I need a Boob Job

2. My Neck

My Neck betrays me when I get emotional. I get hot flushes when I get nervous. That’s why I need the really thick, too dark foundation. It’s the only thing that hides the flaming redness that flows from chest, up my neck and into my cheeks. It is accompanied by a searing heat. As if I have squished my face against the oven door. It is humiliating and painful. Lily used to kind of make me feel better about it, making an upward blowing motion to signal when it was coming so I could extradite myself from the situation or move somewhere cooler. She did however laugh every time it happened. I now don't know if she was laughing at me or with me in solidarity at the unfairness of life. I think I know which one it is really but I don't want to face that knowledge right now. My mum told me that once we were walking along the high street when I was about eight and random man just came up and strangled me a little bit. I know right?! Apparently he let go real quick when my mum screamed and lunged. He had escaped from the local mental hospital. I still hate being touched on my neck. An ex was sort of play fighting me and put his hands round my throat and I kicked him square in the balls with all the power I had. It took him twenty minutes to get up off the floor. I didn't mean to. Instincts I guess. The eight year old me had learnt a strong lesson. Hands around throat bad. The fifteen (nearly sixteen) year old me knew that kicking a guy in the balls brings maximum pain. Bad for attacker.

I’ve started to stutter ever so slightly when in stressful situation too. I feel this kind of swelling in my throat where the Adam’s apple ball thingy is (do women have an adam’s apple? Must google) and I sort of inhale, inhale, inhale instead of exhaling and speaking. Its really not great for someone who has always been the kind of kid who excels at public speaking. I used to go to business dinners with my family from the age of 5 and from age 10 was conducting my own discussions about adult subjects completely independently of my parents. I was the chatting kid wonder. So now, when I am supposed to be in the prime of my life, why can I not get through a conversation without stuttering and/or turning red as a beetroot? UNFAIR.

The answer is I'm sure linked to my complete lack of self-confidence intertwined with the earth shattering revelation two months ago that my parents are divorcing, perhaps supported by the destruction of my friendship group and social circle and to top it off my grandma died. That pretty much sums it up.

Regardless of this, date three with John and I have only beetrooted once and have managed to hide the stutter behind claims of a sore throat and recovery from a cold. John is so gorgeous. I get off the bus at the station and walk the 100m round the corner to the Brewery. He is leaning on his delicious moped with his helmet hanging from the handle bars. He would've offered me a ride here but you can’t take a passenger when you're 17 and to be honest the thing seems like a death trap. He looks effortlessly cool in ripped baggy jeans, battered vans shoes and some kind of rock music tour t-shirt. I have no interest in Metallica as I was raised in a household where if its not black music its not okay. We’re a white British family by the way and second to that if I brought a black boy home my father would almost certainly show him the door but we are reverse racist in a musical sense. Only soul, gospel, jazz and funk produced in the traditional way with no electronics and autotuning is acceptable. Random detail but hey. He is smiling. I melt. I lose the sense of distress I carry in my normal world. I am here, with him. He doesn’t know I’m hated, ignored, in pain. And I will never let him know, not on purpose. He sees a (reasonably) confident girl in decent clothes, who has a bit of chat and plays pool like a bloke (this seems to impress men by the way, perhaps a lessening of the annoying girlish nonsense we usually spout). I am fine here.

He unwraps himself from the bike and wraps himself around me. “You look nice,” he whispers into my ear as his long arms snakes around my shoulder and envelops me. His arms are so long I'm like the prey in the centre of python snake. Slowly he uncoils and releases me. He kisses me on the lips. I am wearing a lot of lip gloss and he sorts of slides off. Wiping the gloss off his mouth with the back of his hand he laughs and grabs his bike helmet. “Lets go in then, are you hungry?” I am. We decide on our favourite - McDonalds. He pays. Yes. I am still worth that in his eyes. One thing I have never had a problem with, like some of my (former) friends is that I am totally happy to eat in front of boys. I don't understand what the problem is to show people you fuelling your body? It is entirely normal to ingest food regularly and I enjoy doing this in company. So we ate. Despite still being pretty petite I still eat like a horse. My metabolism hasn't fully realised that I no longer do three hours of sport a day yet and whilst I’ve lost some muscle I still eat crap food like there’s no tomorrow. I was never allowed this growing up. I had my first McD’s when I was 12 - the minute I was responsible for getting myself home from school and could divert via the cheeseburger factory of dreams. It doesn't seem to matter that I feel hungry about thirty minutes after eating it and it gives me stomach cramps a lot of the time at the moment of eating it is just too delicious and I continue to eat it whenever I can. Anyway, so the point is, despite feeling like I'm putting on weight I continue to abuse my system with crap food and lack of exercise…makes sense. The boob job will equal this out. It will make me beautiful no matter what. I believe this to my core.

We chat about stuff. Normal stuff. The weather. His siblings, mine. He tries to talk about school and I answer quickly and divert him to other topics. He has left school already and is doing a gas apprenticeship. This is where he learns to check peoples gas meters apparently. I want to be scientist so it sort of correlates I suppose, in a way. I can’t imagine spending a life time just checking peoples gas meters for a living but I guess we’re all different. It transpires though that after an hour at lunch that what John really likes talking about is his motorbike. A lot. Like all of the time. Something of which I have no understanding or feeling except that it is cooler than not having a motorbike but less cool than say, having a car. I somehow have the presence of mind not to mention the last bit to John directly - I have a feeling it would not go down well. We finish lunch and then queue to get tickets for the latest superhero blockbuster. I have no problem with them, their just all a bit samey. I prefer something historical or artsy, but despite his grunge t-shirt John is all about the popular commercial products. I have no objections though as AGAIN he has paid for me to do something. LUNCH AND CINEMA TICKET? I must be the most loved person on this planet right now. I am special, I am wonderful. I am LOVED! Okay, must calm down, its date three and there has definitely been no mention of love. I can’t love him before he loves me - that won’t work. I must try very very hard to remain attractive, concealing all of my inner weird and turmoil until he loves me and it will be too hard for him to leave. Of course once he recognises my mild mental problems he will of course have a moment of doubt but the boob job and my love for him, and he for I will resolve these issues. We will get married. We will have children. This is great. Wow in attempting to apologise for diverging into a fantasy I created a doubly deep and long fantasy. I have got to get out of my HEAD!

Okay back to the neck, which is currently being nuzzled and kissed by a certain older, cool boyfriend. I don't mind the kissing there as long as he doesn't touch it with his hand, I don’t want to impulsively kick John in the balls. I would like to meet those balls soon. I don't want them all smushed like biscuit thats been left at the bottom of your bag for too long. Then he's lifting both hands up, skirting around my shoulders but I know where he’s going - straight to the jelly filled bra. Note I don't say boobs here, there aren't any. Flat chested is an overstatement. I have almost negative space boobs - kind of like dark matter. The scientists say its definitely there but they just can’t find or see it. John will be searching a long time for some boob love I can tell you. I grab his wrists as he reaches the (fake) curve and direct his hand back to the waist, he accepts but quickly restarts his desired pathway to the place where breasts normally exist on a woman. I perform the same evasive manoeuvre, trying to turn my body away as if I’m suddenly very interested in the movie and another big chested guy, seemingly pumped up on anabolic steroids saving an innocuous city from another weirdly costumed bad guy. I’m not. John doesn’t get the hint, leans in “What’s the matter? I just want a little feel…” “Not here” I counter. “Then where?!” He laughs. He knows he can’t come back to my house. My cockney father, particularly post-separation flits between seemingly fine and affable (trying to buy favour in the coming custody battle) and unreasonable and unhinged wronged father to which no-one can do right. I prefer to avoid him at all costs but when in the first stage he is incredibly clingy, using me a life raft in the torrent of emotional abandonment the divorce has created in him (I read a psychology book at the library because I needed to try to understand). I don’t want to and would struggle to get back to his house now by public transport and we would be split up on the journey which could take over an hour. I just don't want to do this. I don't want him to take one feel of that bra fakery and know I’m a faker. (This is different to having fake boobs that have been operated on because those become part of your body and are not false advertising. What you see is what you get, even if they were not originally there). Solid reasoning I think you'll find. I can see his smile looking a little bit more annoyed than bemused and I start to redden. Thank god for the darkness. I pull apart and say I need the toilet, he huffs and signals with his body language, slamming back into his seat and crossing his arms with a grumpy look on his face that he’s not impressed. I try not to cry as I deep breathe and let the heat come off of my face in peace. I spend ten minutes pulling myself back together and go back to him.

The movie is nearly over and he ignores me for the remainder. He walks out ahead of me and storms ahead enough I have to call his name to come back. He finally slows so I can catch up but its clear he's fuming. He walks directly to his bike and starts getting it ready to go. “John -“ I say. “Wait-“.

“No Katy. What’s the point. If you don’t like your body why don’t you do something about it? If you won’t let me touch you there’s no point.”

Companionship? Like-mindedness? Obviously I’ve got it all wrong.

And he’s the second boy to tell me to fix my body.

I’m getting that boob job.