Unstoppable (Fierce) (10 page)

Eddie helped me into the house, gently this time, and guided me toward the bedroom. He pulled down the covers and eased me onto the mattress. Though I didn’t want to sleep with him, I couldn’t even pretend to be stubborn enough to insist on the floor.

Wordlessly, he fluffed every pillow and then eased the covers up over my legs. I watched him as he brought me the remote control for the wall-mounted TV, then head back out for the kitchen. Within minutes he brought me some juice and a bottle of water. “I have to go out and fill your prescriptions,” he said. “Is there anything you want while I’m out?”

I studied him suspiciously. He was almost human.
“Maybe some yogurt and granola,” I finally said. “Some fresh fruit, maybe.”

He nodded, and then made sure my cell phone was on the nightstand next to the bed. “Call me if you need me. Don’t try to get up or anything until you
have someone here to help you.”

“Okay,” I said softly. I was confused by his behavior, but it was a welcome relief from the asshole suit he usually wore.

After I heard the car pull out of the drive, I turned on the TV to pass the time. Daytime TV had become a burying ground for sitcom reruns, and that was as mindless as I wanted to get. When I skipped over the news, however, I saw a photo of myself larger than life on the screen. I flipped back.

“Sources say that Jordi Hemphill, one of the finalists of last year’s hit reality show,
Fierce
, was taken to the hospital yesterday after she collapsed onstage. Many viewers remember how Hemphill collapsed during a live show last summer. A second health scare for the young singer has once again raised questions about the message that the show and its producers are delivering. Critics say it is an irresponsible message to today’s youth – by promoting unhealthy lifestyles like obesity without encouraging their contestants to address these issues. Joining us is Pilar Forrester, one such vocal critic. Ms. Forrester is a celebrity trainer was once hired by Hemphill’s family to address her health crisis. Welcome, Ms. Forrester. Thank you for joining us.”

My gut tightened as the screen switched over to
Pilar’s smiling face. “Hello, Tom. Thanks for having me.”

“What do you think is behind this second health scare?”

“They haven’t released any details, but then again, they wouldn’t, would they? It’s bad press if Jordi’s own behavior caused her once again to collapse while doing the very thing they hired her to do.”

“And what is that?” the interviewer persisted.

“To be rebelliously fat. Jordi’s got a great voice, but so do many other hopefuls out there. She was brought in to brand an image, one that appeals to today’s youth. It says you don’t have to change bad behavior to be accepted. But that’s not how our society works. Our society has standards for a reason. It is to make us, as a species, stronger. If we don’t hold people like Jordi to a higher standard, we lower these standards for ourselves. It’s like giving a trophy to every kid that plays, rather than the higher award won through effort, skill and training. We are redefining excellence, and the consequence of that is that we’re killing people like Jordi, who is clearly in medical crisis as an obese young woman.”

Every word hit me like a bolt of lightning, but I was rooted to the spot. The remote was in my hand but I couldn’t manage to
press the up or down button, or most importantly – the mute button.

“Jordi is in your face and mine, every time we pass by a billboard or turn on a TV. It reinforces this idea of mediocrity that lets so many people off the hook. There’s no impetus to change, so they never do. They continue to eat the same bad food; they continue to sit on their big butts in front of the TV. There’s no place else to end up by the emergency room, where you and I foot the bill for their medical expenses. The health care costs for the overweight and the obese is upwards of 300 million dollars here and in Canada. It’s an epidemic for a reas
on. The last thing it needs is some beloved poster girl.”

A tear I didn’t even realize
had escaped splattered on my chest, shocking me out of the catatonic state that seeing Pilar and hearing Pilar had bound me in. I hit the channel button, which landed on a weight loss commercial. A girl who looked perfectly thin to me announced she was going to try a new weight loss supplement to battle those extra inches between her and perfection. The next clip showed her dancing in a sexy slip of a dress, so happy that she’d lost those terrifying twenty pounds.

Even as I swallowed I could feel my double chin against my chest. I flipped the channel again, this time landing on a fast food commercial. All those thin fuckers looked so happy digging into massive hamburgers I never even allowed myself
to eat anymore.

I had changed my diet, I had done everything right… yet my obesity was still the focus because my weight still gave the world scads to talk about. No one gave a shit that I had lost thirty pounds and two dress sizes, just that I still needed to be
photoshopped and I was about to drop over dead because of my scary, scary weight.

Another channel, another commercial.
This one offered a stomach surgery for those of us who had no willpower to fight off the beast of hunger. Another commercial showed a handy chocolate bar to ease hunger pangs and help keep everyone on track, because one simply couldn’t function when hungry.

Shakes, gummies, chocolate covered “protein” bars… ever
y single station I landed on had something to sell. Each commercial used women who didn’t look like they needed to lose any weight at all hocking these products for the masses. I would have traded bodies with any one of them in a minute, much like the rest of their demographic.

My stomach growled at me. I had oatmeal at the hospital, along with
dry toast and juice, but it had been bland and heavy so I barely ate half. Now I was paying for it. I glanced out the window to see if Eddie had returned, but of course he hadn’t.

With a sigh I flipped off the TV and threw the covers off my legs. Gingerly I swung around toward my left to get out of bed. That was the side that had seized up before, and it let me know it hadn’t quite forgotten. Pain shot through my hip and down my left leg, causing my toes to tingle. I took a deep breath, braced both hands on either side of me on the edge of the bed, and hoisted myself gently into a somewhat standing position.

I couldn’t straighten totally, but I felt confident I could walk, unattended, to the kitchen. I pocketed my cell phone just in case, then hobbled around the bed and out the door into the living room. I was moving slow, keeping my balance on every piece of furniture from the bedroom to the kitchen. It actually worked in my favor that our accommodations were so cramped and tiny.

Once I made it to the refrigerator, I realized i
t was all the same junk from the day before, and nothing looked worth the effort to cook. I wanted something easy, something I could just open and eat. But I already knew that was the unhealthiest food I could choose.

I reached for my cell phone and called my best friend, and total health nut, Corey.

“Girl, I’ve been going crazy!” he exclaimed when he answered on the first ring. “I just heard on the news that you collapsed yesterday. Why didn’t you call?”

“We didn’t know what was wrong,” I said. “Plus Maggie and Graham were there.”

Corey snickered. “What about Captain Douche Bag, the Wonder Husband?”

“He was there, too,” I admitted sheepishly. Corey knew instantly that was why I hadn’t called. There was no love lost between homophobic Eddie and my gay
besties.

“So where are you now?”

“Home,” I said, though the word rolled around on my tongue like it didn’t belong there. This has never really been my home; it was more a staging area.

“Put your dog on a leash,” he instructed. “I’m coming over.”

I worried the entire half-hour wait for Corey to make it to my front door that Eddie would beat him there, but Eddie texted that he had to run to the studio. Shelby had forgotten something in the car and he needed to make a pit stop before he came home.

I didn’t even have to ask Corey to bring me something healthy to eat, my forward-thinking friend had a basket of goodies for me filled to the brim with fresh fruit, bags of nuts and baked snacks with whole grain goodness. He also brought me a vegetarian
dish that he promptly heated in the microwave for me while I rested on the sofa.

The spicy smell of roasted veggies filled the air, and my mouth was watering as he brought it over. The bowl was overflowing with cauliflower,
brussel sprouts, carrots and squash. It smelled sweet and spicy all at the same time.

“Maple and ginger,” he said as he set a napkin across my lap. “Ginger is a natural anti-inflammatory. I eat it almost exclusively when I have muscle spasms.”

My dancer friend would certainly know how to remedy aches and pains. I was hooked from the first bite. “I think you could give Luis a run for his money in the cooking department.”

Corey just shrugged away the compliment. “He was the cook of the relationship,” he said, almost sadly.

“Was?”

Corey met my shocked look with a bemused smile. “It didn’t work out,” he said. “But you should be used to hearing that from me by now.”

“Oh, Corey,” I said as I reached for his hand. I knew that he had fallen head over heels for the swarthy teddy bear that had become so much a part of both of our lives. “What happened?”

“He got offered a job in San Francisco. He had to move, I had to stay, and neither one of us were comfortable with a long-distance relationship. We already knew they don’t work out. So we parted on good terms, but I’m single again… and it sucks.”

“You’re still young,” I offered. “There’s still time to meet Mr. Right. If anything consider me a poster girl for what happens when you rush into something permanent.” Pilar’s criticisms from earlier repeated in my ear, and before I could stop myself I muttered, “I’m a poster girl for a lot of bad decisions these days.”

He set my bowl aside and took both my hands in his. Obviously he knew what I was referencing to, and he promptly had two cents to add. “Don’t let that barracuda steal any more from you,” he instructed firmly.
“She doesn’t give a shit about overweight people. She’s in it to prove she’s better than everyone else, and making everyone else pay for the privilege of knowing it. It’s all an ego thing. Consider it a compliment she’s still trying to ride your coattails. You’re the comet, sweetie. She’s just hanging on for dear life like the blood-sucking tick she is.”

I had to laugh. Corey and I had shared a lot over the past few months. Once I was able to open up about what had happened between my mother, Shane
, Eddie and Pilar, he was the strongest voice telling me these were abusive assholes who didn’t deserve one more iota of my time and attention. He would even scold me when I would accept Mother’s rare phone calls.

“My family kicked me out when I was 18,” he had said. “They told me that they couldn’t accept me being gay, and I told them I couldn’t accept them being bigots. Sometimes blood isn’t enough. Cut the cord.”

We were still laughing when Eddie arrived home twenty minutes later. He glared at my guest with obvious contempt, he didn’t even say hello as he dropped a grocery bag on the kitchen counter next to the canvas bag of food that Corey brought.

When he brought me the white bag of pills, his voice was low and angry. “They told you to rest, Jordi.”

“I am,” I said as I took the bag. “Corey just brought me some food and we were visiting, that’s all.”

He glared at Corey. “I’ve got it from here, Chief,” he said in dismissal. “She needs to rest if she wants to join the tour next week.”

Corey didn’t back down from the angry glare, but he didn’t challenge it either. “I was just going,” he offered merrily. He turned to me. “I’ll see you later. Love you, Jay.” He reached down for a hug and a kiss before he brushed past Eddie and headed out the door.

Eddie didn’t say anything as he stomped over to the kitchen and started packing away the food. I could hear the packages rattling – easy, pre-packaged foods that would be easy to open and eat… my favorites.

I turned back to my vegetarian dish, but it had grown tasteless under the oppressive air of Eddie’s return. I put it on the coffee table and tore open the bag of pills. I gulped all three in one swallow and then eased back up off the sofa.

“What are you doing?” Eddie snapped as he rounded the bar and rushed toward me. “I told you to ask for help.”

“Why do you care, Eddie?” I demanded.

“Why don’t you?” he snapped back. “You’re nineteen years old and you’ve been in the hospital twice in a little over six months. I got pummeled and beat down on every football field in southwest Iowa but never once did I end up in the hospital. You have to take care of your body if you want it to take care of you.”

“I know that,” I hissed. “I’ve been making tons of healthy changes. And you know damn well I’ve lost weight. It’s just not going to come off overnight, I’m sorry.”

“You should be sorry,” he muttered as he helped me toward the bedroom. “Be sorry that you ever did this to yourself in the first place.” He eased me onto the bed, yanking the covers back over my legs. “You want to know why I can’t love you,
Jordi? Because you don’t love yourself. And one of these days, Bionic Boy is going to come to the same conclusion. You see how easy it was for Shelby to fill your shoes on stage. What happens when she fills his arms next?”