“Oh come on Brookie, don’t tell me you’re that naive. You’re a dancer, you have probably seen girls in your classes living off detox drinks and celery sticks.” She didn’t mean the words to come off sounding so harsh, but Brooke insisted on being treated like an adult, on living where she wanted and doing what she wanted. So Emily would treat her that way, no matter how blunt or jarring her honesty was. “Crash diets this, cleanse one week and intermittent fasting the next. Everything in life is a beauty contest. Everything comes at a price. Maybe yours is losing out on time with friends or parties. My price was my health. Take an impressionable pre-teen girl, put her in a room filled with tall, graceful, thin ballerinas for months on end and you see if you still like yourself after even an hour with them. It wasn’t some fun party no matter how perfect our yearbook pictures seem. It’s falling asleep during class because you don’t have enough energy to stay awake. It’s counting the calories in a stick of gum and hiding food in sock drawers and bathroom sinks. I’m fucking tired too okay?” Even now Emily felt the urge to wrap her fingers around the length of her wrist and see if she could make it all the way around. She wants to break every mirror in the house so she never has to look at herself again. But saying those thoughts aloud would probably get her locked up.
“And maybe I wouldn’t have ever made it to some fancy academy or been a professional, but do you want to know what I could do instead? Be the thinnest girl in the room. In a room full of girls older and younger than me, ones with more talent than I had, they wouldn’t be the thinnest. I won at that. And then it almost killed me. But something switched when I got pregnant with your sister. You girls, you saved me. You girls and your father, you were like this beacon of light leading me out of a dark tunnel. And maybe there was always light ahead, but I didn’t see it until that moment. I had people who depended on me, when i ate, you ate. I helped these little babies become something. You are my purpose Brooke. You complain that I make you eat healthy, which yes I strive to do. But I don’t weigh you on a daily basis. I don’t count your calories, measure your thighs, or make you physically put your food on a scale. I don’t say that I am going to drive you to dance class and then drop you off at a hospital for winter break at fourteen. I know what that kind of thing does to a person psychologically.“ Now that she had started talking, it was like she couldn’t stop. Her darkest thoughts, her deepest fears, they were all coming out. And not in a therapist’s office, no, but to her young daughter. Not even Andrew knew everything. “So yes, I cheated on your father. And it’s something I will always regret. But you keep asking why, you want to know why? You really want to know the truth? I deserve it. I ruin things, that’s the kind of person I am. Plain and simple. I thought if someone, anyone, wanted me then hey maybe I might actually feel worthy of love, of affection. I would stop feeling so worthless. But instead I feel even more worthless because I didn’t just burn myself. I burned everyone else around me in the crossfire. I feel like a fraud living in my own house. I don’t deserve anything that I have. I loathe myself and now everyone else finally sees what I see. They finally feel the same way, and I can breathe again.” All she could do was stare ahead, mouth agape at her own rantings. It’s like she was openly bleeding out in front of everyone and Brooke was the one trying to see through the wreck, to see someone worth saving.
For a moment, her eyes dropped to the floor, only giving Emily silence after she stopped talking, stopped explaining herself. Of course she knew her mother was skinny, maybe oddly skinny but she never thought of anything like this. She just figured that the woman had a fast metabolism or something of the short. Truth be told, she was a little bit in shock. “oh..” it’s quiet, nothing else following it, all she can do is sigh. Of course it was what she wanted, the truth, but she didn’t think this would be it. That it would all come down to Emily’s hatred of herself, to break apart an entire family. “Why didn’t you tell someone that you were sick?” The question came softly and she soon shook her head. Of course, Emily still had hurt her and she wasn’t happy with her but all of a sudden her heart ached for the older woman.
Maybe her wrist ached and she was pissed off but she wasn’t heartless, and before long her arms were wrapped tightly around her mother, stomach flopping as she held on tightly. She wasn’t going to crack, but she knew the woman was hurting. “Mom, it’s going to be okay, I promise..” but she doesn’t know that, although she’s telling herself that because she’s a kid, and she can’t fall over this. “We all just need a break from each other, but it’ll turn out fine, I promise.” That’s her way of saying that even if she feels for her, she won’t stay, that she can’t right now, but right now? She at least doesn’t let go, giving Emily the support she’s probably been needing.