How to Get Lost Jenna Geisinger
The first step is to fall in love with the only boy that ever remembered your name. His charmed smile and kind eyes wage a coup against reason and you don’t even notice. Ryan snakes an arm around your waist and your heart flips. “I like that you have some meat on your bones,” he whispers to you, pinching your side. “The girls I date are usually bony.” You automatically hold your breath, sucking in the fat that cleaves to your hips and middle. Martina, the last girl he dated, boasted a 00 jean size, and his summer fling, Steph, had collar bones that could be registered as lethal weapons in all fifty states. The Rice Krispie Treats your mom snuck into the side pocket of your backpack churn in your stomach. You wish she put weights in there instead. Then, at least, studying would count as exercise. But you hate sweating. And celery. Your t-shirt feels like a second skin, clinging to the valleys of your stomach. His grip is too tight and you feel the fat pinch between his long fingers. You try to leave, “Math homework,” you say. He tells you to do it later and leaves a trail of kisses down your neck. One assignment won’t affect your grade that much.
with too much powdered-sugar, messy and over-the-top, like him. Can kisses do that? Lock you into his gravitational pull until you’re too far gone to turn back? More dust collects on your books and in Ryan’s arms you can’t recall what a prime number was even if you wanted to. The midterm is tomorrow. The library closes. You are still in his arms. You won’t notice yourself changing, not at first. But it’s inevitable, like your dad’s tenth relapse. Don’t fight it. Ryan makes an off-handed comment that you never do anything he wants to do. At the first hint of disappointment, your heart rate skyrockets and cold sweat beads down your back. So you agree to go to his boring car meets even though you tell him you hate going, they always reek of weed and none of his friends so much as acknowledge that you’re there. But you need him. You need him and he doesn’t need you. So you tag along, following him around like a baby duck and coo at the lowered, rusty GTIs and Jettas haphazardly parked in the vacant lot. Bro enters your vocabulary more than you’d ever hope to hear, let alone say. You even start dressing to fit in, which mainly consists of hiding greasy waves under a snapback and wearing Calvin Klein underwear with low rise jeans so the band winks overtop. You ignore that it has the push up bra effect for your side fat. You haven’t eaten cookies, but they hang around your hips like an over-protective brother. You hope he notices how hard you’re trying. You hope it’s enough.
You haven’t done homework in a month. That’s fine because math can’t kiss you back. The tests on the fridge slump, curling from time and lack of achievements. Your mom asks if you’ve gotten any of your tests back, cracking a mom-joke about the fridge looking bare. Except that every grainy inch of it is crammed with magnets from each state your dad went to rehab. “The Rehab Tour", your mom had joked. Good one. You mumble that your teachers are swamped with work in the middle of the semester. She puts another batch of cookies in the oven. You tell her that you’re going to the library to study. Your mom puts chocolate chip cookies from the cooling rack in a tin for a studying snack, but you throw them in the garbage cans out front as soon as you’re out of sight. Her cookies are pillows of chocolate and your breath catches as they arc into the trash. Pull your shirt down over your hips and take a detour to his house. He kisses you the way they do in movies: his face crushed against yours. His lips are slow and smooth against you, while yours are clunky and inexperienced. But in that moment, cradled in his arms in his unfinished basement, it feels like love. The warmth of his chest envelops you like an old blanket protective and safe. Did your dad ever kiss your mom like that, before he started drinking?
Next, wait for your best friend to leave. You think this is impossible. A ten year friendship can withstand anything. You’ve endured Lizzie McGuire getting cancelled and Sarah Pratt taking Derek to the formal instead of Lisa. You’ve huddled together in matching ugly Christmas sweaters and smeared mascara because your dad was rushed to the hospital. That trip—there would be many others, but this was the first—your mom baked every cookie in her Pillsbury recipe book arsenal, the flour seamlessly fused with her pale hands. That time was the scariest. By the fifth time you and Lisa had the drill down. You ride your bikes to get pints of ice cream, paid for in quarters from your piggy bank. It was always Chocolate Therapy, two spoons, and two heads pressed together. When Lisa got her wisdom teeth out, her face was bloated and drooling. Chocolate Therapy. Your mom’s face was flour white with red blotchy eyes. She made another mom-joke that Chocolate Therapy was cheaper
She brings him Tupperware containers exploding with Mexican Wedding cookies when she visits him. They are gunked
3
