“Looks good over there,” he offered. “Very fancy.”
I decided to change the topic before I blushedtoohard.
"So, your mom traveled in college? Would you ever want to do something like that? Study abroad?" I asked, bringing the bowls over to the table.
"I'm not sure, honestly," Nathan said, his back still turned to me. "I've traveled some before, but never anything long-term like that. I think it would be nice to see the world, but I don't know that I'd want to live in another country for months. I think I'd miss cheeseburgers and fries after a while, you know?"
"Oh yeah, totally," I said, my discomfort showing again. I hated that I felt so self-conscious about food, especially around Nathan. I thought I had moved on from feeling ashamed of my body and constantly apologizing for it, but being around Nathan and the carbs just made it so much harder to forget how big I was.
"Okay, ready to eat?" Nathan asked and walked to the table with the pot of spaghetti.
“Mmm. It smells great," I said. I grabbed the pot of meatballs and sauce. Nathan went back for a bottle of red wine and two glasses.
"Red wine is the only suitable accompaniment for this meal. My mother instilled that logic. Red sauce, red wine,” He laughed, reminiscing. “I wasn't even allowed to drink, but I knew all about which wine went with each dish. Apparently, they learn that pretty quick in Italy.” He smiles as he poured each of us a glass.
I didn't have a vast knowledge of wine, but I knew I liked darker reds, so I was fine with it. He sat, and we started passing around bowls and filling our plates.
I opted to cover half of my plate with salad to balance out moderate servings of pasta and meatballs. I read once that spinach was actually a negative calorie food because our bodies burned more calories digesting it than it actually contained. This was another tidbit of information I had retained from my weight loss journey. While I was steadily maintaining now, I still had to work to keep the weight off. Not always easy when you’re staring down a mountain of spaghetti and the cute guy who cooked it for you.
"Wow, that’s a lot of salad," Nathan chuckled when our plates were full, and he sat back to dig in.
"Oh, uh… yeah. You know what they say about greens,” I said, looking at the plate that was about two-thirds covered in salad with only a small serving of pasta and one lonely meatball resting beside it.
"Do you not like spaghetti?" he asked, concerned.
"No... I mean, yes... I mean… that's not it," I stammered. "It's just that… well… after junior prom, I wanted to... change the way I looked." My voice trailed off. I didn’t know how to explain this to someone like Nathan. He’d never experienced something like this before. I wasn't sure he’d understand. “Like… I wanted to lose some weight.”
“Oh, I get it. I’m sorry.”
I could tell he felt bad and I really didn't want him to. "It's nothing for you to be sorry about. It'smything. I'm sure you remember me as being a little bit…largerin high school. And after prom, I decided to do something about it."
"Why? Did something happen at prom?" Nathan relaxed a bit and took a bite of his salad.
"Well, I went with my friends. You remember Kelli and Katie?”
"Oh yeah, they were the ones in the band, right?"
"Yes, we all were," I laughed at the memory. "Katie and I played flute, and Kelli played clarinet. We had decided to go to prom together, just as a group of friends. We planned our dresses to coordinate and we decided to all choose dresses that were different shades of-"
"Orange!" Nathan said, remembering.
"Orange," I confirmed, much less enthusiastically. "We all had great tans from the tanning beds, so we thought the orange would show that off. Well, when we were dancing together, we bumped into Andrea..."
“Andrea Quigley? My date?" Nathan stopped chewing looked dumbfounded.
"Yes, your date," I said, staring down. "She was holding some drink on the dance floor, and when we bumped into her, she got pissed. She started yelling at us about how we just looked like a bunch of traffic cones and needed to get off the dance floor because there wasn't enough space for anyone else."
I felt myself rambling, but I couldn't stop.
"I don't know if you remember, but Katie and Kelli were both very skinny, so the comment was obviously directed at me. I ran to the bathroom and cried for, like, an hour before I finally called my mom to come to get me. I didn't want to ruin the rest of the night for my friends, but I couldn't go back out there and face Andrea."
I rolled my eyes and looked at the ceiling. Anywhere but at Nathan’s face. I took a deep breath and kept talking.
"Anyway, after prom, I decided I never wanted to be called atraffic coneorfatagain, so I decided to start watching what I ate and working out. There wasn't much of a difference before the end of the school year, obviously, but I kept up the new habits through the summer, so when we came back for senior year, I was like a whole new person. Everyone commented on how healthy and fit I looked. Well, everyone except Andrea. I vowed to never let myself get back to that size again. All that to say, I haven't eaten a carbs like this in averylong time. And when I do, I try to balance it out with a pretty strenuous workout. It's not for everyone, but it works for me."
Nathan had grown quiet. After a few minutes, he finally said, “I’m so sorry, Elizabeth. I had no idea."
"No, of course, you didn't," I said, reaching across the table to take his hand. "I remember that it was only Andrea and her friends on the dance floor when it happened. All the boys were in the back, trying to see if they could distract the chaperones long enough to pour liquor in the punch. Did they actually do it?" I asked jokingly, trying to lighten the mood a little.
