Unpretty: An Unloved Ones Prequel Read Online Free Page B

and mashed potatoes with gravy. I poke at the potatoes with a plastic fork.
    “Something wrong with the food?” my mom asks, startling me.
    My eyes dart up to see her staring at me. She’s wearing her glasses again instead of her contacts. Her eyes must be bothering her.
    “I’m not feeling so well,” I say. I force myself to take a small bite of the mashed potatoes, but I nearly gag.
    They taste so… unnatural. It’s like I can taste each individual freeze-dried flake, stale and soaked with unfiltered tap water. I cringe.
    I try a chicken wing, but the crispy fried coating tastes waxy and hollow. The flesh of the chicken itself is better than the potatoes, but—and I don’t know how I know this—I can taste that it’s been killed some time ago, and that its flesh has been frozen. It just doesn’t taste
alive
enough. I set the chicken down and wipe my mouth clean with a paper napkin.
    “I think they did something wrong with this,” I say. “It doesn’t taste right.”
    “Tastes fine to me,” my mother says, chewing the food and smacking it between her teeth.
    “Maybe I’m getting sick,” I say.
    My mom pushes back her chair and walks over to me. She places a hand on my forehead. “You’re icy! Maybe you had better stay home from school tomorrow, just to be safe?”
    I nod. “May I be excused?”
    I get up from the table and go back to my room. I feel frustrated in a way that I’ve never known before. I’m still craving food, but nothing tastes good to me. I fall onto my bed and mash my face into the pillow.
    I feel so drowsy that I don’t even bother getting into my pajamas. With my last bit of energy, I reach for my phone and send Sarah a text.
    “Feeling sick. Won’t be at school tomorrow.”
    I set the phone on the nightstand, and don’t even bother looking over when I hear it vibrate a few seconds later. I’m already too far gone into sleep.
    * * *
    My mom is waking me up. The sun is up, and streaming through my window.
    “Honey?” she asks. “Are you okay?”
    “Yeah,” I say, my voice scratchy. I struggle to sit up, and then press my hands into my face, trying to wipe away the grogginess.
    “How are you feeling?” my mom asks.
    “Better. I guess I needed that nap. But I still don't think I should go to school tomorrow.”
    My mom is quiet. I look at her, and her face is wrinkled with concern. She’s not wearing her glasses. “Honey,” she says very quietly, “you already stayed home from school.”
    “What?” I say, waking up a little.
    “You’ve been in here since last night. I assumed you had gotten up when I left for work.”
    I sit up all the way, turning so that my legs are hanging off the bed. I am running my fingers through my hair, and my mom puts a comforting hand on my shoulder. She tends to like it when I’m sick. It means I am forced to spend time with her.
    Then she is quiet again. I feel her squeezing, feeling my shoulder.
    “Have you lost weight?” she asks. There is surprise in her voice.
    I gasp, getting up and walking past her straight to my bathroom. I don’t bother to strip naked this time. I place my bare feet on the scale, and wait while the numbers flicker under blue light.
    It stops. I look with dread at my new weight.
    215.
    My hands start to move down, to feel my body, but before I have any time to react, I hear my mother scream back in my bedroom. I rush back, and she is leaning over the bed, looking at something.
    I walk up to the bed slowly, and look over her shoulder.
    In the bed is a huge indent from where I usually sleep. In this shallow basin, there is at least an inch of fine grey dust. I know instinctively that the dust is from me. The weight had to go somewhere.
    Still, I have never heard of a weight loss plan that involved producing more dust.
    My mom turns around to look at me, and sits down on the edge of my bed. She looks up at me with horror in her eyes.
    “Oh honey,” she cries, “it’ll be okay. I’ll make an appointment