Chapter 8:

Amanda pulled me into her room. I was so damn close, I told myself. So damn close. If I had just been a second or two earlier, perhaps I would’ve made it into my room. Or perhaps, my insane sister was waiting for me and there was nothing I could do either way.

“What do you want to talk about Amanda?”

“About you getting the hell out of this house and going back to college.”

I never thought I’d hear her say that she wanted me to leave. I was under the impression that she reveled in her torture of me.

“Yeesh, Amanda! I’ve been back for like three days and you want me gone? Besides I thought you enjoying making fun of me.”

“Exactly! I love…making…fun…of you.” She bent down further with each pause in her sentence, emphasizing just how much taller she was. “Holy crap, wait a second! Did you shrink again?”

I sighed. “Yeah. On Audrey’s boat.”

Amanda grinned wide, showing all her pearly whites. Her smiles weren’t contagious. At least for me anyway. Whenever she smiled at me, it likely meant she had dreamt up a new scheme to torment me.

“You know what I’m gonna say don’t you, tiny?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Come on!” With a spring in her step, she grabbed my hand and led me into my room where my previous height marking was. I was 4’2” then. It was time to see the damage.

Giddier than I’d ever seen anyone, Amanda uncapped the pink magic marker she’d used the last time she measured me. I just waited with my back against the height chart. I could already tell that I’d shrunk several inches.

She pushed my head down, forcing me to stand flatfooted, while she marked the chart. Her eyes widened and my heart plummeted.

“Take a look,” she said.

I turned around and saw. I was four feet tall. I had lost an entire foot, and I had no idea where that foot was, if it would ever come back, or if I would lose another. I just kept staring at the pink mark. I was in shock.

“I know it might seem hard to believe, lil’ bro, but I do feel bad for you,” Amanda said.

I tore my focus from the pink mark and looked at my sister who was kneeling behind me. She was still a few inches taller than me.

“Yes, it is hard to believe.”

“You’re shrinking, you have girl problems, you must be falling at least somewhat behind in your schoolwork. This first week of college hasn’t been easy on ya’.”

She may have been able to objectively restate the facts of my situation, but she clearly didn’t understand what I was going through.

“Ok, whatever. But I still don’t get why you want me to go back to school,” I said.

“I want you to go back because you will definitely shrink more! And when you come back for Thanksgiving break and winter break, you’ll be even more fun to play with! Besides, you want to go back too, don’t you?”

She saw me as a toy and nothing more. Her faux sympathy was exposed when she joyously looked forward to when I inevitably got smaller. But I couldn’t help but agree with her in this moment. I did want to go back to school, and it didn’t matter what her motives were. If she truly wanted to help me get back, I was all ears.

“Yeah. I want to see Jackie,” I said.

“Right, you see? We want the same thing: for you to back to school. And I have a plan on how to do that.”

I was genuinely surprised. Amanda, my sister, was actually trying to be helpful. It was practically unheard of.

“Really? My sister is offering me something other than pain and insults. I’m listening.”

She rose to her feet and jerked my chin up to meet her eyes. Up close, I could see the height difference. I was level with her navel, and she wasn’t even wearing heels anymore.

“Watch the tone lil’ bro. Watch it.” She had taken to calling me lil’ bro, and I had stopped correcting her. It was futile. And besides, she had a point. I was quite little compared to her. Compared to everyone really.

“Ok, my bad,” I said as she let go of me, “What’s your idea?”

“Exaggerate things a little. Text or facetime your girl Audrey, and tell her that I’m tormenting you, and it’s too much for you to handle. Make her take pity on your ass and get her to take you back to D.C.”

“First of all, I don’t really have to exaggerate about you. Second of all, I can’t lie to Audrey. That’s the end of it. I’ll figure something else out.”

“Fine, but when you finally realize that Mom is never going to let you leave, I think you’ll come around to my way of doing things,” Amanda said.

“I guess I’ll think about it. I have some homework, we’ll talk later?”

“Politely kicking me out of your room, eh?” She bowed down to get level with my head. I was afraid I was in for another brush with death, courtesy of Amanda.

But she surprised me yet again, and without a word, left my room. She was usually so transparent, but she was sending me mixed messages. Oddly enough, her not beating me up in that moment frightened me more. I had no idea what was going on in her head, and that was scarier than anything she could do to me with her fists or her gigantic ass.

Trying to get this out of my head, I sat down at my desk in my room. The loss of another two inches forced me to boost my chair up to the max. Soon, I would be strapping books to my seat just to see over my desk.

“I wonder what you’re doing right now, Jackie,” I said to myself.

I found myself thinking about Jackie a lot lately, and especially when I wasn’t in the company of Audrey who was making me feel like the only man on earth, or my sister who was squashing me into oblivion. And sometimes I would think about her even when I was at my happiest with Audrey and my lowest with Amanda. She dominated my waking moments and my dreams. And it wasn’t just because of her physical beauty, although that was certainly part of it. It was how she gently teased me which drove me crazy with adoration for her. It was how she promised to take care of me when I got back to school that made me want to kiss every inch of her body. It was how she asked me if I was ok every single morning that made me so desperately want to come back to her.

It all seemed clear now. With Audrey out of sight, it was clear. Jackie was my girl, and when I got back to school, I was going to tell her that.

It wasn’t an easy decision to make, especially after meeting Audrey and coming to realize how amazing she was. But it was a decision that had to be made, nonetheless.

“Jackie. You are the only girl for me,” I mumbled.

Even though the only thing I wanted to do was fantasize about Jackie, I knew I had to get some work done if I had any hopes of remaining in college. I broke out the books and got to studying.

Several hours later, my streak of perfectionism was broken by a text notification. I immediately dropped my pen to see who it was.

Audrey. She wanted to know how I was doing.

I nearly wrote, I’m doing fine. But then I thought back to my sister’s plan. All I had to do was embellish my situation and leave out a few irrelevant details. If I told her my sister’s treatment was getting to be unbearable (which it quite nearly was) and if I left out the fact that Amanda was the one who came up with the idea to lie in the first place, I would be back at school in no time. This was likely my only hope of ever returning to Georgetown.

So instead of telling her the truth, I began spinning a narrative. I told her that my sister had just got done sitting on me and spanking me. I told her I was bruised and hurting. I even told her I cried a bit.

At the end of it, I wrote: Audrey, please take me back with you to D.C. I can’t take being in this house anymore. It’s fucking unbearable

A minute later, she told me that “she would love to” and that “it would be like a road trip”. I didn’t like the feeling in my gut. It was like there was something alive in there clawing at my stomach lining. I did my best to ignore it.

Then she asked: Are your parents ok with this?

Without thinking for another second, I told her “yes”. The clawing only got worse. Just then, a knock came on my bedroom door.

“Dinner’s ready!” Mom said.

“Coming in a minute!”

“Now!”

“Alright, alright!” I shouted back.

I hopped off my desk chair, phone in hand, reading her latest message.

I’m leaving tomorrow, I can swing by around 3 to pick u up. Is that ok?

Yeah, I replied before I set my phone down on my bed and opened my door. I was greeted by my mother, looking quite imposing as she glared down at me, clearly not happy.

“When I say, ‘dinner’s ready’, you come. Ok?”

“Yeah,” I hung my head.

“Are you alright, sweetie? You seem blah.”

“I’m fine, Mom. Really,” I said, trying to get her off my back.

“Oh no! You didn’t shrink again, did you?” she gasped.

I couldn’t lie to her. So, I just said, “A little.”

She got down on her knees and had a grave look on her face. “By how much, Desmond?”

“Two inches,” I said as nonchalantly as I could.

“Honey don’t downplay this. This is serious!”

“I know, I know—”

“We’ll talk about this over dinner,” she said as she turned away to go down the stairs.

I ran up behind her, finding it surprisingly difficult to catch up with her brisk pace, and tapped her back. She flipped back around to see what I wanted.

“Could we maybe, talk about this later? Just you and me?”

“Amanda has a role in this too, Desmond. When I or your father isn’t around, she’s going to need to keep an eye on you. I understand that you don’t like it, but that’s just the way things are gonna be.”

She put her back to me once more and beckoned me to follow her to dinner.

Amanda was already at the table serving herself chicken and rice.

“What did I tell you about waiting until everyone’s at the table, and serving other people first?” Mom scolded her.

“I’m sorry, you guys were just taking a really long time up there. I’m a growing girl, you know that, Mom.”

My mom knew full well that my sister saying she was a “growing girl”, was her subtle way of teasing me.

“Stop tormenting your brother, Amanda. Not everyone in this house is shooting up like a weed,” she said as she stood next to me, utterly dwarfing me. And to make matters worse, she ruffled my hair like I was a little boy.

I simply walked past my mother and sat down at my place setting, hoping this meal wouldn’t be too arduous.

Pretending to be a nice, dutiful daughter and sister, Amanda served us all our food. My mother was first and then me. I held my plate out, and she scooped some rice in. One spoonful, two spoonfuls, and so on.

“That’s enough, Amanda.”

“That’s all? Really? Look at how much I have on my plate. You should really eat some more. Keep your strength up.” She smirked at me.

My mother was too busy looking down at her phone to notice my sister had gone right back to teasing me. “Your sister is right,” she said absentmindedly, “Take more food.”

From then on, I took the portions Amanda assigned to me without complaint. She was grinning so hard I thought she was going to burst out laughing any second. But she was keeping it under wraps.

I hate you, I mouthed to her.

She shot me a stern look, and that was enough to make me swallow my petty little idea of resistance.

Once we dug into our food, my mom told us both that we have to talk about what we’re going to do about me and my shrinking. I groaned a little bit too loudly, and Mom got all indignant.

“Is there something you’d like to say, Desmond? Because I’m trying to make sure you get all the attention you need. You have no idea. Your shrinking doesn’t just affect you. It affects all of us. And I’m not blaming you. I can’t imagine what you’re going through, but you need to realize that we’re all just trying to help you.”

I wanted to say that Amanda wasn’t helping me. She was driving me away with her constant torture. And the only reason I held my tongue was because Amanda was actually helping me leave, and I was convinced that if I ratted her out, she would tell Mom. She was a sly little bitch.

All I said back to my mom was, “I’m sorry.” It was all I could say. And I genuinely was sorry for what I planning to do tomorrow, but I felt like I had to do it.

Mom looked at both of us and gently nodded.

“Ok, if everybody’s done with their little outbursts, I’ll just come right out and say it. Desmond, I want you to stay home until after Thanksgiving. If your condition improves or stays the same by then, I will consider letting you go back to college. I just can’t have you going so far away when you’re sick like this.”

I wanted to just agree with my mother and be done with it. After all, I knew I was going to be gone by tomorrow anyway. But I couldn’t help it. She didn’t understand that in the short time I was at school, I had built a life. I had a girlfriend that I was quickly having strong feelings for, a few friends I genuinely enjoyed spending time with. She had no qualms about ripping that all away from me.

“Mom! You can’t do that to me! I’m- I just fucking started!”

“Language!” she yelled.

“I’m sorry, I just—Mom, I have a girlfriend who I miss. I have friends. I have schoolwork and classes that I’m missing every day. Can’t I seek treatment down in D.C.?”

“You’ve spent a week there, Desmond. What’s more important is that we get you back on your feet here and send you back when you’re ready. Besides you started shrinking at Georgetown, do you really want to go back and risk getting even smaller?”

Without hesitation, I fired back. “Mom, I got smaller today. I got smaller on the bus home. Whatever infected me at school, it’s already infected me. It’s not going to make a difference if I go back.”

“You don’t know that!” she raised her voice, “You don’t know a goddamned thing! Going back there could accelerate this illness. It could make it even worse! Why risk it?”

She was right. But I couldn’t see it. Jackie was all that mattered.

“Because I want to. I want to go back to school and try to live a normal life and forget about this.”

“Forget? No, no. You don’t just get to forget about this. You seem to have no desire to get better, and that really worries me. This girl that you want to go back to—”

“Her name…is Jackie,” I jumped in.

“You’ve known her for seven days, and she’s already proven to be a little clingy. That is the last thing you need right now. You need genuinely supportive people who are going to get you through this. Not people you barely even know, eight hours away from home.”

“She’s my girlfriend, Mom! She wants to take care of me because she cares about me. I’m growing up, and if you can’t see that, then that’s your problem.” I stood up from my chair and started to walk toward the stairs.

“We are not done. Sit your ass back down, or you’re gonna have worse problems than missing your little girlfriend.”

I sat back in my seat, holding back my rage.

My mother composed herself and resumed speaking. “Desmond, I know you think I don’t care about your life at college, but here’s the deal. You have a serious disease, and until you get better, I will stop at nothing to fix this. I can’t do that if you’re 300 miles away. You might not like it, but you’re staying here.”

“You can’t force me.”

“Oh yes. Yes, I can.”

“I’m 18. I’m an adult. I have the right to leave.”

She rolled her eyes. “It takes a lot more to be an adult than just being 18. Can you pay for college yourself? I don’t think so. As long as I’m paying for you, you’re still subject to my rules.”

I said nothing, hoping to god that this was almost over. I just wanted to go back up to my room and zone out.

“Now,” my mom moved on, “I’m going to stay home for the next week and take you to some more doctors and see what’s going on with you.”

Crap, if she’s staying home, then I’m not going to be able to leave tomorrow, I thought. But I played it cool for the time being.

I simply waited for dinner to wind down, helped clean up, and when Amanda went upstairs, I followed her. Right as she was about to go into her room, I stopped her.

“Hey, I did your plan, and now I’m fucked!” I hissed at her.

She looked confused, so I explained further. “I texted Audrey. She is coming here to pick me up at 3 tomorrow, and Mom’s going to be home. I’m screwed, and it’s all thanks to you.”

Amanda took no time to crack up laughing. She always found a way to humor herself with my plight.

“You’re blaming me? Seriously? I might’ve come up with the idea, but you actually did it. You lied to your fat little bus tramp.”

I completely ignored her disgusting comment and tried to come up with a solution. “Ok you’re right, whatever, it’s my fault. Help me fix this. How about I come down with something tomorrow, and you take Mom out to the movies at around 2? I conveniently won’t be able to come, and while the two of you are gone, I’ll leave.”

Amanda agreed to take Mom to the movies, and the next day, she did just that. I came down with a headache that precluded me from going, and Audrey showed up right on time. She helped me throw all my crap into her pickup truck. She even brought a booster seat for me.

“Ready to hit the road?” asked Audrey.

“Hell yes!”

“Is your mom or dad home? Don’t they want to say goodbye to you?”

“My dad is on a business trip, so I haven’t even seen him once since I’ve been back. And my mom is out running a few errands. We said our goodbyes before.”

“Ok then, off to Washington!”

She cranked some tunes and punched it. Before I knew it, we were saying goodbye to Gloucester and hello to the open road. I put my phone on silent and tried to ignore the nagging guilt I was feeling, knowing my mother would have a meltdown when she realized I was actually gone, and I’d lied to her. The only thing that could comfort me now was thinking about Jackie. I texted her saying, I’m on my way back. I’m coming back to u tonight.

I let out a big sigh of relief. I couldn’t wait to be back.