Brooke is two years younger than I am and she is as girlie as Lindsey. Brooke is something of a mystery to both Lindsey and me. She's a big girl, like I am, but unlike me she actually seems to have mastered this whole-body acceptance thing and loves herself for who she is.
She likes fashion, makeup, and dressing up. She has an Instagram with about 50,000 followers and she posts new pictures every day with an outfit of the day. She's not a huge influencer, but whatever she promotes, people buy and a lot of brands know that.
“Listen, can you please stop moping about your engagement? Come out here and look at this bikini picture that I’m about to post.”
I open the door and reluctantly let her in.
The picture is of her sitting on one of the loungers in front of the pool, earlier in the day. She's lying on her side and has an inquisitive and flirty expression on her face.
Brooke is plus-sized. I'm not exactly sure what size she wears now, but she's a good twenty pounds heavier than I am.
“Are you showing me this to make me feel bad?” I ask, looking at how she spreads herself out in the picture.
“Feel bad? Why?”
“You look fucking hot.” She’s so full of confidence, it just makes me want to cry. Not only did I just get cheated on, but I will also probably never look as beautiful as she does in that picture.
“You’re just saying that,” she says, rolling her eyes and shrugging her shoulders.
Dressed in a yellow floral print dress that accentuates all of her ample assets, she looks like a goddess. Lindsey is pretty, tall, thin, and everything that the media will tell you an attractive girl is supposed to look like, but it's Brooke who is drop dead gorgeous.
“I told you,” Brooke says. “You can't listen to Mom. Lindsey means well, but she's clueless. They both have no idea what kind of world we are living in.”
“Excuse me?” Mom walks up to us and clears her throat. “Are you actually advising my child not to listen to me?”
She likes to say that kind of thing to get under our skin and it works every time.
Mom glances at Brooke’s phone. Brooke clicks through some of the photos, stopping on the last one where she is lying on her back with her legs spread out. She shows it to Mom, specifically to gauge her level of shock. If she isn't appalled enough, then there's no way that she will be posting it.
Mom doesn't take the bait and instead says, “Honey, you know that I think that you are beautiful, right? No matter what you're wearing or how you are putting yourself out there.”
Then to put the nail in the coffin, she goes over and presses her lips to Brooke’s forehead for a kiss.
Brooke looks angry, but I wait.
If Mom adds a “but” or any other kind of qualifier to that statement then Mom remains the judgmental, old-fashioned, and out of touch person that we both know that she is. But if she leaves it at that…then Mom wins.
“Okay, I will leave you two alone. I know that you have a lot to talk about,” Mom says and my mouth drops open.
Brooke is fuming, but her anger is just below the surface. She runs a website promoting body acceptance for women of all sizes. But what strangers don’t know is that she also does it to get a rise out of Mom.
“Wow, is this how it's going to be? Does Mom finally get it after all this time?” she asks when Mom gets out of earshot.
“You know, honey,” Mom says, tucking her head back into the room. “In my day, women tried to find the most flattering clothes they could because we all knew we had our imperfections, no matter our size.”
There.
It happened.
It finally fucking happened.
Mom hasn't changed at all. She just learned how to bite her tongue and stay in her lane.
I work my eyes over to Brooke, who unlike me, has never been particularly shy in keeping her mouth shut.
I admire her greatly for that, something that I rarely say out loud.
In fact, it’s something that I have never told her.
“There are no such things as flattering or unflattering clothes,” Brooke says, crossing her arms. “There are clothes that I want to wear and there are clothes that I don't want to wear. I'm choosing to embrace all parts of me and love me for who I am. I’m not going to spend my days hating myself and killing myself with diet pills.”
My mom is about to say something else when Brooke cuts her off again.
“In my day, Mom, women realize that all bodies are beautiful and that we can wear whatever the hell we want.”
With that, Brooke drops the metaphorical mic and walks out of the bathroom, shutting the door in Mom’s face.
I realize in this moment that I have never admired my sister more. She has always been the one to speak her mind and to challenge authority, but this is exactly the kind of courage that I needed to see today.
Mom wants me to be quiet.
She wants me to forgive Alex because men make mistakes or whatever the hell she said.
I don't have to accept someone treating me like shit as the status quo. I deserve better and I can demand better.
“Wow,” I say, taking Brooke by the arm and leading her out to the balcony on the opposite side from the party.
“I loved the expression on her face when she saw the last picture.” Brooke laughs.
“You know that despite all of that she loves you, right?” I ask.
Brooke shakes her head.
“No?” I ask.
“She sees us, her children, as a reflection of her. I don't think she really sees us as independent people. Lindsey looks and lives her life according to the rules. She's tall and beautiful and she takes care of herself. She has a wealthy husband and a big house. I'm not Lindsey.”
“I don't think that she wants you to be Lindsey. She loves you for you.”
“No,” Brooke says. “She doesn't even know who I am. I doubt that she has ever even been on my website. She has no idea what I stand for. She has no idea what all of those videos I make mean. I know that she won't say it out loud, but she thinks that fat people are bad people. She thinks that there's something wrong with them and their will or their way of life that makes them that way.”
I shrug.
I don't really know how to respond. That’s pretty much what my mom thinks.
“Why are you taking her side anyway? She's the one that made you go through with this party. She's the one that still thinks that you should marry that asshole.”
“She told me that men make mistakes and that we have to be accommodating,” I say. “She told me that Dad cheated on her before they got married.”
Brooke stares at me. I don’t know if she knows this and I debated with myself as to whether or not I should tell her.
But then she rolls her eyes and leans over the balcony with exasperation.
“Dad has been cheating on her their whole life. If she thinks that it only happened before they were married, then she is delusional.”
My mouth drops open.
“What are you talking about?” I ask.
13
Emma
I stare at my sister. She is someone that I have admired my whole life even though she’s younger than I am. She’s always had the kind of confidence that I craved, but I know that confidence never came that easily to her.