The Fat Girl Her Family Ignored Finally Stopped Waiting Chapter 08
It was pouring that day. I’d just come out of the lab when the Student Affairs Office messaged me — someone was at the main gate asking for me.
When I got there, I saw Maddie standing just outside the entrance, an umbrella over her head.
She’d lost weight. There was something anxious in her face. Something worn out.
I stopped about six feet away and didn’t come any closer. Her lips moved. She said my name softly. “Lily…”
I hummed a small acknowledgment.
Rain slid off the edge of her umbrella and drummed onto the pavement between us.
Her voice was a little hoarse. “Are you doing okay?”
I nodded. “I’m doing fine.”
She opened her mouth like there was a lot she wanted to say, and no idea where to start.
Finally she looked down at the toes of her shoes.
“Mom and Dad have been wanting to come find you for two months. But Tyler had an accident. He got hit in a game. His ankle — it’s bad. The doctors said he might never play football again.”
“They’ve been at the hospital and the rehab center with him the whole time. They couldn’t get away, so they sent me.”
I said, oh. After a beat, I asked, “Bad enough that he can’t walk?”
“He can walk. He just can’t compete anymore.”
I didn’t push for more.
Maddie kept going on her own. “I didn’t go to the New York summer program either. I got a part-time job. I’ve been helping pay the bills.”
She gave a dry little laugh, and her eyes slowly went red.
After a long moment, she opened her bag and pulled out a brand-new laptop, holding it out to me carefully.
“Lily. Your birthday’s coming up. This is your birthday present.”
I glanced at it.
I didn’t take it.
Her hand froze in the air between us.
I lifted my own hand and pushed the laptop back toward her.
“I have money now. I can buy my own.”
She started to panic. “It’s new. I swear. It’s not something I used. I paid for it myself. I just — I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”
She sniffed. “Please don’t be angry with me. Okay?”
She reached back into the bag. There was more — a new phone. A pair of noise-canceling headphones. A new backpack. A jacket with the tags still on.
In my size.
Not Tyler’s cast-offs. Not something Maddie had outgrown.
Every single item was something I’d once asked Mom for.
Every single time, Mom had said no.
She’d only ever told me to wait.
I’d waited eighteen years, and none of it had ever come.
Now that I’d stopped waiting, here they were.
“I have a paid position at the lab now. It pays. I win prize money at competitions. I make money writing solutions and pulling project materials together.”
“I don’t need to ask anyone for anything anymore.”
I looked at her.
“Go home. Tell them not to come again.”
I turned and walked toward the building.
Maddie’s hand came up like she was going to reach for me. Halfway, she pulled it back.
In that instant, I think she remembered — the night she’d dumped that leftover soup into my bowl, and left the back of my hand blistered red.
Three days after Maddie left, Dad came to the school.
He didn’t come with any of Maddie’s caution. The moment he saw me, his brow furrowed.
“Lily. What is this? What are you doing? Tyler’s at the most critical point of his recovery. He can’t be left alone. Your mother’s been taking care of him nonstop. That’s the only reason we sent Maddie first.”
“Your sister came all the way out here to make things right with you. That is already humiliating enough. You can’t even give her that much?”
Before, he used to say I was too quiet. Too sensitive. Hard to be around.
Now he was saying I didn’t understand what they were going through.
I laughed. Just a short one.
When the sound came out, even I could hear how sharp it was.
“I don’t understand what you’re going through? Have any of you ever tried to understand me?”
Dad’s face darkened.
I didn’t stop.
“Why did Tyler and Maddie always get everything new, and I only ever got the old, the too-big, the too-tight? Why did they get private coaches, training camps, whatever they wanted, and I couldn’t even get eight dollars to print study materials — because that was too expensive?”
“You wanted to build your whole world around them. Fine. That’s your business. But why did I have to be sacrificed for it? Why was I expected to build my world around them too?”
“They’re people. I’m a person. I don’t owe them anything.”
Dad’s face flushed red, anger banked behind his eyes. “I’m your father. This is how you talk to me?”
I looked at him steadily.
“From the day I walked out of that house, you weren’t.”
“You’re Tyler’s father now. You’re Maddie’s father. You’re not mine.”
Dad had nothing to say to that.
He’d probably come here still thinking I was the same girl I used to be.
Thinking one hard look from him would drop my head. A few sharp words, and I’d follow him home.
I didn’t.
In the end, my father and I parted on bad terms at the school gate.
That same day, I went to the Student Affairs Office.
I told the staff member on duty, “If any of my family comes looking for me again, please turn them away. I don’t want to see them.”
She pulled up the system. “You’re over eighteen. We can add a note to your file. If they come in asking about your class schedule, your dorm, or your contact information, we won’t share any of it.”
She paused, then asked:
“If they’re just waiting for you off campus, we can’t fully prevent that. Are you sure this is how you’d like to handle it?”
I didn’t hesitate.
“Yes.”
“I don’t want to see them. And I don’t want them to have anything about me.”
“They can apologize. I don’t have to accept it.”
Then I left the office.
The rain had stopped.
The pavement was still wet.
I walked forward, one step at a time.
From here on, whatever road I take is mine to choose.
I’m not waiting for them anymore.
——The End——