Bianca's Pants

The cursor on the screen was standing alone on the white page, blinking, and taunting me sarcastically..
“Go on. Do it. Write something good.”

I couldn’t think of anything though. The more I stared at the blank page, the more blank my mind became, and if I navigated away from it, I became distracted by other things.

I looked at my phone. Nothing. He still hadn’t texted back. What a tormentor he was. Constantly. Always making me wonder, making me wait. I became slightly uncomfortable as the famine in my stomach mixed with the butterflies that were building in stronger anticipation of his response. Enough of this.

I closed the computer and picked up my phone. I searched through my contacts and dialed “P”
I scrolled through the names:
Pam
Pandora
Paola
Papa Johns
until I got to “Paul.” I clicked the little green call button and awaited his answer. The phone rang four times and then went to voicemail.

“Hey what’s up? You’ve reached Paul. Leave me a message and I’ll give you a call back.”
I rolled my eyes and hung up, interrupting the woman at the end of the message who said “To leave a call-back number, press one! Or just wait for the tone.” I tossed the phone on the couch. Didn’t wanna talk to you anyway.

I paced around the living room, not used to feeling like there was nothing to do. Bianca interrupted me, and spoke too fast to notice my irritation. She faced the mirror.

“Like my new pants?!” she beamed.

I was surprised at the vivid purple color of the trousers that sat loosely on Bianca’s noticeably thinner hips. It was ironic that she would ask that question, because I was almost nauseous by how much I did not like those pants. They were so purple and dull, ‘weird’ is really the word. I thought to myself that no belt, no necklace, no accessory on Earth could salvage whatever appeal there was to these pants enough to actually wear them in public.

When I realized I hadn't said anything, I tried quickly to recover, blinking several times hoping to erase any rude facial expressions that I may have made in the hazy shock of my accidental disgust.

“Wow.” I blurted, meaning it.

Her smile remained and her eyebrows raised. She pursed her lips a little bit. Happiness was dancing all over her face.

Her sense of style was so off base. I stared at Bianca. Her Pocahontas-length hair was tied up in a large messy bun at the top of her head, pieces sticking out in every direction. Her shirt was blue and said something on it in pink, something I couldn‘t read because of the poor contrast in colors. The purple pants were just dying to be blue-jeans, normal, and she wore two different socks, one pink, and one striped green.

But everything about Bianca’s face was perfect. It was absolutely symmetrical. Her eyebrows were relaxed and expressional, her eyes were deep, unlike most people with dark eyes. Innocent when I looked into them, but a lot of young pain swam around in there. Her nose was faultlessly-shaped, not too big. And her lips were the same as the ones she had from infancy. Absolutely the same. Lightly pink, pouty usually, and the top one formed an arch like a dolphin. They were the perfect shape when she smiled.
In all her weird Dr. Suessly-inspired wardrobe, she was still the prettiest girl I knew. By miles...

“I just got them!” She looked down at the pants, smiling with immense gratification.

“They’re a little loose.” she added. It was a self-compliment, not a complaint.

“They look great, Bee.” I told her. What I meant was, ‘You look great.’

“What’s wrong?” she asked me, taking her eyes off the pants for the first time and now looking at me. She never missed a thing. Bianca’s face became vacant, not worried yet, but ready to be worried if my response begot concern.

“Nothing.” I said, my expression indifferent and unconvincing.

“Are you mad at Paul or something?” she dug.

“I just can’t think of something to write.” I nodded towards my laptop.

“Oh” she glanced at the TV which was on but muted.

“Can you take me to Adina’s?”

Apparently writer’s block did not precipitate much reason for concern.

“Um. I don’t know. I have to leave pretty soon.” I excused, thinking on my feet. Chauffeuring was one of my least favorite things to do.

“Okay.” she walked away, not a dose of anger or emotional at all dripped over her face.

“Sorry, Bee.”

“It’s okay.” she said in a monotone. Her easy acceptance of my decline made me feel bad, it made me know that this was something she was used to. Something she expected. She opened the refrigerator, though nothing interested her.

She was getting so thin, and it was great. I knew how body-conscious she had been feeling since she went through that odd spurt of weight gain last year, a spurt that I nor Angelina had never experienced, and certainly not Nicholas. All of us had always been slender, skinny, sometimes too skinny, and it was a little bit abnormal when we saw Bianca gain the weight.

My mom insisted she was just going through a phase, and she would soon get tall and stretch out. It took awhile, but that’s exactly what she did. Although when it did happen, when Bianca’s weight turned into height and her once fleshy, round face nearly withered away overnight, no one was relieved.
It became worry and alarm;

“Why is she losing so much weight? Is she eating?”

Poor girl. She‘s too big, she‘s too frail. She’s eating too much, she’s not eating.

I opened the computer and hoped the distraction cleaned away my thought-overload and cleared my head a bit.

There was the screen. White. And I didn’t write anything good.