hand slides back to her lap and she bites her bottom lip. Toying with her cuticles, she softly shakes her head. “Well…that’s probably why your head hurts. Here, I have a granola bar in my bag…”
“Ew, no. I don’t want that. That’s gross. I’mfineI’mnothungryanyway,” she recites mechanically.
“Why don’t you go get some water?” I suggest. “Are you sure you don’t want a bite? It’s just chocolate and almonds.” I pass it to her under the table. She stares at it, winces, then drops it back into my lap. I force myself to not roll my eyes, then I take a bite of the bar myself.
Thirty seconds later, I hear, “Sabrina… my head huuurttsss…” My nails dig into my palms, silently. I take a breath, then suggest, again, that she either eat something or go to get water.
She is quiet for a few minutes, then turns to Whitney and asks for Advil.
****
“This is ridiculous. She is so transparent.” She slaps her computer screen in frustration. “She claims she has a fucking eating disorder and then she puts up a picture of herself in a bikini as her profile picture?” The last two words slice through the air with such disdain, I break eye contact.
“Well,” I start slowly, “Everybody has different coping mechanisms… Her habits are probably a result of poor self-esteeem, so people complimenting the photo makes her feel better about herself.”
“That’s stupid. If she was actually self-conscious, she wouldn’t even wear bikinis, let alone post pictures about it for all 963 ‘friends’ on a social media website. People with real problems don’t do that.” She slams her computer shut, complaining that the girl in the picture is an attention whore and pulls upwards on her belt loops as she stands to go to the bathroom.
****
“Can I speak to you for a quick minute?” She gestures outside of the classroom. I shrug and follow her into the hallway. “So, um,” She purses her lips, tightly crossing her arms and rocking gently against her right leg. “Did you report me to the school counselor?”
Shit. Oh shit. I scramble to feign some semblance of surprise, “What!? No, ofcoursenot. Whywhathappened?”
She pauses, surveying my expression, slowly. Blankly, I stare back at her. She opens her mouth to speak, pauses, then closes it. Finally, she retorts, “Well, someone did. Do you know who?”
Yes. “No.”
“Do you swear?” She squints tightly, studying my every alteration of facial muscle.
No. “Yes!”
“You’re lying.” She raises her eyebrows.
I know. “No, I’m not.”
“Fine. Was it Whitney? I know it was Whitney. I just can’t believe that she would do that…” She sighs in exasperation, then begins ranting about trust and the definition of real friends.
****
Soon, people begin calling her “hot” “thin” and “sexy” and she likes the sounds of those words. She likes that eighteen-year-old guys murmur “daaaaaammnnn” and whistle and snicker and raise their eyebrows when she struts past them in her 00 jeans and 34A push-up bra. She likes the inflection when they say “Yo, she’s bad,” how they drop their pitch a little, nodding slowly and swallowing audibly. She likes walking in late into a room full of people, clad in skinny skinny jeans and ankle boots because she likes how their eyes follow her as she sits down. Or, rather, how their eyes follow her legs. And, perhaps most of all, she likes that when girls whisper to each other about how much weight she’s lost she can hear a sharp pang of jealousy. Because she was successful. Because she lost count of the number of times she dropped her head into a toilet bowl and refused granola bars, but she can count the two-digit number on the scale beneath her feet each night. Because she created the body that boys want to touch and girls want to have, and she feels special.
The lies are slow to start, but they begin building on top of each other, escalating and elaborating. She claims she ate with her parents, with a club at a meeting, with a teacher during extra help, that she really just isn’t hungry. The lies grow more and more absurd, and soon she begins lying to cover her other lies that she forgot about. Friction over the lying game slowly dissolves relationships, and she doesn’t even realize. She makes jokes about the situation, and her laughter grows increasingly louder. With every rise in volume comes a drop of authenticity, and the laughing is blaring, forced and empty. Tip-toeing ensues: every word remotely associated with food or eating is a trigger word. If dropped within a ten-foot radius, she pounces on the grenade and the conversation bursts into flames. Her mood swings peak at obnoxious highs and dip into miserable lows, alienating those closest to her who begin asking questions. She begins creating superficial friendships to surround herself with people who look like friends to outsiders, but end up leaving her empty and isolated. She likes that, though, because they won’t report her. If they haven’t noticed the problem by now, they don’t care enough and that is just fine. It gives her a reason to keep going.