the girls

She fidgets in her seat, playing with the collar of the Kelly green coat she wore for St. Patrick’s Day, even though her parents are Juan and Eva Garcia-Moreno. She is an 8th grader, slim, slight, lithe in her thoughts and movements, though her body is changing too fast for her liking, and every day, she feels, more closely resembling her mother’s thickness and girth. Some of her classmates have noticed the changes in her physique and she shrinks from what she interprets as critical glances. She already has thought about, considered, actually, purging. Some of her friends do it. They have a secret club: The Girls. When she finishes her test, this morning, she will meet up with them, the girls, and hang out. She is curious and she is moving closer. This is all still secreted from her family, so there’s no one to talk sense to her, or even try. Not, perhaps, that she would even listen.