The Fat Girl Her Family Ignored Finally Stopped Waiting Chapter 02
The next day was family cleaning day. Tyler dropped a beat-up cardboard box at my feet.
“Been waiting long? Last year’s clothes. You pull off the baggy look anyway. Lucky you.”
Mom chimed in. “See how much your brother thinks about you? He saves everything for you.”
Right.
Thanks to Tyler and Maddie, I’ve barely owned anything new in my life.
Mom’s line was always the same: “Wait for your brother to get bored of it. Wait for your sister to wear it out.”
So what I got were socks with holes in them, T-shirts washed yellow, backpacks with one broken strap, shoes with the heels peeling off.
At first, I was even happy about it.
Then I noticed Tyler and Maddie were always in this season’s newest stuff. Nothing repeated. Their shoes spotless.
And me?
Tyler’s old hoodies swallowed me whole. Maddie’s discarded pants cut off my breathing.
My sneakers were two sizes too big. I had to yank the laces as tight as they’d go and shuffle around in them.
The shoes were loose. The laces were long.
I tripped on them more times than I could count — bruised knees, bruised arms, purple and yellow all up and down.
That was when some of the kids started calling me Leftover Lily. Like I specialized in scavenging other people’s rejects. Like nothing I wore ever actually fit.
Mom and Dad saw the bruises and pretended they didn’t.
The moment I opened my mouth, Mom would cut me off: “Don’t act like nobody takes care of you. These clothes and shoes are perfectly fine. What exactly is your problem? Cut back on the snacks. Lose some weight. Then they’ll fit.”
“Grades in the toilet, but you’ve sure learned how to be shallow and vain.”
Dad would shake his head. “Lily’s too sensitive. Tyler and Maddie never make a fuss over little things like this.”
I thought about buying my own stuff too.
But my spare-change jar kept getting raided by Tyler — game credits, limited-edition sneakers — and he’d tell me he was doing me a favor, helping me spend all that pocket change.
Mom knew. She let it slide.
Dad even smiled about it. “Tyler knows what he wants and goes after it. That’s confidence.”
Confidence.
That’s what he called Tyler.
When it was me, it was weakness. Antisocial. Withdrawn.
It never once occurred to them to ask why I’d turned out that way.
I took the box in silence. Mom kept going: “Your brother’s so good to you. He’s got a game this weekend — you’re going to be there cheering him on. Hand him water, hand him towels.”
“And you could use the exercise. Work off some of that weight.”
My head snapped up. “But I need to go to school. I got—”
Mom cut me off, impatient. “Got what? With grades like yours? Your dad has a meeting tomorrow. I’m taking Maddie to rehearsal. You’re the only one with nothing to do.”
I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.
I remembered a day just like it, last year. State physics olympiad finals.
It was the last round. Rain was hammering down outside, no rideshare would come through. Mom had promised to drop me off first.
But when we got to the car, Tyler was already in the passenger seat. Mom said, “Your brother’s meeting his new private coach today. He goes first.”
“But I have my finals. Check-in closes soon.”
“Your brother’s in a hurry too. He’s on the way. You can wait.”
Tyler’s private training facility was forty minutes out in the suburbs. My science competition finals were at the UC convention center — in the exact opposite direction.
But when it involved Tyler, any detour magically became “on the way.”
And anything I needed, no matter how urgent, could wait.
I’d prepared three years for that competition. My scores through the first two rounds put me first overall. I had a real shot at the title.
After dropping Tyler at the training facility, Mom went ahead and took him shopping for a new set of workout gear.
So I missed check-in.
The finals were gone. The scholarship recommendation, gone. The summer lab placement, gone.
That night at dinner, Mom announced to the whole family: “Good thing I got Tyler there first. He almost lost that training camp spot.”
Dad smiled, pushed the grilled fish over toward Mom, then dropped the biggest chicken wing onto Tyler’s plate.
Then he poured Maddie a glass of orange soda — said she’d worked hard at rehearsal too.
My plate and glass were still empty.
I’d stayed up until two every morning that week building models and rewriting reports. Tyler had seen it all.
He just smiled a little. Didn’t say a word.
Copying Dad, he poured soda for Maddie. Poured some for Mom. Even topped off Dad’s glass.
My glass was still empty.
I told myself he just hadn’t noticed I was sitting there, so I slid my glass toward him and said, “Tyler, I haven’t—”
He acted like he hadn’t heard. Set the bottle back on the table. Lifted his own glass and grinned.
“Cheers. To Tyler.”
Four people. Four hands. Four glasses. All passing right over me, clinking together.
Just me. Holding an empty glass. Frozen there.
Then I sat back down, head lowered, and forced spoonfuls of mashed potatoes into my mouth — salty and bitter, mixed with tears.
I wasn’t even thirsty.
I was just sad.
For the competition I’d missed. For Mom’s “wait.” For a whole family that couldn’t remember I was sitting at the same table.
After that night, I never raised a glass again.
And now, here we were, doing the whole thing over.
Only this time, I didn’t try to make them see me. I went straight to my room, opened my phone, and accepted the offer from the school farthest away from home — Southern State University Honors College.
Then I gathered up the paperwork I needed to turn in and headed back to school early.
Ms. Carter looked at the documents and frowned.
“Lily, with your scores you could apply to MIT. You could take a shot at Stanford. You’re sure you want to go all the way down to Southern State?”
“Why?”
I twisted the hem of Tyler’s old jersey in my fingers. My voice came out rough.
“Because I don’t want to be Leftover Lily anymore.”