Page 52 of The Love Haters

I rubbed my eyes. “What’s the assignment again?”

“You’re making a list of things you genuinely love about your body. Things you think are beautiful. Not things that you thinkother peoplewould see as beautiful.You.”

“Right,” I said, still scanning.

“Don’t overthink it,” Beanie commanded.

“Fine,” I said. “I could’ve saved this for the grand finale, but apparently you have me cornered, so I’m picking ‘ankles.’”

“Ankles!” Beanie protested. Then she made a buzzer sound, likeWrong!“You cannot pickankles.”

“Ankles,” I said, doubling down.

“Do you even have ankles?” Beanie demanded.

“What the hell kind of question is that?”

“I don’t remember anything about your ankles. They’re completely unremarkable. I’m calling bullshit.”

“My ankles,” I declared, awake enough now to feel protective, “are exceptional.”

“Prove it.”

“I will,” I said. And before anyone could stop me, I’d leaned back onto the bed like a pinup girl and taken glamour shot after glamour shot of my feet in the air from every angle I could muster. And then I texted them all to Beanie in a burst.

“Did you just send me”—she paused to count—“seventeen photos? Of your ankles?”

“Read ’em and weep.”

But Beanie did not weep. Instead, she Jedi-mind-tricked me into standing up for them even harder. “I don’t know,” she said. “They look like ordinary ankles to me.”

“Ordinary?” I asked. “Areordinary anklesthat mesmerizing? That sleek? Thatsophisticated?”

Before she could answer, I cut her off.

“These ankles,” I went on, “could live in Paris! And wear berets! And drink champagne for breakfast every morning!”

“Okay—what are you even saying right now?”

“Lookat that taper near the arch! And the curve above the Achilles tendon! Not to mention the…” I hadn’t brushed up on my ankle anatomy, so I had to google for a second. “Hang on. Not to mention the…”

“Please tell me you’re not googling parts of the ankle,” Beanie said.

“Thelateral malleolus,” I supplied then, triumphantly, “and how symmetrical it is with themedial malleolus. You don’t seethatevery day!”

“I guess you don’t.”

“I’m telling you, these ankles are lethal. They could work for the CIA. You could gouge somebody’s eye out with these babies. You couldcut glass!”

“Wow,” Beanie said.

But I was fully awake now. She’d started this—and now I was going to finish it. “Canyoucut glass withyourankles?”

“I don’t think so,” Beanie said, like she was happy to be defeated.

“There you have it, then. Case closed. You may add ‘ankles of death’ to my résumé.”

“Ankles,” Beanie said slowly then, like she was writing it down. “Adding that toearlobesmakes a grand total of two things that you love about your body.”

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