Like the Desert

Her name was Savannah, like the desert.


She had hair like dried yarrow, a dusty sort of wind-blown color with freckles smattered across her cheekbones like speckles on a robin's egg. She was small, tiny, petite- a string bean with a garbage disposal appetite.


But I was smaller. Sickly small, the kind of thin that turns heads and gets them whispering.


It was our first bikinis, and we were ready to face the world together. Savannah had retreated to the bathroom to change, knocking on the whitewashed door before coming back into my bedroom.


I was transfixed by this creature, this lanky girl whose knees were wider than her thighs. I stared at my reflection in the floor-length mirror, mossy eyes looking right back.


My hips jutted out like to perfect mountain peaks, the space between them a valley. My bones crawled underneath my skin as I moved, cockroaches scavenging for their next meal.


Savannah came beside me and looked at my reflection, then at hers. Assessed the difference.  She craned her neck to look at my ribs, her eyes climbing up each rung before looking directly at me.


"Your ribs stick out. Ew, gross."


The words rolled over me, dry and impersonal. Their heat prickled on my skin, her eyes burning into mine, into my ribs, gouging a small cavity where my lungs should be, eyes now scanning the bones of my sternum.


Her name was Savannah, like the desert and she dried me up with her.