Beyond Looks - Diary of a Chubby Girl

They used to joke about it that maybe, in the womb, I took all the food and left my sister with nothing. It was one of those jokes people repeated so often it stopped sounding like a joke. Something casual. Something harmless. I laughed too. I always did, because it was easier than wondering if it was true. Easier than thinking too deeply about why Lorena looked the way she did effortless, light, admired while I felt like something that had to be carefully handled, quietly managed. But I was happy. At least… I thought I was. Confident, even. I was homeschooled, sheltered, safe. My world was small, but it was soft. Predictable. Controlled, and in that world… I was enough. Or at least, that’s what I believed. I didn’t question the way my mother looked at me sometimes like I was something fragile. Like one wrong move and I might break. I didn’t question the way my father adjusted things around me. Lighting, mirrors , even the angles of pictures. It was subtle. Always subtle. , lights would dim. Mirrors would be covered or turned slightly away. Photos would be taken, then quietly deleted with a soft, “This one isn’t good.” Not good. I never asked what that meant. I didn’t question why Lorena was the one who went out more. Why she had friends I never met. Why she came home with stories laughing, glowing, alive while I stayed inside, listening, imagining. I didn’t question why I was never included. I thought that was just how our lives worked. I thought I was lucky. Lucky to be protected. Lucky to be cared for. Lucky to have a family that paid so much attention to me. Everything stayed perfect until elementary school graduation. Everyone went. Everyone… except me. I remember that day too clearly. I was standing by the door, already dressed, hours before we even had to leave. I didn’t want to be late. I didn’t want to miss anything. My shoes felt too tight, pressing into my toes in a way that made it hard to stand still, but I didn’t take them off. I thought that was part of it. Part of looking right. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking, so I held onto the strap of my small bag, gripping it like it could steady me. I could hear Lorena moving around in her room. Drawers opening and closing. Music playing softly. Normal. Everything felt so normal. Which is why I didn’t understand why my chest felt so tight. “Please,” I said when she walked past me. “I want to go.” Lorena didn’t look at me at first. She stood in front of the mirror, adjusting her hair, turning slightly from side to side like she was checking something. Like she belonged there. “It’s not that serious,” she muttered. Not that serious. The words landed lightly but they stayed. To her, it was just a ceremony. Something small. Forgettable. To me, it was everything. It was people. It was outside. It was being seen. “I just want to see it,” I whispered. “I want to be there.” That’s when my mother stepped in, her voice was soft, too soft. The kind of soft that wasn’t meant to comfort but to convince. “Sweetheart… maybe it’s better if you stay home”. Better. That word should have made everything okay. It always did. But this time… it didn’t. Something about it felt wrong. Heavy. Like there was something underneath it I wasn’t supposed to see. “Why?” I asked. And just like that everything shifted. Silence. A glance passed between them. Quick. Sharp. Almost invisible. But I saw it. And in that moment, something inside me… paused. Like I had just missed something important. Like I wasn’t part of a conversation that involved me. “I’m going,” Lorena said, grabbing her bag. “We’ll be back soon.”, the door closed behind them. Just like that. No argument. No explanation. No second thought. And I stood there dressed for something I was never meant to attend. The house felt different after they left. Too quiet. Too still. I stayed by the door for a long time, staring at the handle like it might turn again. Like someone might come back and say it was all a mistake. They didn’t. Slowly, I walked back inside. The mirror in the hallway caught my attention. It always did. But this time, I didn’t look away. I stepped closer. Carefully. Like I wasn’t supposed to. For a second, I just stood there, staring at my reflection. Really staring. Not the quick glances I was used to. Not the half-seen version of myself. But fully. And something about it felt… unfamiliar. Not wrong. Just not what I expected. Before I could think too much about it, I heard my mother’s voice in my head. “Don’t stand there too long.” So I stepped away. Like I always did. Like I had been trained to do. That was the day I started asking questions. The day small things stopped making sense. The mirrors I wasn’t allowed to stand in front of for too long. The pictures that were always “not good enough.” The way my parents would subtly shift things around me like the world had to be adjusted before I could exist in it. The way people outside would sometimes stare. Just for a second longer than normal. Not smiling. Not frowning. Just… looking. And the way my family would quickly pull me away. Like I wasn’t meant to be seen for too long. They said they were protecting me. Protecting my beauty,protecting my mental health, protecting me from the world. But the truth? They weren’t protecting me. They were hiding me. And honestly… that was the worst thing they could have ever done. Because you can’t learn who you are… if you’re never allowed to exist. Now it’s my first year of high school, a real school, with real people. And for the first time in my life… people are going to see me. Not the version my family created. Not the carefully managed, softly hidden version of me. But the real me and trust me I’m terrified, because this could be a fresh start, a chance to finally belong. A chance to understand what I’ve been missing all this time or it could be the moment everything falls apart. The moment I realize why they tried so hard to keep me hidden. Either way… there’s no going back now. So I guess this is where it begins. Welcome to my diary.