As Mel drove over the scale, I saw it smash into what seemed like hundreds of pieces. They all felt like pieces of me, the ones I had to let go of. All the small bits went flying in the air and came down. I covered my head so none of the pieces would fall in my hair, and watching that felt more validating than losing my last ten pounds. I no longer felt like I needed a number to tell me I was beautiful. I thought back to every moment I had taken off my clothes and stepped on it. I felt every moment of disappointment, frustration, regret, anger, uncertainty, and depression fade away as I heard Mel hit the brakes.

“Heck yeah!” she shouted.

She put the car in park and ran over to see the damage. She’d got it pretty good. It snapped into three big pieces. Screws and plastic were scattered everywhere.

“Well, how do you feel?” Mel asked.

“Like there’s a weight off my shoulders.”

Mel smiled at the pun. “Good.” Then she wrapped me in a hug. I hugged her back.

I could see the screen of the scale over her shoulder. The three zeros flashing back and forth as if it was asking me: “How could you?”

Just like that, I thought, followed by a middle finger.

The zeros flashed into nothing, causing a part of my anxiety to dissolve. Not all of it, because there was still one more wrong I had to right.

“Mel,” I spoke with my arms wrapped around her.

“Yeah?” she asked.

“Can we talk about . . . stuff?”

“Yeah,” she whispered. “We can talk . . . about stuff.”

She grabbed my hand, pulling me toward her car.

“Let’s go somewhere else,” she said, and we did.

We left the pieces of the scale lying there. She backed up over it, which made me laugh. She made me feel so many things, and I wanted to tell her everything. I knew that breaking the scale wouldn’t fix everything, but it was a start. A pretty damn good one.

Chapter 20 Her Melody

We drove around the city for a while until Mel took an exit onto the highway. We left the city, and eventually we drove past grass, trees, and under a clear sky. I didn’t ask where we were off to and she didn’t say. There was so much I wanted to say and there was so much I wanted to apologize for. An apology wasn’t going to make a difference, though. I had to put in the work, and I was determined to. She drove past a few small towns outside of Halifax.

“So . . . Mel,” I began.

“Yeah?” she said looking pretty focused on the road.

“Where are we going?”

“To a happy place.”

“Yeah, but where?

“Adrian . . . just enjoy the ride, okay?”

“Okay,” I said.

She was pretty determined about it and I didn’t want to ask too many questions.