Page 78 of The Love Haters

First she would make me name some new body part that I loved—a knuckle, or a nostril, or a cowlick. And then she would tell me to stand up for myself.

And my voice would tremble as I told her, “I don’t know how.”

And then she would insist, very gently, that Iwasn’tstuck inside of my body. It wasn’t some prison my soul was caged in. The two thingswere—and only ever had been—one thing. I was it, and it was me. We were the same.

It was a simple truth: I couldn’t abandon myself.

And as much as that was a curse, it was also a blessing.

I got it. I knew what she meant. I had a choice, and, as complicated as it was, it was also so simple. I could agree with all those ghouls on the internet… or I could make a choice to disagree. As that realization took hold, I saw it in my head like it was happening. As if a jeering crowd surrounded me on this very dock: themefrom that photo in her floral dress, down on her knees. I could walk over to join the crowd and jeer along with them… or I could kneel down next to myself, and put my arm around that girl, and help her to her feet. I could squeeze her in a tight hug, and say into her ear—closer and louder than everyone else: “I see you. They’re wrong. You’re beautiful.”

What would happen if I did that?

They might jeer at both of us, I guess.

Though… ifshe was meandI was her, they were already doing that, anyway.

I remembered an article about bullying that said onlookers often didn’t stand up for bullied kids for fear that they would become targets themselves. But research showed that was almost never how it went. Even one other kid standing up for the victim could change the outcome.

I could choose to be that one other kid. For myself.

I could stay with her, and help her up, and we could turn to watch the sunset, side by side. I could keep one arm around her, and we could watch the sky darken until the moonlight sparkled on the waves, and listen to the water lapping the dock, and be okay together.

What if I showed up like that every time?

That exact crowd had lurked in my imagination for years—some amalgamation of every person who had ever made me feel bad. Every stepmom who had ever told me to “suck in,” every photoshopped lady in every magazine, every mean-ass person on the internet.

If you don’t reject the harsh things people say to you, then I guess, at some point, that means you accept them.

That crowd was my imagination, after all.

The comments had been real—maybe, I guess. If anything on the internet is real.

But everybody who followed me after I threw my phone in the grass?

Those people were all me. My fears. My worries. My unchallenged beliefs.

Maybe standing up to them wouldn’t be that hard after all. I didn’t have to fight them. I didn’t have to outsmart them, or argue, or win. All I had to do was turn toward myself.

Was that a strategy? Would that work?

I had the strangest feeling like it might.

And what, at this point, did I have to lose?

THAT’S WHEN Ifelt, more than saw, someone show up next to me at the railing.

I turned. It was Hutch, and he had Rue’s bike with him. He’d followed me.

He smiled, squinting in the warm orange light.

“You followed me?” I asked.

“Rue told me to,” he said.

We all knew better than to disobey Rue.

“But I would have done it, anyway.”

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