Ximena's POV
It sounds so simple when Glenda tells me to just ignore him. As if brushing off Ezekiel's words is as easy as swatting away a fly.
But Glenda doesn't live in this skin. She doesn't know what it feels like to wake up every morning and immediately hate what she sees in the mirror.
She doesn't understand how the word thick can lodge itself in your chest like a splinter, working deeper every time someone says it.
That word follows me everywhere. It whispers when I'm trying on clothes that never fit right. It screams when I walk past the skinny girls at school with their perfect legs and flat stomachs that look like they were carved from marble.
When Ezekiel threw that word at me yesterday, even with his trademark smirk plastered across his face, something inside me crumbled. Because deep down, in the darkest corner of my mind, I knew he wasn't lying.
I am thick. I am the punchline.
And I despise myself for agreeing with him.
