Nia - Date (E4)

Content warning: body-image issues, eating disorders

“Fat bitch,” Connie giggles.

Nia moves her fries around her plate. Connie’s eyes follow a random girl sitting two tables down from them.

“Lower your voice,” Nia chastises. She doesn’t do it with her usual menace though.

“I don’t know why these people have to eat here with us. Can’t they pig out at home?” she asks in a nasally voice.

Nia closes her eyes and tries to force her annoyance down. She takes a fry and shoves it in her mouth. It tastes awful. Reheated processed shit.

“Look at her! Disgusting!” she gags.

Nia thinks about throat-punching her. It would give her a reason to be disgusted.

But she breathes in deeply and opens her eyes. The fry sloshes around her mouth, she can’t bring herself to swallow.

“If I was that fat I would kill myself,” Connie says a little louder.

“Why wait?” Nia responds in a low voice.

Connie shakes her head at the girl and goes back to her salad. Nia looks at her arms, the skin straining against the spaghetti straps, the stomach bulge she hides by wearing high-waisted shorts. She could say so much if she wanted to. But Nia always found fighting fire with similar fire to be pathetic.

Connie looks greedily at Nia’s toned arms, her thin collarbone and tilts her head to peek at Nia’s sculpted ankles. Nia knew how girls envied her body. Occasionally she would hear from someone else that they thought she looked like a man. She pretended it didn’t get to her.

But right after she would hear comments like that she would go home, strip and stare at her body for half an hour, pinching the parts of herself that seemed too masculine. She would get over it when she would flip through an old magazine and see FloJo.

She hated that she wasn’t above this. She also hated that that belief came from thinking she’s not like other girls. It crapped all over her feminism.

Nia swallows the gross flavourless remnants of fry in her mouth and watches Connie stare listlessly at her salad. Connie, with her hair color and her obsession with making her salads taste god reminds Nia of Orla Crown.

She hadn’t thought of that girl in years. She refused to but her face came unbidden to her mind. Nia remembered how much she hated her and everything she represented about young girls. She was fickle, swallow, vain, egotistical... neurotic, doubtful and insecure. She had heard that Orla would eat a pizza at lunch and then go throw it up in the bathroom.

She never saw it herself but it doesn’t surprise her. Birdie once told her that Orla would spend hours in front of the mirror just staring at herself, pulling at her skin.

Poor girl. She wasn’t worse than any of them. Of course Nia wasn’t mean to people who didn’t deserve it like Orla was but she does have a constant conveyor pelt of insults in her mind for everyone around her. To be fair, most of her ‘friends’ are stupid.

Although Connie isn’t exactly a friend. Nia thinks about how much she blushed when Nia kissed her in the car on the way over here.

Nia did it because she wanted to see if she felt anything. She didn’t. She hadn’t felt anything when she kissed anyone anymore. Sex felt good still, but just the physical stuff. She finds it irritating to be cuddled.

If Nia is romanced*

She knows perfectly why. A face in exact detail appears in her vision. She could draw that face from memory. She knows everything about it. She used to be able to enjoy things more with the people she dated before Birdie left.

Nia sees them less but they’re more present in her mind than ever. She constantly wonders if there’s something going on between Imre and them or Lorcan and them. It sours her mood. She shoves the plate of fries toward Connie.

She’d rather be somewhere else.

If Nia is a friend*

Nia doesn’t get why people say romantic relationships are stronger than any friendship. That’s not fucking true. Everything that happened with Birdie has affected her more than any heartbreak she ever had with partners.

Deep down she wonders if her love life will go on like this if she doesn’t fix her relationship with Birdie. Are they will Imre right now? That thought forms a pit in her stomach. Platonic jealous​? Ugh. She shoves the plate of fries toward Connie.

She’d rather be somewhere else. She can admit she’d rather Birdie be across from her than Connie.

*

Connie looks at the fries as if they’re about to jump up and bite her.

“You can have my fries,” Nia says.

“Uh, I already have food,” she replies.

Nia snorts. “Do you really want to eat that salad?”

Connie looks at her salad and frowns. “Yeah?”

Nia arches an eyebrow. “Really?”

Connie groans. “Nooooo.”

Connie looks once at Nia, then at the fries and reluctantly takes one. She hesitates to eat it but she eventually does after more cajoling.

“You’re going to ruin my diet,” Connie says as she chews. Nia grimaces at the display. Why did she say yes to this?

“It’s a special occasion,” Nia responds.

Connie considers that and takes another fry. Nia leans back and looks at the girl Connie was insulting. She’s wearing running shoes. An athlete? Nia does like athletes.

Nia looks back at Connie who’s demolishing the plate. She glances at the clock hanging from the food court ceiling. This date is dragging. She should ask for more shifts at the hospital. She finds she’s at peace there nowadays. Dealing with other people’s problems is much more easier. A broken leg has more logic in it than a broken heart.

When they leave the mall, stop near a back road from Winchester to Croun and Nia takes off Connie’s shirt she realizes that sex is now ruined too. She goes home having felt like she wasted her day.

She listens to her answering machine and curses when she hears Imre’s voice. Why the fuck is did he call her so late?

“Nia, I know you’re listening to these voice messages. Listen to me, this is about more than the girls now. I can’t say much over the phone, believe me when I tell you that you’ll be very interested in what we found out about Prudence and your mother. Call me back.”

At least that’s what the full message said. Nia deleted it right after the second sentence.