Fat Chance Read Online Free Page B

after that, and I started to carry inside of me this deep-seated fear of loss and abandonment. After that, it was my mother, slowly wasting away in front of us as breast cancer ate the life out of her. My father died a little then, too, watching her go, as I watched quietly.
     
    He changed in his grief, withdrew from the world; he got critical of me, though I doubt that was his intention. I still remember the dead sadness in his eyes, even when he was trying actively to interact with me. Now that I'm grown, though, and more mature, I see him differently. I believe he did the best he could with me, suffering as he was from the devastation of our family. Maybe he couldn't handle how much I looked like my mom, before she got sick, what a reminder I was. Maybe it was the simple loss of his support system that ruined him; he must have been terribly lonely.
     
    My father's mother was lost to dementia, and by the time she was gone, my father's zest for life had left him entirely. He was downright mean by then, lost in grief. I think some part of him must have resented me for not dying, too, for living, a constant reminder that life must go on in the face of grief, a reminder that the word does not grind to a halt no matter how deep the pain of life becomes. By the time I was nine, he barely spoke to me at all, and when he did speak, he never spoke my name, instead using a string of nicknames that I grew to hate.
     
    It started with him calling me daddy's little butterball, which I actually liked, until a girl at school told me a butterball was basically just a lump of fat. That was a turning point for me; it changed how I saw my father, how I felt about his nicknames for me, how I felt about myself; my entire perception was changed in that passing moment. Kids are so cruel.
     
    Eventually, he switched to my favorite candy. "Hey, what's shakin', Little Skittles? How was your morning?" he'd ask me as I walked in from school. I hated it because it made me feel as if all he saw when he looked at me was candy. It made me feel like less than a person, less than his child somehow, and sometimes I hated him for making me feel that way. When I stopped eating skittles, he chose a new nickname for me, and then another.
     
    As an adult, I have wondered if those nicknames were really meant in the way that I took them, or if my father was just trying to reach out to me. Would he have called me Little Bookworm, had I been a reader and not a Skittles addict? I'll never know.
     
    When my father was driving home from work and his car was crushed by a delivery truck with no brakes, I lost the last person I'd had left. It surprises me now, to look back on that time and see the grief that I felt at his loss, because I’d often wished for him to die, to leave me without his nicknames and his cold, dead eyes. I think I had a little breakdown; I don't remember much from the first years after my father died, other than a frantic shuffle from one courtroom to another, and my introduction to the foster system.
     
    Turning away from that time, I try to cheer myself up with a bubble bath. I run hot water that steams the bathroom a little, and as it fills the tub, I add sea salt and baking soda to make the water soft. Breathing in the fruity floral scent, I also pour in enough bath foam to ensure that I won't see myself under the water. While the bathtub fills, I undress and choose a magazine to read while the tension of the day dissolves into the bath.
     
    I read a variety of different magazines; I generally choose the ones with decorating tips for the home, but I also choose fashion magazines occasionally, especially if they attend to plus sized women at all. I read crafting magazines, and though I have no children, I do wish for them. Because of this secret desire to be a mother, I also read parenting magazines occasionally, determined to be a good mother when my time comes.
     
    This time, I choose easy reading, a women's magazine, full of articles