Little Bird.

You look just perfect. I adore scaring you. I adore you, and you know it. I know that you adore me too. I worry you might tire of me. We can talk about real things, and lovely things, then we laugh. Every time you say that you are fat I want to hold you close and say it is wrong, you are wrong about that. Because when you say fat, you mean ugly and undesirable and slippery slope back to what you were, and what you are is not any of those. You have put on weight, a little, but no matter.

I worry about your eating sometimes. Is that patronizing? It's how my parents felt about me, I'm sure. I worry about it being a comfort for you... I want to say come here, tell me what is wrong. I never do. I'd never point it out, it isn't for me to say, you are probably hyper aware of it anyway. You don't have to eat yourself away. And she thinks I'm being eating disordered again. She thinks that I'm too thin, whereas I'm the fattest I've ever been, and probably this is the healthiest attitude I've had to food for a fair while. I am not too thin; but she catches me at awkward times. Tonight, for example, I'd had toast and cereal before they took me out- and I felt like I had to eat to show them I wasn't starving myself. Or worse, lying- one of our acquaintances, pudding, who produces plays, is fairly fat. Her legs are like sausage meat, vacuum packed into flares that show the chafe. She takes pictures from high angles to showcase herself, when she is never pretty because of her dumpy face. There is no elegance or strength in her; even at her largest, larger than Pudding, Little Bird was always strong and powerful when she moved. And I, though once porcine, have always been flexible and graceful. I never slumped. Anyway, the point of Pudding is that she never eats a proper meal when she is out with us; she makes a show of eating the littlest amount of all of us there. It's ridiculous; whatever is the truth, it makes me feel better about myself. If she overate, it would be honest. Undereating says either: I am helpless over this way I look, which makes me feel like the thin one that eats whatever she wants, though that's not the case, but it's significantly more than her non-eating. Or it says: I am doing this as a show for you, and once I get home I will cram what I've missed into my face. I am embarrassed by myself. This is probably the more accurate reading. I do eat less when I'm out, it's true, but I'm sure she shows a greater disparity. She buys the most expensive high range make up products; Clinique foundations, Marks and Spencer's hair removers, tweak tweak tweak... and yet, I'd rather be myself with my ivory maybelline concealer, E45 lip balm and L'oreal mascara. I'd rather be me without makeup at all. I know I look better.

I don't look better than Little Bird. That's alright though. I don't look better than a lot of my friends; but they don't showcase their wealth like she does. Little Bird probably has more makeup than Pudding, even, but that doesn't irk me. I think Pudding's ethos is that enough of the correct brand will buy her happy, something we all left behind around eleven years of age.

Despite not feeling as pretty, clever, talented or attractive, or anything else as my friends, I would not change with them. I don't think so. They will probably be better and more successful etcetera; but there is a great joy in autonomy.

I was talking to him about how boys cry when I split up with them. I don't know why. When she split up with me, I was simply very quiet, then when I found out she'd never felt like I had for her, I was angry and then embarrassed. Why would she lie? Why put me through it if she was bored the entire time? Why sour a perfectly good friendship; she simply could have said no. Anyway, I never cried. I swore and screamed, in fields outside, and kicked things instead. I never asked her why or told her how I felt; because it would have been pointless. Why is because she never loved me like that; maybe pitied me. Answer answered. And to tell her would have made her feel guilty; I felt angry with her, but I felt more embarrassed that I'd been an albatross round her neck. I felt embarrassed that I'd wasted her time and that she hated me (because love turns quick to hate when I'm on that end). I felt like I didn't want to plague her further. He said, this thing of plaguing, was very selfless, in a strange way. I think he was surprised with me. I like surprising him.