Fix

help you, Eve. But each time I do… a tiny piece of Minnesota will disappear.
I should take my Roxy. My fucking back hurts. I’m in pain. Do I really believe that I made a pact with the devil? I don’t. I do not believe this.
But I do. I do believe it.
Frustrated, I close my eyes to get away from him. Yet he somehow feels more present this way. I need to get out of this room.
Rolling off the bed, I head for the bathroom, grabbing my Roxy. It’s as if there is some invisible rope that ties us together.
I lock the bathroom door behind me and lean against the tiled wall, soaking up the safe feel of the small room. The light is off, and the gray morning makes my reflection glow white in the full-length mirror. I’ve always been one of those really white, white girls, but this morning, I look like a blank Word document.
I put down the plastic bottle and stand up off the wall in front of the mirror. I’ve stood in front of so many mirrors.
So many mirrors.
Although right now I am reminded of only one. Full-length. On the door outside the event trailer bathroom. Where Lidia stood—her french fry head off, staring at herself with two hands.
That imperfect mirror is all in your head.
Such bullshit.
I slipped out before she caught me. It felt wrong, seeing her wanting something she couldn’t have.
And here I stand. In front of yet another mirror. Like I’ve done so many times.
Did I finally have it?
The something I wanted?
Like all those other times, I do not notice anything about myself but the shape of me, wrapped in familiar plastic.
My hands run down either side of my brace.
Nineteen degrees.
Down from seventy-eight.
The sound of the Velcro strap echoes off the tile of the tiny bathroom. My heart speeds up, telling me that I need to slow down. I quickly pull the brace back into place.
I suck in a breath and rip open the Velcro again.
Nineteen degrees.
I let the brace fall and stare at myself in the mirror in my filthy body sock and sweats.
Not crooked. Not leaning. No humps or bumps or bones poking wrong.
Symmetrical.
Linear.
Even.
Shoulders running across in a line. Breasts where one does not sag lower. Hips that follow shoulders. A waist with twin curves. Vertebrae that tell a single tale, all together. The indent of a belly button surrounded by a perfect circle of proportion.
And all of this ease, it glides… silent, tippy, tippy-toe silent brushing past like a pretty skirt against legs.
This is me.
Me!
Me straight.
Me fixed.
And god, I look good.
I look good, and it’s what I wanted. To look good.
Then why does it feel wrong to look like this?
Wrong to like it?
You could be straight if you wanted.
Grabbing my Roxy, I open up the bottle and… stop. I want to pop one in before I can have any thoughts against it. But I have a thought. Of her in Minnesota. And now I can’t.
I lean over the sink and scoop handfuls of cold water onto my face, into my mouth. I wipe my face on a towel and ease down onto the toilet seat.
The four walls snuggle around me, closing me in, and all I see is the white porcelain. The shine of the drain. The light from the window. The tub. The showerhead. The dull blue shampoo bottle. An old razor. I need my life to be as small as this bathroom.
I imagine warm water on my skin. I’m dying to feel it. I’ll settle for just listening to it run.
Kneeling, I stop up the tub and start the hot water, watching it swirl over the bath mat. It’s so beautiful. My fingertips skim the top of it like skeeter bugs on a pond.
Maybe I can just sit in a couple of inches of it.
I stand up and unlock the bathroom door. My mother is the last person I want to see right now, but I’m not about to have the fire department breaking down my door if I fall and can’t get up.
Warm steam fills the bathroom. I pick up the orange bottle and move it to the back of the toilet so it won’t fall into the water. It feels nice just touching it.
When the water reaches about two inches, I turn off the faucet. Then I stand up and let my sweats slide to my ankles. The body sock is harder. It takes a ton of wiggling and heavy breathing to pull my arms out and scooch it down over my hips.
Of course I consider looking in the mirror at my totally naked self, but the roller coaster ride my stomach takes just thinking about it has me turn back to my first order of business—the tub. Very, very slowly, I step over the side and put my right foot in the water.
Oh, wow.
Water.
I let the amazing warmth of it soak up through my sole, the heat creeping into my ankle, up my calf. Every muscle in my body screams to be in that tub.
I stay like this for a few minutes, skin tingling, while I gather my wits about me for the next step. It’s a big one. I look around for a way to get into the tub where I don’t have to lift my second foot from the ground.
There isn’t one.
I reach out and clutch the porcelain soap dish tiled into the wall, but it’s too slippery.
The only way to do this is by holding on to the shower head.
It’s kind of jiggly, though I think it can bear my weight. Holding my breath, I bring my left leg up and over the tub wall and into the water.
“Yesssss,” I hiss joyfully.
I’m in.
I carefully lower my rodlike body into the tub—aware of every screw and staple—until I’m sitting on my feet, a circle of warm water around my thighs.
Water is amazing. It really is. Even this tiny amount makes my now-even shoulders