David Levithan - Every Day

I’ve worn black today, because I’ve heard so often that it’s supposed to be slimming. But instead I am this sphere of darkness submarining through the halls.

The only respite is lunch, where Finn has his two best friends, Ralph and Dylan. They’ve been best friends since third grade. They make fun of Finn’s size, but it’s clear they don’t really care. If he were thin, they’d make fun of him for that, too.

I feel I can relax around them.

I go home after school to take another shower and change. As I’m drying myself off, I wonder if I could plant a traumatic memory in Finn’s brain, something so shocking that he’d stop eating so much. Then I’m horrified at myself for even thinking such a thing. I remind myself that it’s not my business to tell Finn what to do.

I’ve put on Finn’s best clothes—an XXXL button-down and some size 46 jeans—to meet up with Rhiannon. I even try a tie, but it looks ridiculous, ski-sloping off my stomach.

The chairs are wobbly underneath me at the bookstore’s café. I decide to walk the aisles instead, but they’re too narrow, and I keep knocking things off the shelves. In the end, I wait for her out front.

She spots me right away; it’s not like she can miss me. The recognition’s in her eyes, but it’s not a particularly happy one.

“Hey,” I say.

“Yeah, hey.”

We just stand there.

“What’s up?” I ask.

“Just taking you all in, I guess.”

“Don’t look at the package. Look at what’s inside.”

“That’s easy for you to say. I never change, do I?”

Yes and no , I think. Her body’s the same. But a lot of the time, I feel like I’m meeting a slightly different Rhiannon. As if each mood presents a variation.

“Let’s go,” I say.

“Where to?”

“Well, we’ve been to the ocean and to the mountain and to the woods. So I thought this time we’d try … dinner and a movie.”

This gets a smile.

“That sounds suspiciously like a date,” she says.

“I’ll even buy you flowers if you’d like.”

“Go ahead,” she dares. “Buy me flowers.”

Rhiannon is the only girl in the movie theater with a dozen roses on the seat next to her. She is also the only girl whose companion is spilling over his chair and into hers. I try to make it less awkward by draping my arm around her. But then I’m conscious of my sweat, of how my fleshy arm must feel against the back of her neck. I’m also conscious of my breathing, which wheezes a little if I exhale too much. After the previews are over, I move over a seat. But then I move my hand to the seat in between us, and she takes it. We last like that for at least ten minutes, until she pretends she has an itch, and doesn’t return her hand to mine.

I’ve chosen a nice place for dinner, but that doesn’t guarantee that it will be a nice dinner.

She keeps staring at me—staring at Finn.

“What is it?” I finally ask.

“It’s just that … I can’t see you inside. Usually I can. Some glimmer of you in the eyes. But not tonight.”

In some way, this is flattering. But the way she says it, it’s also disheartening.

“I promise I’m in here.”

“I know. But I can’t help it. I just don’t feel anything. When I see you like this, I don’t. I can’t.”

“That’s okay. The reason you’re not seeing it is because he’s so unlike me. You’re not feeling it because I’m not like this. So in a way, it’s consistent.”

“I guess,” she says, spearing some asparagus.

She doesn’t sound convinced. And I feel I’ve already lost if we’ve gotten to the convincing stage.

It doesn’t feel like a date. It doesn’t feel like friendship. It feels like something that fell off the tightrope but hasn’t yet hit the net.

Our cars are still at the bookstore, so we head back there. Instead of cradling her roses, she dangles them at her side, as if at any moment she might need to use them as a bat.

“What’s going on?” I ask her.

“Just an off night, I guess.” She holds the roses up to her nose, smells them. “We’re allowed to have off nights, right? Especially considering …”

“Yeah. Especially considering.”

If I were in a different body, this would be the time I would lean down and kiss her. If I were in a different body, that kiss could transform the night from off to on. If I were in a different body, she would see me inside. She would see what she wanted to see.

But now it’s awkward.

She holds the roses to my nose. I breathe in the perfume.

“Thanks for the flowers,” she says.

That is our goodbye.

Day 6026

I feel guilty about how relieved I am to be a normal size the next morning. I feel guilty because I realize that while before I didn’t care what other people thought, or how other people saw me, now I am conscious of it, now I am judging alongside them, now I am seeing myself through Rhiannon’s eyes. I guess this is making me more like everyone else, but I feel something is being lost, too.

Lisa Marshall looks a lot like Rhiannon’s friend Rebecca—dark straight hair, a scattering of freckles, blue eyes. She is not someone you’d go out of your way to notice if you saw her on the street, but you’d definitely notice her if she was sitting next to you in class.

Rhiannon won’t mind me today , I think. Then I feel guilty for thinking it.

There’s an email from her waiting in my inbox. It starts like this:

I really want to see you today.

And I think, That’s good . But then it continues.

We need to talk.

And I don’t know what to think anymore

The day becomes a waiting game, a countdown, even if I’m not sure what I’m counting down toward. The clock brings me closer. My fears pound louder.

Lisa’s friends don’t get much out of her today.

Rhiannon’s told me to meet her at a park by her school. Since I’m a girl today, I’m guessing that’s safe neutral ground. No one from town is going to see the two of us and assume something R-rated. They already think male metalheads are her type.

I’m early, so I sit on a bench with Lisa’s copy of an Alice Hoffman novel, stopping every now and then to watch a jogger push by. I’m so lost in the pages that I don’t realize Rhiannon’s here until she sits down next to me.

I can’t help but smile when I see that it’s her.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hey,” she says.

Before she can tell me what she wants to tell me, I ask her about her day, ask her about school, ask her about the weather—anything to avoid the topic of her and me. But this only lasts for about ten minutes.

“A,” she says. “There are things that I need to say to you.”

I know that this sentence is rarely followed by good things. But still I hope.

Even though she’s said things , even though she’s implied there’s more than one, it all comes down to her next sentence.

“I don’t think I can do this.”

I only pause for a moment. “You don’t think you can do it, or you don’t want to do it?”

“I want to. Really, I do. But how, A? I just don’t see how it’s possible.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’re a different person every day. And I just can’t love every single person you are equally. I know it’s you underneath. I know it’s just the package. But I can’t, A. I’ve tried. And I can’t. I want to—I want to be the person who can do that—but I can’t. And it’s not just that. I’ve just broken up with Justin—I need time to process that, to put that away. And there are just so many things you and I can’t do. We’ll never hang out with my friends. I can’t even talk about you to my friends, and that’s driving me crazy. You’ll never meet my parents. I will never be able to go to sleep with you at night and then wake up with you the next morning. Never. And I’ve been trying to argue myself into thinking these things don’t matter, A. Really, I have. But I’ve lost the argument. And I can’t keep having it, when I know what the real answer is.”