Page 4 of Bewitch

I motion for him to get the orders from the others first, but they beg for more time. I wait until I spy the waiter heading back our way to slip to the bathroom. By the time I make it back, he’s gone, and none of the other girls seem to realize that I didn’t order any food until theirs is brought out.

“You need to order something,” Brooke insists.

I just shake my head. “I came to keep you all company,” I claim.

Am I still hungry? Yes, of course I am. The smell of all of the delicious food here is enough to make me want to eat everything in sight.

But I know that if I give in and cave that I’ll do just that—eat everything.

Much better to not let even one morsel pass through my lips than to overeat. That’s been my issue for the longest time. I need to learn to eat until I’m satisfied, but when the food tastes so delicious, I always want to have one more bite, one more, just one more…

“Did you already eat?” Eliza asks.

I quickly nod and force my lips to curl into a smile.

The waiter is a good one, offering to refill drinks and bringing out more chips without having to be asked. The chips here are a bit bland, but the homemade salsa is some of the best I’ve ever tasted.

“So, Kaylie,” I say, trying to think up something to talk about that will help to prevent me from thinking about food. “What’s new with you?”

She laughs a bit. “My parents have been begging me to come home and visit them. It’s so funny because my mom said that she fully expected me to want to stay on campus every weekend once I started school, and yes! That’s the case!”

“Do you miss them at all?” I ask.

“Of course, but missing them has almost become a part of my life.” Kaylie wrinkles her nose, which makes her small brown eyes look even smaller. “They used to go away on trips all the time, just the two of them, so I would be left behind with a nanny. Missing them is nothing new.”

“Maybe you should go and see them,” Eliza suggests.

Kaylie laughs. “Why? Is there a reason why you want me out of the room for a weekend?”

Eliza furrows her brow. “I just thin family is important. That’s all. If your mom wants to see you, maybe she has something she wants to tell you face-to-face.”

“Nah. My mom told me about her mom, my grandma dying over the phone. She doesn’t feel the need to share news, good or bad, face-to-face. I can call her, though. I probably should. What about you, Dawn? Are you close with your family? Have your parents been begging for you to come visit them?”

“Her mom’s on the college board,” Brooke says. “I bet that means she’s around campus at times, right?”

“Sure, sometimes,” I say, my heart pounding.

My mom has texted me a few times to let me know when she’ll be around. I mostly make up excuses that I’m studying or at the library. The very first time she texted me, I agreed to meet up with her for lunch, and she proceeded to order a salad for me with dressing on the side and remind me about how the Freshmen Fifteen is a real thing that she sees happen every year to students. You know, how freshmen tend to gain weight their first year away from home?

My mom doesn’t have an issue with food, not that I know of. Her weight has been steady throughout my entire life. She’s just over one hundred pounds, but since she’s five foot even, it’s a healthy weight for her.

Me? I’m pushing one hundred seventy pounds and am five foot four. Not the healthiest weight for me at all. My BMI says I’m just overweight, but I’m sure that I only need a few more pounds to be pushed into the obese category.

I don’t want that at all. I’m not even sure I need to get all the way down to the lower end of normal range for weight on the BMI scale. I just want to be healthier because I know I’m not now.

Do others obsess about food as much as I do? Probably not.

Eliza nudges me, and I realize I zoned out on the conversation entirely.

“What do you think about telling your mom about the creepy janitor at Kresley Hall?” Eliza asks.

I furrow my brow. “What creepy janitor?”

“It’s the first I’m hearing about this too,” Brooke says, narrowing her eyes.

“He better be harmless,” Kaylie says. “Otherwise…”

“You’ll what? Use your martial art skills on him?”

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