What’s she going to think of you when she realizes how fat you are? the bully whispered in my ear. I took a deep breath and mentally told her to back the hell off. (I was trying a more aggressive approach with her now!)

“Stand here.” Thembi pointed and I moved. She seemed a little far away now; she had that same look I got when I was about to start a painting. When I stare at a blank canvas and see a million possibilities of what it could be. Michelangelo once said that the sculpture was already inside the marble, his job was just to chisel it out. I wondered if that was the same for fabrics? The design was already there, just waiting to be cut out and sewn together. I waited for her to descend with her tape measure. I hoped she wasn’t going to turn around and say we hadn’t bought enough material, because she’d underestimated my size. But she didn’t say a word as she zoned out and wrapped and unwrapped the tape, instructing me to lift arms and put them down until . . .

“You have such huge boobs,” she declared.

“Oh, I . . .” I quickly folded my arms, feeling self-conscious.

She leaned over to the table and scribbled my bust measurement down. “I would give anything to have even ten percent of those. I’m as flat as a board.”

“What?” I said, taken aback.

“I was so self-conscious when everyone was getting bras.” She shook her head. “That was a crap time for me.” She said it casually, but it was anything but casual to me. I stared at her. I couldn’t believe that this person in front of me, this gorgeous, perfect-looking person, had something she was insecure about. It had never occurred to me that people who looked like her would have anything to feel insecure about. I wanted absolutely everything she had, and she was saying she wanted something of mine. She looked up at me again.

“I asked my parents for a boob job for my sixteenth birthday.” She smiled. “You can imagine how that idea went down. My father thought I was having some teen identity crisis.”

“I go to a therapist,” I said, without thinking.

“I went to a therapist, too, for a while,” she said, and I blinked. Why would someone like her need to go to a therapist?

“Wh-what did you go for?” I asked, even though I probably knew I shouldn’t.

“A while back, I sort of had some issues about being adopted. It’s weird not knowing where you come from sometimes; I guess that also makes it hard to know where you fit.”

“Oh,” I said, thrown by how candid she was being with me.

“Why do you go to a therapist?”

“Uh . . . anxiety,” I whispered, almost under my breath. I half expected her to look up at me with shock. But she didn’t even flinch.