Happiness Without A Price

Since when did happiness come with a price? If you have to pay for it, is happiness worth it after all?

This was not the refreshing kind of rain that washed the gritty sidewalks, where one would feel as though the world had been cleansed of all its sins afterwards. This was the kind where one felt as though the world hated what everyone was doing to it and was pouring its poison back with a vengeance.

 

It made her feel intimidated: there was no knowing what this sort of rain could lead to. She was not afraid of thunder, as were most girls she knew, who would scream and clamp their hands to their ears. No. What she was afraid of was the lightning – that sudden flash that appeared to split the gloom of husky grey clouds with its brilliant brightness, threatening to split the world into even smaller fragments – that brought with it the thunder. Colours seemed meaningless after she saw that bright streak flashing in the sky.

 

She never really had a reason to go out. It was too much hassle. Now she had even more reason not to. She dreaded that moment when she stepped onto the scales. How had she allowed her life to be dictated by where that needle pointed? It felt like there was never a weight ideal enough for her. She pinched hard on the meat on her thighs, hoping that those fat globules would merge and take up less space around her torso. She wobbled them hard. What she wouldn’t give just to eliminate all these….

 

Taking a deep inhale, she slowly, carefully, mounted the scales. It was her best friend, her critique; it was like a merciless clique in school that dumped you when you lost your worth to stay on in there, and hugged you tightly with effusive familiarity when you preserved it. The metal spring jolted to life, merrily swinging all the way up to … a grand total of forty-nine kilograms.

 

She bounced a few times on the scales in desperation. Please, tell me this isn’t true. She knew should not have eaten that slice of vegetarian pizza last night. Vegetarian or not, it was still pizza. It was carbs, and Atkins said carbs were a no-no. How could she have allowed herself to succumb to that slice of heaven? Granted, her grandmother was there, watching her like a hawk as she tried to look like she was ravenous and enjoying the pizza without a care in the world. She could still remember her steely gaze wedged upon her, croaking, “Don’t try to pretend that you’re eating, girl. You think I don’t know you’re not eating? I will be checking the box later and if I find remnants, I’m buying you a double cheeseburger.”

 

How she hated it when her grandmother was here to stay. She would dig for concrete proof of how she was not eating proper meals and report to her parents, who have heard this complain one too many times to really pay much attention to it, thank goodness.

 

She gazed out the window dismally. It was still pouring with the same vengeance as before. She could see nothing beyond a five-metre radius and it was pouring so hard it sounded like sand was being shaken from the sandbox above. Same old grey, same old cold, same old worries, same old same old.

 

“Heather, do you still want your ride or not! If you’re not done in five minutes, I’m leaving without you!”

 

Tearing her gaze away from that mesmerising blanket of glistening grey outside the window, she hollered back to her brother, “I’m coming!” before grumbling under her breath, “Such an uptight freak.” Grabbing the clothes she had laid out before taking her shower, she quickly got changed, grabbed her bag and headed out.

 

“Dad wants me to have lunch with you, so what do you say to Holly’s Fish ‘N Chips?”

 

“Dad wants you to have lunch with me,” she echoed flatly. She did not mind having lunch with her brother; in fact, even though she would die before she said it out loud, she enjoyed her brother’s company. He was the one person she could be herself with. She could laugh so hard she snorted Diet Coke out of her nostrils and he would just laugh along with her – never at her.

 

No. It wasn’t the company that made her so pissed off. It was the fact that her dad felt she needed monitoring when she was eating.

 

“Well, if you didn’t keep starving yourself, you probably could have asked out your potential beau for lunch instead,” Jake retorted, slightly stung.

 

*

 

Lately, she realised that she was starting to shift pieces of her food around her plate, her fork chasing them around in a deliberate, clandestine game of pretence. Talking also helped. Keeping them occupied with her senseless chatter distracted other people from seeing how much she had eaten.

 

“So I was like, “No frigging way,” and she said, “It actually makes total sense, if you step back to analyse it,” and I replied, “The only way that would make sense is if the moon was green,” so she said –”

 

“Heather, do you mind if I shut out whatever you’re yabbering about while I try to eat in unadulterated peace?” Jake finally blurted in frustration.

 

“Fine.”

 

For lunch, she managed to eat only the coleslaw, the beans and a quarter of a fried fish.

 

*

 

It had been proven that sweating it out produced endorphins in a person, the same pleasure-inducing content found in chocolates, minus the fats. Happiness without a price, she thought as she embarked on her fifth round around the running tracks. Pain and gain were, after all, only different by a letter, and working out did not come without perks. Ever since she began her daily 4km runs every afternoon after school (where the blistering midday sun would burn maximal calories), she had shed four kilograms, and her thigh muscles had hardened up – a vast improvement from her initially flabby ones that made her wail whenever she saw them.

 

“You ever thought of trying out for the track and field team?” a guy she knew was called Cornelius (she always cringed on his behalf) commented.

 

“Nah, the team wouldn’t accept her,” another guy whose name she did not know replied on her behalf. “Her timing sucks, even though she may have run ten rounds. She’s too slow.”

 

“Thanks for your gratuitous remarks, but my purpose for running isn’t to make it into the team,” she snapped.

 

“Hey sister, maybe this isn’t any of our business, but don’t kill yourself okay? Your body’s burning out,” Jake said, appearing in between his friends.

 

“What the hell is this, Jake? You get a couple of your friends to come and round me up so that I’ll listen to your bull-talk? This isn’t any of your business.” She looked pointedly at the other two guys. “Or your businesses either.”

 

When she strode off towards the Ladies shower-room, she could hear Jake tell his friends mock-wistfully, “There was a time when she used to be civil to me.”

 

It was something she did not quite comprehend as well: her increasingly foul mood. In the course of the past two weeks when she began her rigorous diet and exercise regime, she grew more and more pissed off with the things happening around her, like when Jake got to use the shower first in the morning, and when there was not enough cereal left for her in the box. She would treat her family with frost indifference, sometimes ignoring them when they spoke to her like an autistic child. She hated her attitude. She wanted to apologise for it, but if she did, then she would be apologising at least a million times a day. Apologies should not come too cheaply.

 

She felt dizzy, like she always did after her run. Her vision would close in on her and everything would dim significantly. Meanwhile, her feet would be burning while she was soaked in her downpour of perspiration.

 

“I see you’re done with your run,” a voice cleaved through the dense fog that shrouded her mind. She turned to see Stepheni and her best friend Jonesy both looking at her. They had stripped into their underwear and had their tennis outfits draped across their arms.

 

When someone like Stepheni spoke to you, you stared even though you try hard not to. You wondered how on earth someone can be as gorgeous as her. Stepheni was the girl that sent every girl to tears whenever they saw her. All the fats she consumed (for she ate normal meals with the necessary carbohydrates and calories) seemed to be flushed out of her body, leaving her skin to cling tightly and silkily to her skeletal system. She was not exactly model skinny, but close, with more curves. Her skin tone was honey-brown, which complemented her eyes, which complemented her lips, which complemented her toned arms and tight midriff that peeked through her tennis outfit whenever she played. Everything about Stepheni fitted perfectly, as though everything knew where it should stand and how it should look, like soldiers grilled on what to do on Parade.

 

“I wish I had your stamina,” Jonesy sighed. “My body would just cave before I reached the third round. Isn’t that right, Steph?”

 

“Totally,” Stepheni agreed with a laugh. “You’re so weak it’s tragic.”

 

Heather wondered how Jonesy could endure this sort of disparaging remarks day in, day out, and hang out with someone as perfect-looking as Stepheni. Maybe their friendship was based on the silent acknowledgement that Jonesy was the uninteresting pawn while Stepheni was the one every girl wanted to be. Maybe that axiom was what sustained this friendship.

 

They seemed to have forgotten Heather’s presence. They pulled on their tennis polo shirts and mini-skirt and headed for the mirrors.

 

Meanwhile, a soda air bubble expanded within her chest, soon growing so massive it made her short of breath while buoying her up. Happiness without a price, she thought, an inane grin playing on her face. It was not everyday that Stepheni spoke to you like you and her just went shopping the other day, much less speak to you approvingly of what you did.

 

“Later, Heath,” Stepheni said as the two of them traipsed out of the shower-room.

 

“Sure, Steph,” she replied coolly, fighting hard to suppress the soda bubble floating up to the surface. “Later.”

 

She stepped into the shower and smiled gratefully as she felt the spray of water drench her from head to toe, gently pelting her face. She remembered how she and Jake used to lie on their backs in the backyard when it drizzled and wait for the rain to get heavier before they played in it. She never told anyone this, but she felt the cleanest when she was out in the rain, instead of in the shower. It was as though the rain could wash away everything that she struggled to put up every morning and just be whoever she was, like when she was with Jake. Rain was a neutral party in this world that always ended up taking sides.

 

She drew in a deep breath and exhaled, and squeezed her abdomen as tightly as she possible could, so that her ribs could be seen clearly like the bars that incarcerated Hansel and Gretel. Then she stretched her fingers so that the two middle fingers would touch each other at the tip. They did, but only barely.

 

She grinned at the victory, and suddenly reached out to the shower tap for support. Dizzy spells always seemed to hit her at the wrong times, without prior warning. She leant against the cubicle wall, waiting for it to pass. Fear only tightened its vice-like grip when she felt the cubicle walls spinning and everything around her blurring in a dimly-lit, fast-moving panorama of lights and shell-pink tiles.

She felt her legs slipped from under her and after that, she felt nothing else as something hard struck her from the back of her head and she plummeted into blackness so wide that it swallowed her whole.

 

*

  

 The next passing moments – or days and nights, or years; she did not quite know or care – dragged itself across her eyes with tormenting sluggishness that reflected her actions. She could barely hold an apple firmly in her grip while she attempted to chomp off it. She was hooked up on so many things that she was past caring what they were or what they did. The food the hospital served was bland and starchy, like congee without any sauce whatsoever, or oatmeal with no nuts or raisins in it.

 

It was little wonder she looked forward to the day she was finally allowed home.

 

However, her euphoria over her homecoming was short-lived, when that night, her father pushed her firmly down in her seat at the dinner table and placed a large plate of a two-inch steak and chicken combo before her, coated with rich gravy, with sides of mashed potatoes (with tartar sauce, minced bacon and spinach sprinkles on it), carrots and broccoli.

 

Jake, her mother and her grandmother watched her intently.

 

“Enjoy your dinner,” her dad said with deliberate innocence as he sat right before her in his own seat.

 

“It’s too much, daddy,” she said tentatively, knowing this was a test. “I can’t possibly finish all of this.”

 

“You were able to finish this and help yourself to shepherd’s pie after that when you were thirteen,” her dad reasoned. “Why not now?

 

“Because my stomach shrank as I grew older.”

 

“Let’s not make silly proposals here, okay, Heather? Wipe this plate clean; there’s pudding later.”

 

She picked up her knife and fork with slow intent and cut her meat into many bite-sized pieces. When she was through, she looked up to see her family still staring at her.

 

“It’s been a whole ten minutes, and you haven’t put a single morsel of food into your mouth,” her grandmother said petulantly.

 

“Your dinner’s getting cold,” she replied.

 

“So is yours, then, I reckon,” her father replied. He crossed his arms.

 

“What do you want from me, dad?” she whispered, feeling the burn of hot tears surge up to her eyes.

 

“I thought that much is obvious, Heather.”

 

“I won’t eat this. You can’t make me!”

 

“No, I can’t. But I have another option: you attend a therapy class that will provide proper meals for you, and monitor your exercise regime.”

 

At this point, it was impossible to hate them – all of them, sitting here at this table, watching her as though she were a freak experiment that would jump up and wave a sword around any minute. They were trying to ruin all that she had achieved. Her personal achievements, her personal glories; they were hers, and they were so jealous that she had reached them that they wanted to annihilate them all.

 

“Before you decide to flounce from this table, I’d suggest you make your choice first,” her father said, as though he had read her mind.

 

She stared at Jake, wondering if he was on her side. It only took his sad, disappointed gaze to tell her he was not.

 

“The therapy,” she whispered, feeling the slap of ultimate betrayal. The tears began coursing down her face like the water on Victoria Falls. “But I don’t know if it’ll be worth it at all.”

 

“Heather,” her mother said, her voice thick with tears of her own. She pulled her daughter into a bone-crushing embrace. “Why don’t you realise that your life is worth all the money in the world?”

 

She poured the pain from her daily struggles and soul-burning feelings of doubt into the next wave of tears that came. Even though she felt no raindrops on her face, she could feel her body being cleansed the same way it did when she laid down on her back, at the receiving end of the tears that the world held.

 

“What about Jake? If I’m worth all the money in the world, does that leave him with nothing?” she asked when she was finally through.

 

She looked at him. He was smiling at her, his eyes red.

 

“Don’t worry about that, Heath,” he said softly. “I’ll just keep finding my own keeps.”