"I hope you don't take this the wrong way, Lara," she began slowly,"but...well, I've been wanting to talk to you. You really have a pretty face, you know? And I know it must be hard for you. I mean, some people in this school can be really cruel."
I stood there, rooted to the spot, mute.
"In junior high," she continued, "I weighed, like, fifteen pounds more than I do now, and I found this great diet to take the weight off, and it worked."
My face burned with rage and humiliation. "You want to give me your diet?"
"I don't want to offend you," she said quickly. "I just know what it's like to want to lose weight, and-"
"You don't know anything," I said in carefully measured tones. "You look at me and think you know, but you don't."
"Listen, just forget I said anything-"
"No," I replied,"you listen. A year ago, at my old school, I was homecoming queen. Queen! I was thinner than you are. Then I got this disease called Axell-Crowne Syndrome, and it made me gain all this weight. You think I'm just this fat girl that you pity-"
"I didn't mean it like that-"
"Yes, yes you did," I said earnestly. "I know you did, because I was once exactly like you."
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