“You didn’t eat much at dinner.”
“I had plenty.” You had the bread, and you had your salad, which washuge, and the grilled chicken it came with. You even tasted a bit of Maman’s birthday tiramisu, which was probably more sugar than you’ve had the past month.
“I’m worried about you, joonam.”
“Why?” Your chest gets this weird tightness. “I’m fine.”
“Do you need to talk to someone?”
That flutter gets stronger, flapping against your rib cage.
“About what?”
God. Does she know?
How could she?
Did she see you looking at the waiter? You were just admiring his workout routine. And his hair, actually, you wonder if you could style your hair that way, but it was a totally normal thing.
“I’m fine,” you say, louder than you mean to. “I don’t need to talk to anyone.”
“Farshid. It’s not normal to work out so much. Twice a day—”
“Lots of teams do two-a-days,” you say. “Football, swimming, soccer…”
“Do they starve themselves?”
“I’m not starving myself, Maman.” You gesture to your frame. You can’t build muscle if you don’t eat enough. That’s not how it works. “I eat twice as much as Jina. Or you.”
It’s just not a bunch of sugar and carbs. It’s protein and fiber and vegetables and healthy fats, and it’s not her business anyway. What does it matter to her? She doesn’t know what it’s like. She doesn’t get it.
She never gets it.
“I’m just watching my macros,” you say, and you’re not sure where the venom in your voice comes from, but no, it’s from how annoyed you are, because why is your mother constantly on your case? She’s got two other kids to bother. “Would you stop nagging me?”
“I’m not nagging,” she says, and her calmness annoys you, too. “You’re fourteen, Farshid-jan; it’s okay if you don’t look like a bodybuilder. It’s not healthy.”
“No, eating every khoresh and every dessert and every single thing that crosses my path isn’t healthy!” you shout. “Maybe you should worry about yourself instead of me!”
You hate yourself as soon as you say it. Your mother is beautiful.
You don’t know what’s wrong with you, but you can’t stop. It’s like there’s a weight on you, smashing you into the carpet, pressing so hard you think your floor, your house, your whole neighborhood might collapse and fall into the center of the earth, and it’s all you can do to fight against that inexorable pull.
“I know what I’m doing! I’m not a child anymore! I don’t need you fattening me up like a pig! Can’t you just leave me alone?”
Your mom looks like she wants to say something, and you wish she would. You wish she would yell back at you. You wish youcould both shout and shout until you blow the roof off the house and the tempest inside you explodes into the stratosphere. But instead, her eyes sparkle. She blinks, too quickly, her mascaraed lashes fluttering like butterfly wings, and great,great, now you’ve made your mother cry, on her birthday no less.
You want to tell her you’re sorry. You want to tell her you don’t know why you’re this way.
But you do know, don’t you? You just don’t want to admit it.
She gets up and closes your door behind you, and you feel like garbage, like dirt, like mud.
You wish you could go for a run, hit a heavy bag, do anything to exercise, exorcise, all this anger choking you, suffocating you, drowning you.
All this fear dragging you down.
You’re afraid.
