1998

I graduated from my course and begun work, full-time, alongside my mom at the salon. I was not the only applicant, and probably not the most experienced.

Either way, I cut hair. I talked as little as I could to clients, which was frowned upon and a point of improvement on me to make, by my mom's comments. Clients watched their hair cut shorter in the mirror; I avoided catching my eye in the reflection.

By day's end, I swept the leavings with brush and dustpan. I cycled out to my self defense courses after work, and got picked up by my mom if it was late out.

By now, I was paying board, paying my parents back bit-by-bit, saving nothing; for the remainder went towards the gym membership which I had stalled until my younger brother's girlfriend put her foot down.

She joined the gym with me, and subsequently had more shifts at Duffer's; so I was alone.

There were treadmills which I stayed on, watching TVs mounted from afar, forcing to keep my legs moving, my gaze fixed. All around me were girls who were so fit and smiling it made me ache.

The changing room was not much better. I showered until my skin burned and my fingers wrinkled, and changed in a toilet cubicle.

I was aching all over when I left. On the few times my younger brother's girlfriend joined me, she went to a class with others doing jumping jacks to a high-beat soundtrack.

"You can't just do cardio," she berated me, when she drove us home later that night, "Aren't you bored of the treadmill?"

Truth was, I was bored of my fear, and how it kept me in place. I knew if I didn't change, I would never lose weight.

When I managed some spare change, it was for loose sweaters, for baggy pants, for sneakers. I hated my body. I hated looking in any reflection even the car window if I was a passenger.

I couldn't stand being outside or being social. I had a lot on my mind but I hated those silences, where someone would, during listening, look at me. I hated knowing what they were thinking. I hated that they couldn't spare my feelings.

My job would not change, would not evolve. People always needed their hair trimmed.

My brothers were usually out most days. My older brother had formed a band, and my younger brother had a collection of skate boards. My mom liked her gardening, her cooking, her sewing and her crafts. My dad collected coupons in a folder in his desk.

There came a steady wave of friends, from the popularity my brothers were gaining. There were girls from high school who had never talked to me, or if they had, with the most vivid part of my memory.

I felt hurt that they had ignored me for so long. It was by my brothers getting out and about that drew them here.

One night, when the back lawn was full of people, and paper cups and napkins littered everywhere, I was taking the rubbish out. I had come straight from my self defense course home, and my mother had rapped on the door that I not lock myself away, tugging on her dressing down as she went upstairs.

I was clanging the lid back on the bin when a girl, so beautifully made up as to surely have come from out of town, stared at me that I felt such a sickening pit in my stomach. I hated her judgement. I wished she would go away.

"I'm going to take him from you," she said.

I turned on my heel. Any sharp words made me cry. I had all night to dwell on my pain, but it would be later when I realised who she thought I was.