Emmett grabbed a broken crumble of parking bumper and hurled it, spooking the animal. It bolted, sending Tubbs and Bella attempting to chase after it.
Emmett ripped them back, shouting, “Let’s go!”
He finally managed to wrangle them back across the street, insidethe building, and up to the apartment. The moment they were off leash they ran to their water dish, drinking like they’d just returned from a days-long voyage. Emmett felt faint.
He crossed the room and opened the slider, only partly to let in some air.
The breeze was sultry, a caress of warm salt.
Nevertheless a chill ran up his spine, as cold as the ice-blue eyes of the coyote watching him from across the street.
Appendix U—Blog Post
The One with the Deep Dark Secret
By: Emmett Truesdale
Published: Jan. 12, 2019
I feel like a liar. Over the last year of writing this blog, I’ve let you in on my lifelong weight struggles, my relationship with food, even my hCG blunder in college, but there’s one subject I’ve been circling for months. Years, really.
I don’t like to talk or even think about it, but what happened over the course of those few days—what my stepdad did—isn’t just an event from my past. It’s a part of who I am.
I’m not saying every fat person has a story like this, or needs one to warrant compassion and understanding. I know some people reading this will be disappointed, even angry, with me for talking about it now. They’ll say I’m perpetuating a narrative of “fat trauma.” Those advocates, the ones who campaign for fat acceptance, will want me to say it’s not who I am but something that happened to me. They’ll want me to make that part of me smaller.
Everyone always wants me to be smaller.
I guess that’s a pretty good place to start.
In October 2006, I was eleven years old, a sixth-grader at Meadowbrook Middle School. I didn’t have many friends. I played baritone in the school band and had an unhealthy obsession with Pokémon. I was fat. Kids bullied me and adults said they were sorry about it.
Mom and I still lived with my stepdad, Hank. My older sister Abby was in her second year at UC Santa Barbara and rarely visited. I understood. Life at home was turbulent. Mom and Hankwere always fighting. Mostly I approved, hoping that meant they would soon get divorced.
Hank was spending a lot of time around the house. He was looking for work after losing his job. Mom told me there’d been a big scandal at his work, something about unauthorized testing, and he had taken the fall. This meant he had all the time in the world to fixate on my eating. Ever since the cupcake incident, he’d been picking on me even more than usual, threatening to put locks on the pantry door, on my jaw.
Mom announced one night that she was going away to visit Abby for Parents & Family Weekend, leaving Hank and me at home.
“Good,” Hank said. “Some quality time for me and the boy.”
Mom avoided my eyes as they screamed their silent entreaty, but I was pretty sure she heard me loud and clear.
She departed after work a couple of weeks later. Four nights away, back Sunday. I watched her Volvo back out of the driveway, my stomach already itching for reassurance.
She’d left money for pizza, but Hank had other plans. “Forget the pizza, sport. While your mom’s outta town, you and me are gonna go on a little diet. How does that sound?”
I swallowed my resentment, refusing to give him the satisfaction. “Fine.”
“It’s time you developed some healthier habits. Finished your homework yet?”
“Yes.”
“Then go take a jog around the block. Ten laps. I’ll have dinner ready when you’re done.”
I wished Mom were still there. She would’ve set Hank straight.Are you crazy, it’s almost dark, she would’ve said, although the neighborhood was perfectly safe.He got plenty of exercise in PE, even if I hadn’t. She would have saidsomething, and that would have been enough.
Without her, I had no choice. I grabbed my cross-trainers and my iPod Shuffle and jogged. It was so embarrassing. Half a lap in I was sweating, wheezing, my face hot with the blood rushing to it. The neighbors’ heads turned to stare as they drove past in theircars. I finished four laps, took a ten-minute break, and did one more at full effort before returning to the house.
Hank was cooking at the stove. A pan sizzled, the air greasy with the aroma of Spam.
