Returning Home for the First Time

It had been almost two years since I had been back home. The drive from the airport in Anchorage to the high school in Seward took less than two hours as it was summer, and the road was free of the usual snow and ice that covered it nine out of twelve months of the year. Every curve in the road was familiar.

Every peak of mountain and flash of water was the same. And the splashes on the road from the waterfalls were right where I expected them to be. Still, it was all different. Foreign and strange. So much so that my heart broke with every mile that ticked up on the speedometer.

Grandma was her usual exuberant self. Full of smiles and laughter, whooping along with Shania as she sang out from the radio.

“Any man of mineee…” She crooned as she looked over to me with that special twinkle in her eye that only grandmothers have.

I smiled back at her, knowing she was waiting for me to join in like I used to when my shoulders stood a few inches lower. When my hair fell farther down my back. And when I was young enough to believe that things were as simple as they were in country songs.

That was when things were as they were supposed to be. When they fit into the puzzle frame just like the picture on the box showed. But they weren’t as they should have been that day. They hadn’t been for a long time before that. And they haven’t been since.

Ananda was graduating. Everyone was full of pride and excitement, and the kind of hope that only the graduation of the firstborn child can bring. I was, of course, insanely jealous. And bitter. The depth of the jealousy that I felt for my sister back then and many times after cannot be fully described with words.

The only thing stronger than my bitter jealousy for my big sister was my love for her. Or my “older” sister, I should say, as she was always quick to point out. I had grown head and shoulders taller than her long before I’d reached middle school. But it had never been my height that required that qualifier in her mind, or anyone else’s.

I was always the “younger” sister because I had always been bigger than my older sister. Or so it seemed to me… and everyone else, apparently.

As I look back at myself in those pictures now, I can finally see how much thinner I was than I had ever allowed myself to believe. More beautiful, even, than I had ever allowed myself to dream of being. I suppose that’s the way the mind works. We so often allow others to label us, accepting their words as truth before we’ve been able to figure out for ourselves who or what we are.

I still didn’t know who I was that day, and as I recall the familiar but somehow foreign scenery that flew past the windows of my grandmother’s prized powder blue 1960-something Chevy truck, I remember the tears of fear and jealousy that I tried to hold back. I sang along with her, pretending to enjoy Shania as much as I had when I was seven and fresh-faced.

Before the second skin of illusion hung upon my reflective self, and before sadness had filled my still too young eyes of fourteen.

I had flown in from Kansas, and even though I’d known in advance that I would have to attend my sister’s graduation, I was still terribly unprepared to look the part. I had only been able to bring a sampling of my clothes with me in my limited luggage, but it wouldn’t have made much of a difference if I’d had my entire wardrobe with me.

My closets had never been that full, and what they did have were mostly unflattering hand-me-downs that barely fit me. It wasn’t until I’d changed in the bathroom and attempted to get my frizzy hair and pale, pimply face covered that I’d realized fully the fear of seeing those familiar faces once again. I stressed over what to wear, repeatedly changing in and back out of my few choices.

Thinking back on that supposedly joyous occasion, I have to believe that there must have been something in my suitcase that would have been better than what I’d chosen.

When I brave a glimpse at those old photographs of my smiling mother and grandmother sandwiching my sister in a big hug with me standing next to them all with a fake and carefully spaced smile plastered to my face, I am haunted by the memory—by the mortification and the dread I’d felt.

My eyes are instantly drawn to the torn and denim-stained once-white bra peeking out from the sleeveless black dress that hung upon me like a sackcloth. My long, curly hair falling down around my bare and bulging shoulders only reminds me of the self-loathing and fear I felt every time I looked in a mirror.

I knew they would be there. A room full of them. A school full of them. A town full of them. The children I’d grown up with and seen every day before my mother was forced to pack us up and flee from our father and our hometown. I dreaded seeing them. The familiar faces of the people who knew all my secrets and shames.

They lurked around every corner. Each one of them holding memories I longed to forget. Every face had been burned into my unforgivably accurate memory, indelibly paired with the names they called me and the fists they’d thrown at me.

As I walked into that auditorium for the first time in two years, I remembered the moments of joy—the sounds of a perfectly inflated basketball bouncing rhythmically as I dribbled it down the court and tossed it into the net with precision and self-satisfaction.

But even more than those pleasant memories, I was flooded with the images of my torment—their fingers pointing at me as they laughed, their taunts and sideways glances when I would walk into gym class in an oversized t-shirt and baggy leggings that could never hide my fat from their all-seeing and judgmental eyes.

I could feel those same judging eyes watching my every move as I crept to the perimeter and slid into a seat in the back.

Like a spider senses an intruder on her web, I could feel their presence—my old friends and classmates. It made my skin itch and my hair stand on end. My bullies. My tormentors. That’s what they really were. They were the young boys and girls who had stolen my innocence and left me full of self-loathing and self-doubt.

But on that day, and even now, they remain the people whose approval I never won. Their opinions meant everything to me, and I have never stopped trying to impress them.

Every corner and chair seemed to be full of them, and I couldn’t sink into my seat low enough to escape their sideways and self-righteous stares. Their pointed fingers signaling their perplexity and intrigue at seeing a familiar chubby face. Did I imagine their goading glances? Their judgements?

When I saw the first glimmer of recognition and parted mouth of memory being sparked in my childhood best friend, I felt an immediate but ephemeral joy flood through me.

It faded quickly, and I tensed and braced myself as I saw the girls she was sitting with and remembered the last time I’d seen them. As more painful memories flooded my mind, I felt my insides twist and snap. I heard their laughter and saw the amusement in their eyes.

I’ve tried several times over the years to recall if I rolled my eyes back at them as I murmured to myself that they’d clearly not grown up. I liked to think I’d grown up, but I’d certainly not grown in.

I remembered the vomit-filled trash can that they’d thrown over my head on the last bus ride I’d ever taken in that town. I remembered their laughter as I tried to clean the vomit off of my face without throwing up myself. I remembered the name they chanted as I tried not to cry in front of them.

“Fatso. Fatso. Fatso.”

I sank lower in my seat, those same tears threatening to pour down my face years later. I knew what they were thinking. I’d not lost a pound of my hideous fat. But like a snowman only gains its mass as time rolls on, I’d only succeeded in rounding out around the edges, losing the freshness of baby fat and gaining the final touches of cellulite and stretch marks.

And to make matters worse, I was wearing an awful and unflattering outfit that instantly brought me back to those last moments in that auditorium. The words they’d thrown my way. The sideways glances full of judgment and disgust. They replayed in my mind over and over again throughout the ceremony.

When my sister’s name was finally called, and the ears of the younger brothers and sisters all perked up with recognition and followed the faces as they turned my way, I knew. I was revealed. I was watched. I could not escape them.

Would they greet me with the same crooked smiles and fast fists shoved into my face as they used to? Would the names come back to their memories as quickly as they’d come back to mine? Would there be newer, more painful ones waiting for me? Or would they be happy to see me? The girl they’d played with and laughed with (when they weren’t laughing at me) for over a decade. Would there be a glimmer of shame or regret that rose up in any of their minds?

My pulse quickened, my breath coming raspy and ragged. And my palms were as sweaty as they’d been the first day that I’d ever stepped foot in that school. Their voices chanted in my mind. And the words wouldn’t escape me, echoing as loudly as the speaker and bouncing off the walls and bleachers, smacking me hard in the face.

I felt it rise in my chest with each syllable in my memory.

Panic.

And every face that turned my way brought it all rushing back to me until the fear was so strong that I thought I’d vomit. Each name on the stands that was called was my own. A new student called. A new nickname ringing out.

“Andrea Knopik.” But it was really me they were calling. “Fatso.”

“Crystal Massey.” Also known as, “Chub Chub.”

“Nikki Sears.” But I only heard “Sumo.”

Each new name was a new terror, and it remains to this day. Their voices and their faces flash within my mind as fresh as they were back then. And in the pictures, I hug my sister. Her beautiful and smiling… and THIN face beaming with pride and accomplishment. Her tanned and toned arms wrapping around her friends and family as she cradles the flowers she was showered with. Her slim waist somehow still accentuated through the oversized gown.

And beside her? Her little sister. Her younger sister. She smiles back at me from the photo. But I see through the stretched lips and crinkled eyes. I see through the sparkle in the eye that might be mistaken for joy. I see the fear and the self-hatred.

She kisses her older sister on the cheek, and she says, “I’m so proud of you, big sis.”

But what she really says is “get me out of here.”

What she really thinks is, “I’m dying here. Let me leave.”

This place that was once the surest source of joy and the most beautiful place she’d ever known had become her place of torment. The people who once held all of her love have become her terrorists.

Their words float around the edges of every photograph. “Chub Chub. Chubby. Sumo. Fatso.” Did I mention “Punching Bag.”

That was Eli’s favorite for me. “It’s Lena. My favorite punching bag.” That’s what I see in the photographs. A fat lump of fabric and leather, torn at the stitching, dented and swinging to and fro without a sense of direction.

Their words became my reflection. “Fat,” “ugly,” “stupid,” “lazy,” “worthless.” These are the words that fill the pages of my albums. There are no dates or names in pencil on the backside. There are only those words. There’s only fear and hatred.

I see her in the photographs. I see the girl they beat and kicked. I see the girl with no hope for self-esteem. She smiles and she hugs her sister. And as she pretends she doesn’t see their sideways glances, she wonders, “do they even care?”

And as they come up to her and hug her and ask her where she’s been, she cries inside, her mind screaming the words that they no longer speak. And as they walk away with only a brief moment given her, she knows they will never know the damage they’ve done. And again, she wonders, “would they even care?”