When I was in high school, I had two really close friends. We’ll call one Sally and the other Willa. Sally and I lived about 3 blocks from each other, so we would walk home from school together, do homework, then talk on the phone for hours. It was all very typical girly friend stuff. Sally and I had similar home lives, we were less popular because we were both overweight, we had a lot in common.
Then Sally went on a diet after one of the boys in our class told her she’d be “hot” if she lost 50 pounds. I attempted to diet with her, but I was struggling with an undiagnosed eating disorder. I would swing wildly between bingeing and starving myself. I was like a yo-yo. Sally was quite successful in her weight loss efforts. She was a homely girl, I always thought, but her body was new and improved and the boys loved her.
She managed to snag one of the most lusted after boys in our church youth group. Soon they were going steady and I was minus one friend. Not because the boyfriend was occupying all her time, but because she decided to ditch me because of my weight. The skinny girls welcomed her into their inner sanctum with much fanfare. But to be one of them, she had to ditch her fat friend. As if that weren’t enough, she proceeded to make the remaining high school years a living hell for me. She tormented me at every turn, until finally we couldn’t stand to be in the same room together.
I truly adored her at one point, but whatever affection I felt for Sally quickly disintegrated into a hatred I reserved for baby killers and those who didn’t luuuuuuuuuuuuv Jesus (this was during my holy roller phase). When presented with an opportunity to destroy Sally, I took it. All those Biblical lessons flew right out of my teenage head, and I took aim and fired a metaphorical bullet that would destroy her.
