You were both worried (which, underneath, I know I wanted. All that attention foisted on my brother, never late to pick him up from his practices and always late for me) but you emanated this strange sort of pride as well. Compared to my thin blonde cousin, I'd always been the lumpy ugly silent awkward one, set in a corner, not really good enough; but now I was elfin, mysterious and a cut above, or at least it felt like that, when Mum nagged me to eat and Dad said, "oh leave her, she's fine", and when she introduced me with a pleased, "Oh god, she's so thin lately, hanging off her", to her friends in supermarkets.
I did want to be the cool kid; because you wanted me to be, you didn't want me to be excluded and you feared I was. You wanted me happy. But what would have made me happy was to see you both happy with me exactly as I was, chubby or no, 10st 4 or even more, and then I'd not have needed to do it.
I'm considering doing it again.
Why shouldn't they want a perfect daughter? They don't ask for one, but they deserve one, because they have been perfect parents and I am simply not coming up to scratch.
I feel guilty guilty guilty.
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