Flourish

NOTE: The following short story contains possible sensitive topics that may cause negative emotional responses: an eating disorder, fat shaming, bullying, and loss. 

“Spring cleaning time,” sang Ashlyn’s mother, Loren. 

To Ashlyn, it was a time for dust and dirt. A time for her mother’s—probably fake—flowers. They lay scattered on the kitchen island with cut stems, faded colours, and some petals shed. Among them—her mother so fervently informed her—were Delphiniums for goodwill, and Dahlias for warnings and change. 

Yeah, Ashlyn thought, for vases half-empty of clouded water. 

Ashlyn sat on the edge of her bed, hugging herself and scowling at her closet. She thought of her mother yanking clothes from hangers, leaving them to rock and sway in the mix of larger clothes. She tightened her jaw, breathed a little faster, and dug her nails into her chubby arms. 

Why would her mother do something like this? If only she had enough time to lose the weight, then she wouldn’t have had to donate her clothes. Her mother was so impatient. She didn’t understand. 

*

Loren drove with a furrowed brow and white knuckles. 

“You can’t do this!” Her daughter shouted. 

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Loren said, as she peeled her daughter’s old, too-small clothes from hangers, trying to be gentle with them. “I can’t let you keep them. I’m decluttering everything in the house. This is just guilty clutter.”

“But I’ve got a new diet plan and exercise routine. I told you that. You don’t get anything!”

Loren parked beside the local convenience store first. In the fridge in the back, she reached for 2% milk and paused, but then redirected to the organic almond milk. 

It’ll be fine. 

She turned to notice her neighbours at the cash register. Their daughter, Sara, was a friend of her daughter. Light, shiny hair. A thin figure. She stepped behind them and exchanged a smile when they glanced back. But, as they turned, that smile faded. 

*

Still on her bed, Ashlyn recalled:

“You don’t need a second helping, honey,” her mother said, collecting her dinner plate. 

Another day, at the island, her mother peeked over her shoulder at a magazine, in passing. “Those girls are pretty,” she said and, as she walked off, Ashlyn’s frown deepened and she snapped the magazine shut. 

That same evening, while sitting at the desk in her room, she ate chocolate from a small bag. She wrote in her math notebook with the other hand. An alert from her opened laptop sounded and she smiled, dropping the pencil. 

A message in a private chat room: 

I want to meet you. Wouldn’t you say it’s time?

She glanced at her profile picture: a girl her age she didn’t know, with light, medium-length hair, bright eyes, and a thin, curvy frame. She grabbed a small handful of chocolate and shoved it in her mouth. 

With fingers like swollen sausages, she typed: 

Soon. 

After a long, tormenting pause, another message from him: 

How’s the flower? 

She lowered her laptop a bit to check behind it. The blue iris her mother had given her to “brighten up her room” was still small and pathetic in a pot on the window sill, dark in the low light. 

After lifting her laptop screen back up, she typed a response: 

Not great. 

Her secret boyfriend was also one of her neighbours. He lived just down the street and even went to her school, but he didn’t even know she existed. 

She often found herself admiring his luscious hair and muscles as he walked away with friends in the street or in the highschool halls. Then, that feeling of urgency would bubble up in her gut, a compulsion to act. What would happen if I called him? Told him who I was, in front of everyone? Right here, right now. 

Though her other neighbour and frequent classmate, Sara, was never far behind. She emulated almost everything desirable about Ashlyn’s false online persona. 

Except for the gibes:

“Out of the way, Fat Cow,” Sara would say, nudging Ashlyn a little too rough in the halls. 

Or, snickers and laughter from Sara and her friends in gym class. 

It’ll be fine. 

Ashlyn preferred eating alone in bathroom stalls anyway. Sitting on the toilet, she rolled her eyes up to stop the tears from falling because then it would become real, a true moment of self-pity. This way, she was still triumphant. She had some control. 

Sara was sweet and smiley once upon a time, an encouragement to Ashlyn in gymnastics as kids. 

Smaller, more agile—Ashlyn belonged then. 

Her father cheered her on from the viewing seats behind the glass, instead of eyeing his phone or chatting, like the other parents. Kid Ashlyn turned away and prayed, cheeks reddening. She wondered, even then, if they could smell his favourite scent: manly, with a kick of citrus. She wondered, even then, why he couldn’t just be normal like the other parents. 

And yet, she would give anything to feel embarrassed by him again. 

She recalled her mother another day—a few years after that, when Sara’s change of character and her father’s sudden demise were still wet wounds—saying gently and sweetly, in retrospect, “Can you pull down your shirt, honey? Your stomach is peeking out.” 

Yet, as gentle and sweet as it was, young Ashlyn yelled in defence. Screamed. Refused to go back to gymnastics. 

Ashlyn lowered from her bed to grab something underneath it. An old dress she hid from her mother, something she wasn’t going to take away from her, too. She stood in front of her mirror, holding it up to her chest, painfully aware of the extra width poking out either side. The dress reminded her of the time the seed was planted. A time that reminded her of the budding season of Spring. She was much thinner then, in the mall, admiring herself in it, excited for a new life with new friends, for a moment forgetting her years of suppressed grief and overeating. 

She squeezed her arm through a tinier arm hole than she’d remembered. A sweat began to break as she pushed, grimaced, stretched the fabric. 

She got it on. 

It was tight around the edges, and shorter than she remembered. She twisted slightly one way and heard an agonizing rip.

There they were, poking out under her arm and on one side: shallow, ivory hills.

*

Loren arrived at the donation spot, which was a large drop off bin near a church. She turned off the engine to silence and hung her head, gripping the steering wheel. The faint scent of citrus filled the car like a ghost. 

She closed her eyes and breathed in deep. “What would you do?” She mumbled. 

She stepped out of her car, opened the trunk, and checked the donation box to see what was inside one last time. To make sure she wasn’t about to give away something she wasn’t supposed to. She held up one of her daughter’s dresses, size small. Of course it didn’t fit her anymore, but it reminded Loren of when it did, how happy her daughter had been twirling in it, without makeup smeared on her cheeks from many days spent crying. It reminded Loren of when her daughter had bought it, elated she had used money she saved up herself. The thought of her daughter’s face twisted in disbelief, when she left her room with the donation box, made Loren’s eyes prickle.

Loren’s eyebrows gravitated closer, though, when she noticed one of her bright, blossomed Delphiniums at the bottom of the box. 

*

Ashlyn couldn’t stop the dam from bursting, the tears like waterfalls from falling, as she tore off the dress from the holes and let the shreds fall to her feet. 

She looked at herself in the mirror, her expression neutral, unreadable. 

Fear and resignation slithered over her shoulder like a slimy, venomous snake. Her eyes spanned along a multitude of rolls. The bottom of her bra was concealed in a crevice. 

She realized that she was happier in front of the mirror at the mall, before she put the weight back on. She wore it everywhere in Spring and Summer. 

She realized that no diet or exercise would fix her. She was stuck in a sick cycle of self-loathing and repair. 

Spring was a time to clear away the dust and the dirt. It was a time to flourish. 

Her laptop made a noise. Her secret boyfriend. She approached it and looked down at it, at his username and message: 

Hey. How are you?

She wiped away her tears and slammed the laptop shut to reveal a pair of wing stickers on the back of it. It also revealed what had been behind: her blue iris bloomed. Sun rays caressed and spilled through its lush, frilly, delicate petals. She gazed at it for a while in admiration. 

Then, a smile broke through. 

*

Loren took light steps to the donation bin. She placed the box of donations beside it, rose, and breathed easier—knowing the Delphinium was still inside.