knowledge of what it feels like to hate the body you live in and want nothing more than to find your way back to it.
But I need to tell you about before all that.
I need to tell you about the hallway.
Millbrook High School was not a bad school in the objective sense.
The teachers were mostly committed.
The facilities were adequate.
The graduation rate was respectable.
What Millbrook High School was, in the specific subjective sense of being Claire Weston inside it from 2000 to 2004, was a place that had decided what I was and was not particularly interested in revising the decision.
What I was: the overweight redhead with braces and glasses.
What I was not: anyone’s first choice for anything.
The glasses were necessary for seeing.
The braces were necessary for the overbite my dentist had identified at thirteen.
The weight was more complicated.
