Worthy of Love

Cover

Worthy of Love

Andre Fenton

Formac Publishing Company Limited
Halifax

For those I love.
This is for you.

Chapter 1 What Is He Eating?

It’s always an awkward question, no matter the context. I mean, I wonder if the person asking ever feels like they shouldn’t ask — it’s a need to know thing. So I was a tad confused, not really sure why everyone in this room needed to know how much I weighed. It was the beginning of the school year, and we were in Gym class. Mr. Stephens, the teacher, had us come into the weight room in groups of fives to “See where we’re at,” as he put it. The school’s new wellness policy required health check-ins during gym class. Every student had a file that held information about their height, weight, eye colour, hair colour and so on. I really wasn’t a fan of stepping on a scale and revealing how much I weighed, though. I was with a group of five that included myself, Donny, Lewis, Matthew, and Tyler.

“All right,” Mr. Stephens announced. “Donny, you hit the scale first.”

“Whatever,” Donny said.

Donny was a childhood friend of mine. We grew up together in the North End of Halifax. We were like brothers — though time sometimes put distance between us. He would hang out with the more rebellious teens while I was somewhere in between the shy kid who stood against the walls at school dances and the nerd who sat by himself during lunch. But at least I was brave enough to go to a dance, right?

Donny stepped on the scale. He had much longer hair and darker skin than I did. He was also in great shape but didn’t do a lot with it. Mr. Stephens would often hassle him to play football, and Donny would always ignore him. Donny was more of an artistic guy but not pretentious. He was the most humble, genuine guy I knew.

The numbers on the electronic scale went from zero pounds to 193 pounds.

“Not bad,” Donny said as he stepped off.

“Lewis, you’re next.” Mr. Stephens pointed.

Lewis was an asshole. I hated that guy. He was seventeen, a year older than all the other students in the room. He was held back a year. Now he was in class with us. It wasn’t glamorous for him, so he spent most of his time making my life a living hell like it was his hobby. He was what most girls would call a douchebag. I wasn’t brave enough to say it out loud.

Lewis gave Mr. Stephens a sneer with his stupid face and stepped on the scale with his chubby frame, shaved head, and pale skin. It went from zero pounds to 220 pounds.

“Hmm . . .” Mr. Stephens took note of that in his book.

“Yo, what was that ‘hmmm . . .’ about, Mr. Stephens?”

“It means we have work to do,” he replied.

“Work on me? What about that fatass over there?” Lewis pointed my way.

Those words were like blades. I wasn’t a fan of being called a fatass, but I couldn’t respond and show weakness. That’s what he’d want.

“That’s enough, Lewis.” Mr. Stephens shook his head.

“No. No, it’s not,” Lewis continued. “How much do you weigh, Adrian?”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say.

“Enough to knock your dumb ass over,” Donny intervened.

“Boys. Enough!” Mr. Stephens yelled. “I have six other groups of students to do this with, and I’m not going to be here all day with your petty crap.”

He took a breath. “With that being said, do you want to go next, Adrian?”

“Sure,” I muttered, not really wanting to. But I also wanted to get it over with. I stepped closer to the scale, walking past Lewis’s stupid grin. I didn’t want to do it. I really didn’t. I put one foot forward and the other followed. Next thing I knew, both feet were planted and the numbers on the scale went from zero pounds to 280 pounds.

“Ha!” Lewis yelled from behind me. I shut my eyes. I knew there was going to be an insult, but it was overshadowed by a question. It was a question from Mr. Stephens.

“Adrian, what are you eating?” he asked in a voice of disgust.

I didn’t reply. I turned around and ran out of the weight room. I felt ashamed of myself. I shouldn’t have had to disclose my weight to a room full of people — it felt so wrong. I didn’t want everyone in the school knowing how much I weighed. Anxiety made itself at home inside of me, so I had to leave. Outside, there were other students waiting for their turn in the weight room. I walked past all of them with my head down. Two hundred and eighty pounds of fat — I felt gross.

That afternoon, during our lunch hour, I sat with Donny in the cafeteria. He had a mouthful of sandwich while talking to me.

“Yeah, man. Lewis is full of crap. Don’t pay any mind to him. He’s a loser.”

“I know,” I said while taking my lunch out of my backpack. I had an egg sandwich. It was the type of food you could smell from halfway across the cafeteria.

“I got your back. If he messes with you, then he’ll have to go through me.”

Donny always felt like he had to play the big brother role for me. He kind of was, but if it came to violence or getting in trouble, I knew he would receive a harsher punishment than me. Because he was darker than I was, people saw him as more “dangerous,” when in reality, he was a big, soft goofball. Violence wasn’t really something I planned for when dealing with Lewis.

“Thanks, Donny, but I think everything will be fine. I don’t want you to get in any trouble.”

It was like I jinxed myself because as I said that, Lewis made his way into the cafeteria with that stupid grin on his face. He peered over at me from the entrance and made his way toward us.

“There’s that asshole,” Donny said under his breath.

Before I knew it, Lewis was right there in front of us. I knew it was going to be bad. I knew it was going to be embarrassing. I just wanted to shout, “Leave me alone!” But I didn’t.

“What’s up, Adrian?” he grinned at me.

“Dude, get out of here,” Donny began.

“I’m not talking to you,” Lewis shot back.

“Well I’m talking to you.” Donny stood up.

The tension was pretty high. They weren’t fans of each other.

“Lewis, leave my guy alone. I’m not messing with you,” Donny continued.

I sat there, not knowing what to do or say, then suddenly I looked at my sandwich and I saw Lewis sticking his finger right through the top and down the bottom.

“Hey, what are you doing?” I demanded.

“It’s not like you need that anyway, fatass,” Lewis sneered at me. “You’re almost three hundred pounds!” He said it loud enough for the entire cafeteria to hear. As soon as he said it, my heart sank into my stomach. I could see students eyeing me. I could feel their whispers lingering around me, and I felt sick. It felt like my biggest secret was now an open one.

“You’re such an asshole, Lewis,” Donny growled.

“Aha.” Lewis laughed his stupid laugh.

That was when I snapped. I tore the sandwich from under Lewis’s hand and flung it at him.

“What the hell!” he yelled. Gobs of egg covered his cheeks. I could hear laughs from around the cafeteria.

It didn’t take long for Lewis to get the food off of his face. That was when he threw his fist into mine. I honestly hadn’t known what to expect, but a bruised eye wasn’t it. I hit the ground. Hard. All I heard was a collective gasp from the rest of the students. That was what humiliation felt like. It wasn’t great.

I looked up to see Donny jump across the table at Lewis. They started fighting. Throwing fists full of anger back and forth as everyone in the cafeteria chanted, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

Security soon came in and broke them up. Once that happened, I ran out of the cafeteria both hurt and embarrassed. I just wanted to go home. I grabbed my belongings from my locker and fought back tears. I couldn’t cry, I couldn’t let myself be weak, so I hid my misery and made my way home.

I was home before my parents so I had time to think of an explanation for the bruise on my face. I went straight to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. It looked pretty bad. I had a huge red mark under my left eye. I couldn’t let that happen again. I couldn’t let Lewis bully me over my weight, I couldn’t allow myself to be his punching bag, and I couldn’t let my parents see me being beat up.

It’s weird being bullied by a white kid when you’re black. Well, half black. Both my parents were half black, so that gave me two halves. I was brown enough to be considered not white. Being bullied by someone who was white often felt racial, but that was something I was afraid to say out loud. I went to my bedroom and grabbed the stash of chocolate bars in my desk. There were two of them. I wasn’t hungry, but I was stressed, and I ate them. Food was very relaxing, but that was my problem. It was too relaxing — 280 pounds too relaxing. I had a difficult relationship with food. I knew I should have cut back on what I ate, but being at school and being bullied by Lewis had taken everything out of me. Food was safety, security. It made me feel full when I felt lonely.

“What are you going to do, Adrian?” I asked myself while lying in my bed with a full stomach.

Shortly after I had said this, I heard cheering from somewhere. It was coming from my parents’ room. I went to investigate the noise and realized that my dad must have left the TV on while I was at school. There was a mixed martial arts event on TV, and I heard an announcer almost falling out of his seat as he spoke.

“Matt Burner knocked out his opponent in the first thirty seconds of round two!”

I’d always liked martial arts. There was something beautiful in the discipline. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but it was pretty wonderful to watch. The fighters were always in such great shape, too. It made me wonder if it might be a good way to lose weight. In the past, my dad would watch documentaries of mixed martial artists and what they went through daily. It wasn’t pretty. They spent a lot of time on the ground practising submission moves and dangerous holds. Being my size, I’d be afraid of crushing somebody. I kept that idea in my head and went online to search for different martial arts gyms.

Wrestling was off limits for me. I felt uncomfortable getting on top of someone or letting someone get on top of me. Same with Judo. There were a few local places that taught Judo, but I didn’t like the idea of being flipped or flipping someone else. Donny did Judo when we were kids. He made it pretty far and then quit to pursue guitar lessons. I eventually came across a cool place called King’s Kickboxing, and it was located in the North End of Halifax so it couldn’t have been too far from my neighbourhood. Kickboxing seemed really cool. The ad looked pretty badass: it had a caged fence in the background and giant gold font that said, “Stay Ready & In Shape.” I was super nervous when I thought about joining, though. What would my mom think? I still hadn’t come up with a plausible excuse I could use about my eye. I tripped while walking to the bus? I fell in the weight room in gym class?

I ignored all that for a moment, grabbed my phone, and called King’s Kickboxing.

As it rang, my anxiety began to build.

“King’s Kickboxing. This is Ryan speaking.”

“Hi, Ryan. My name’s Adrian, and I saw your ad online. I was wondering if I could do a trial class?”

“Yes, of course,” he replied from his end. “What’s your name?”

“My name is Adrian Carter,” I answered.

“For sure, Adrian. Are you free this evening?”

“As in this evening, this evening? Wow. That’s like, really soon.”

“Yeah. This evening is this evening,” Ryan said sarcastically.

“Ummm, sure. I’ll be there. What time?”

“Be here at four-fifteen. Wear shorts and a t-shirt.”

“Cool. I will.”

“See you tonight, Adrian,” Ryan said before he hung up the phone.

As I put my phone down, I realized it was 3:30 p.m. and I heard my front door open. It must have been my mom. I didn’t know what to do and I began freaking out. What if she saw my eye? I shut my door to think of a plan.

“Adrian, are you home?” Mom called upstairs.

“Uhhh . . . Yeah. I’m actually just leaving, though,” I called back as I grabbed shorts and a t-shirt from my dresser.

“Where to?” she asked as I came down the stairs moving in an odd direction so she couldn’t see my whole face.

“To my kickboxing class,” I told her with a smile.

“Kickboxing!? Adrian —”

I was out the door before she could finish the sentence. I knew my mom wouldn’t like the idea of me joining kickboxing, but at least I told her the truth.

I found King’s without any trouble. It was on Richards Street, but it was in the basement of a building just off the corner. As I walked down the flight of stairs toward the entrance, I could hear the sounds of fists hitting pads and people yelling as they did it. It sounded like adrenalin was rushing through a lot of people’s blood.

I noticed everyone was wearing black shirts with KING’S written in gold on the front of them. A lean, bald, black man had seen me enter and he walked right up to me.

“Hello, I’m Ryan. I’m the head instructor here.” He extended a hand. I shook it.

“Hi. I’m Adrian. We spoke on the phone earlier.”

“Yep, that was me. Glad to see you could make it. Welcome to King’s.”

I could smell the sweat and feel the humidity coming toward me all at once. It felt overwhelming, and I was unsure if I even wanted to continue.

“All right, everyone. That ends class for today,” Ryan called to the class. “Hit the showers.”

I tended to avoid locker rooms, so I got changed in the washroom. I wore a white t-shirt and blue basketball shorts. When I came back out, Ryan was already on the mats waiting for me. I walked over and saw a pair of fingerless gloves on the floor.