Look Up
ANNA DELAMERCED
Before she boards the train, she feels a hand on her head and
looks up, the way he tousled her hair when they were kids.
“Thanks for letting me visit, bro,” she chuckles. Ever since
her brother first attended Brown University, she made
it a tradition to visit him over Fall Weekend. Now he’s
a senior in college, and she a senior in high school.
“Just remember what I told you these past few days,
okay?” he nudges, smiling. She nods, and they part
ways. Looking back one more time, she sees her older
brother waving. She pushes through the turnstile.
Hordes of people storm through the station. Someone
bumps her. “Out of the way, kid,” a lady gruffs.
A man hoots as he barrels through the tangled
cobweb of stressed feet and stern eyes.
Bathroom, a familiar voice repeats to herself. Go to the
bathroom. For years, she has tried to push that voice
out of her head, but her own strength fails her. You’re
not pretty enough, not thin enough, not good enough.
A sign that reads “Ladies” on a door beckons her to
enter. No one cares about you, anyway... Go ahead, the
voice tempts. It’ll make you prettier, thinner, better.
Her feet strain to push herself forward to the platform.
The noises of the world storm around her. Stressed out
students, busy businessmen, hardened hearts. The clock
ticks. The train should be here by now. Finally, the raucous
yells in the station are drowned out by her anticipation
as she finally hears the wheels of the train rounding
the bend, chugging to a halt. The train has arrived.
People are filing in, scrambling to land a seat, any seat.
Mothers grip the hands of their young ones tightly for
fear of turning around and suddenly finding them gone.
She scootches in her backpack at the bottom of her feet
upon the cold, metallic floor. Elbowing her body into the
seat surreptitiously, she’s fully aware that people are
looking at her, wondering if there’s space next to her
to sit down. Her eyes gaze down, until a middle-aged
woman hurriedly claims the seat adjacent to hers. No use
in trying to address it, she lets her take the elbow rest.
The passenger car jerks as the wheels screech onto the
metal of the tracks, sending out a whistle as the locomotive
finally comes alive and embarks on the journey.
She watches the lights pass by. The lights
they leave are yellow, jaundiced, as if they’re
jaded from the hordes of people leaving.
Resigning to herself, she takes a nap. Half an hour later,
she wakes up. She looks through her backpack for her
phone. Her fingers find a piece of paper she hadn’t noticed
before, but immediately she recognizes the handwriting.
She brings the letter up to the light, and all
that is written is a single sentence.
Remember what we talked about: you are beautiful, not
because of what you look like, but because of Who made you.
Her eyes try to let each word sink in, her lips try to
repeat what was written. Her brother’s words pierce
her heart, stinging, almost. “Don’t let bulimia control
your life,” he repeats, the phrase “self-destructive
lifestyle” echoing in her mind over and over again.
And yet, it’s as if her soul is a trampoline upon which
everything bounces back, bounces away. A wall built by
pain, by feelings of ugliness holding each brick together like
concrete. She crumples the letter in her hand, the paper
slowly crinkling into a ball, and lets it drop to the floor.
She looks at her phone. 6 pm. Dinner time. She stands up
and opens her backpack to get a slice of cold pizza, the one
her brother had given her. And she knows she’s not supposed
to, but she eats the remaining jelly donut in the Dunkin’
Donuts box anyway. Flipping through People magazine, she
gazes at pictures of trimmed waists and photoshopped skin.
A long sigh is exhaled, longing for a skinnier frame, a smaller
stomach, a tighter waist. She tosses the magazine back into
her bag and retrieves her phone. Checks her email, scrolls
through Facebook, double-checks Instagram. Returning to
napping, she thinks she can just let the world fade away.
When she wakes up, later, she stretches her legs. Her
eyes try to find a bathroom, to empty herself, give her
stomach up. The words on her brother’s letter appeared
in her dream yet again, as if a still, small voice was
speaking to her. But she shakes her head. She finds
it hard to believe that her worth comes from God.
Arising, she walks to the end of the train car. She thinks
she sees the bathroom door, but then the train slightly
jolts as it nears a stop on the journey. She clutches onto
the backs of the seats, one by one making her way to
the handle of a door, a door to the bathroom. As she
grasps the handle, something catches her eye. She looks
up and reads five words shining in bright red ink:
THIS
IS
NOT
AN
EXIT
Anna Delamerced is a junior concentrating in public health.
Spring 2015
9