An hour passes, but I don’t see Tristan anywhere. I start to wonder if he had left and gone home and left me here at this stupid party all by myself. I wouldn’t put that past him. I text him a couple of times, and when he doesn’t respond, I decide to go to the bathroom and then go home. He clearly doesn’t want to see me.

The ball spans three floors of the brownstone and there are a few bathrooms on each floor, but they all have lines. Finally, I spot one where the line isn’t obscenely long and get in it. There are two girls ahead of me, both of whom are glued to their phones. And two other guys ahead of them. I lean against the wall and close my eyes in an effort to relax a bit. I’ve had a little too much to drink and the pounding music makes my head feel like it’s getting hit by a sledgehammer.

“So what do you think of Alice? That girl Tristan brought?” I hear someone say.

“She’s really hot,” someone else says.

I open my eyes and realize that it’s the guys ahead of me in line who are talking. They have no idea that I’m there and I creep a little closer to the girl next to me so that I can hear a little better. It’s always nice to hear things like that.

“I know, right? Like really hot!”

“I can’t believe that they used to date. Why the hell would a girl like that go out with Tristan?”

“Oh, he’s a nice guy? And pretty easy on the eyes too.”

“Oh, shut up, you faggot,” the other guy says and they both crack up laughing. Suddenly, the nice conversation that I’ve been enjoying eavesdropping on turns ugly and bigoted. I can’t believe that he actually used that word. I’m about to say something to him, but then I hear him say something else.

“I’m just glad that he listened to reason and didn’t bring that chick that he’s actually with to this place. The brothers would’ve never gone for that,” one of them says.

My heart sinks. They’re talking about Tea.

“I know! I can’t believe he’s actually with her. She must be amazing in the sack. ‘Cause that fat cow’s not good to look at.”

And that’s when I’ve heard enough.

“For your information, Tea’s a wonderful woman. Generous and kind and beautiful. And if you two can’t see that, then you’re fucking blind.”

I toss my drink in their faces and walk away.

* * *

As I search through a bed full of coats for mine, I feel tears welling up in my eyes. I hold them back until I grab my coat, wrap my scarf around my neck, and run out of the brownstone. Luckily, no one notices and no one stops me. Once I get outside, a strong gust of cool New York wind bursts open my coat and chills me to my bones. Tears are already flowing down my cheeks and I struggle in zipping up the coat without getting the material caught in the zip line. I continue to walk down 116^th Street, but eventually give up on the zipper and just pull my coat closed. I don’t live far.

When I reach Broadway, I wait for the light even though it’s late and the street is deserted. I’m sobbing and tears are running down my cheeks. I can only imagine how my face looks with twelve hundred pounds of makeup on it. The foundation, all of Juliet’s careful contouring, winged liquid eyeliner, and gobs of mascara have probably combined to make some sort of puddle of cement all over my face.

As the light turns green, I suddenly pause to think about why I’m so angry. So mad. I’m furious at Tristan for not telling me the truth. For not telling me why he wanted to take me to this ridiculous masquerade ball. I’m furious at the fact that the only reason he didn’t take Tea is that his frat brothers wouldn’t approve. I’m furious at him for caring what they would think. But the tears that are streaming down my face aren’t just about Tristan. Or Tea. I would never admit it out loud, but I’m mainly crying for me. About how unfair the world is.

I was fat in middle school. I weighed close to 170 pounds in 8^th grade, when I was the fattest. But I was pretty fat even before that. I was fat, about 140 pounds, in 6^th grade and it just got worse the older I got. I don’t know what brought it on. All I remember was that it was this vicious cycle. I felt horrible about myself, about how fat I was, so I ate food to make myself feel better. Every night I promised myself to not eat so much the next day and every day I did. I would slip up at breakfast and then basically give up on the rest of the day out of disappointment and anger with myself.

Growing up fat was one of those things that I never talked about. My parents pretty much pretended that nothing was going on. They said that they wanted me to be healthy and encouraged me to participate in sports. But how could I? I was gigantic and embarrassed to be seen in any sort of workout clothes. This past summer, I flipped through some family albums and found the few pictures that exist of myself from middle school. Oh, how much I hated taking pictures! They felt like concrete proof of the person that I hated to admit that I was. To this day, I remember the hatred that I felt toward myself in every picture. But looking at them this past summer, I was surprised by one thing. I wasn’t as ugly as I had thought I was. I wasn’t even that fat. All of these years, I had convinced myself that I was basically the ugliest and the most disgusting girl that ever existed. But I wasn’t. I was chubby, yes, but I didn’t look horrible. And I was definitely not as big as I had thought I was.

And during all those years, Tristan and I were friends. He was pretty popular and a jock, but he still hung out with me. When we were together, I would somehow forget about how ugly I was because he made me feel beautiful and worthy. He made me laugh and he laughed at my jokes. And then, at the end of 8^th grade, he kissed me.