She stares down at her plate, at the homemade chicken and dumplings steaming in the bowl before her. The smell wafts up into her nose, warm and savory. On any normal day, she would be eating such a nice meal without a care in the world.
But alas, today is not a normal day.
Her chubby cheeks, a prominent feature since childhood, puff out with the food she’s stuffed into them. Her eyes are red and watery, tears streaming down her face in a steady trail. She tries her best to hide her sniffles, shoveling another dumpling into her mouth despite the half-chewed chicken still tucked inside her cheeks in an attempt to stop her crying, it fails as another stifled wail escapes her.
She glances shamefully at her mother, who appears largely unbothered by her crying, save for the slight annoyance creeping into her expression. Bonnie discreetly wipes at her nose, trying to keep the snot and tears from dripping onto her plate. She can practically taste the salt of her tears mixing with the seasoning of the food, making an already savory meal unbearably salty.
She knows she should be grateful. Her mother made her dinner, after all. It\'s a nice meal. A homemade meal. The kind of thing she ought to appreciate.
But after all the yelling that happened an hour ago, she doesn\'t feel much like eating.
She wishes her dad were here.
It\'s her day with her mother, she knows that. She knows she can\'t just have her dad whenever she wants him, but God, she wants him now. She always wants him after she and her mother fight. Not to complain, not to tattle, not even to tell him what happened. She just wants to hug him.
She wants to feel warm again.
Instead, she sits there feeling cold and pathetic, her stupid face all swollen and puffy. She\'s never liked the baby fat in her cheeks, the way it makes her look younger than she is. Now, with her face all scrunched up from crying, they must look like balloons. She can\'t even bring herself to swallow. Her mouth is still full, her throat tight, and all she can do is sit there and cry.
And then she feels bad for crying.
She feels bad for not eating.
She feels bad for feeling bad when she has a perfectly good meal sitting in front of her.
It\'s a stupid, endless cycle, and she can\'t seem to make herself stop.
Apparently, her tear-streaked face and swollen cheeks have finally gotten on her mother\'s nerves. The woman rolls her eyes.
\"You didn\'t do anything bad, Bonnie. Stop crying.\"
Bonnie\'s face burns.
Somehow, that makes everything worse.
Because if she didn\'t do anything bad, then why did her mother yell at her earlier?
Was she really being silly? Was she really so pathetic that she couldn\'t even sit through dinner without making a scene? Why was it so hard to eat? Why was it so hard to just be normal?
She already couldn\'t seem to be good enough. Why did her body have to be so weak, too? Why did it have to betray her like this, turning her into a crying, sniffling mess when all she wanted was to stop?
She never wants to cry.
Her dad always tells her that it\'s okay to cry when she feels like it, that there\'s nothing wrong with letting it out. But Bonnie has never really understood that. How could it possibly be okay to do something that makes you feel so small? So helpless? So embarrassingly weak?
Especially when you\'re sitting at the dinner table, cheeks stuffed full of food, tears running down your face, trying desperately to swallow a dumpling while your mother watches you like you\'re being ridiculous.
God, she wishes she could just stop crying.