Which made me feel like a shit friend.

That was why I decided not to answer the next time she called.

What was the point? It wasn’t like I could be the best friend she deserved from inside this prison.

* * *

So September, the first whole month I’d gone without talking to my best friend in the four years since we met at first-year orientation, came and went.

In October, I couldn’t take just cooking and drinking all the time. Cooking really nice meals and drinking really nice wines, to be fair—I’d leveled way up from Mike’s Hard Lemonade and pizza delivery. But no matter how much fine wine and food I threw at my situation, I couldn’t escape the gut feeling that I should be doing something more with my life.

So I opened Craigslist and started applying for jobs. The pickings were slim thanks to the recession. But luckily, I didn’t really need the money. I found a part-time position at this daycare center in Lower South Providence that paid just enough to be cool with the government. They were also okay with me only having a semester of work-study hours at Mount Holyoke’s campus childcare center on my resume as proof that I could handle taking care of kids. So perfect match.

I also joined a gym and got to work exercising off all the chub I’d accumulated in college and during my summer of cooking.

By the spring, I’d lost nearly 40 pounds.

I still wasn’t a size negative zero like some of the girls I went to school with in Japan. But Mom was over the moon. She gave me all the compliments on my dramatic weight loss. She even offered to fly out to New York to go shopping with me for new clothes. “I’ll pay, and you can show me around your med school!”

After a lifetime of constant criticism, it felt amazing and new to finally have her complete approval. Too bad only the losing weight part wasn’t a lie.

With a guilty heart, I answered, “I wish I could, mom, but I can’t take any time off to shop. Med school is brutal.”

She was a lot easier than Lena to put off when prioritizing studies over visits. But she asked for my address and my new size. “If I see something cute, I’ll send it to you. One of the ladies at my church buys all her daughter’s clothes. She’s in med school over at UT, and she never has time to shop either. I want to do something like that to help you.”

Ugh. I could not have felt any guiltier as I answered, “Um, I’m still trying to go down a few sizes. I don’t want to give up on my real goal because I have cute clothes that fit.”