Spiders

“What’s your biggest fear?” he asks, looking at me right in the eye. I meet his gaze for a second, but that’s all I can manage.

              

  His question is supposed to be an easy one. ‘Spiders’, or ‘heights’, most people would answer. They used to scare me when I was little. I once had a nightmare that each strand of my hair turned into a long, silky web, all silver and fragile. I woke up shaking and cut my hair off the next day. I’m still not a huge fan of spiders, but they’re not my biggest fear anymore. I think that if they were, then everything would be okay.

* * *

               

“Are you read to order?”

               

“I think we are,” my dad smiles politely, looking around at me and mum for confirmation. Mum smiles back. I don’t.

               

My eyes are rapidly scanning back and forth the menu like windshield wipers, in urgent search of a safe option. Dad orders. It’s all pizzas and pastas and carbs. My biggest fears. Mum orders. The waitress turns to me. My face is burning red and my throat is drying up and I’m really hot but really cold at the same time and I think that perhaps I might faint. I can’t see anything that isn’t loaded with grease and fat and disgusting macronutrients and I think about how I can maybe hide food in my pockets and how the waitress is tapping her pen on her notebook as she waits for me and how I can’t focus my eyes and how I am definitely, undoubtedly going to faint…

               

‘Another minute, please,’ mum tells the waitress, the disappointment evident in her eyes. I’ve just given the whole game away. Now there is no doubt that I’m going to be dragged to the doctors. Mum and I have fought tooth and nail �" and bone �" about whether I need to go or not, but I’m not stupid. I know they’re just trying to trick me into making me fat.

               

Now the waitress has gone, and we are all sat around the table in silence, I feel kind of numb. It’s like the only things I am able to feel right now are bad things, so feeling nothing at all has to be better. It’s like when you walk into a room and then can’t remember what you came in for. You’re trying really hard to think so your journey isn’t wasted, but you’re exhausted all the time and nothing you think of is right, and deep down you know that you’re never going to remember now that you’ve forgotten, and so eventually, you just give up.

* * *

              

  I look up, and this time, I hold his gaze.

               

 “Spiders,” I say, firmly.

              

  His confidence looks like it wavers �" just for a millisecond �" but then he laughs and everything is back to normal again.

               

“Yeah, me too. Hate them,” he winks.

              

  And then the conversation moves on.