{"id":12952,"date":"2025-07-04T14:03:56","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T13:03:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=12952"},"modified":"2025-12-20T13:16:41","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T12:16:41","slug":"shaped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=12952","title":{"rendered":"Shaped"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Image: \u00a9 Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries<\/span><\/p>\n

i. The Bra\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

You were nine the first time your shape displeased you. The bra had been a present on Christmas. Absurd. You\u2019d wanted a doll. The bra was white and smelled like a grandmother\u2019s house. You were less than enthused when your mum showed you how to put it on properly. The clasps were awkward to reach at the back. It felt itchy and you folded your arms over your tiny chest and silently vowed that you\u2019d never wear it again. But then she hugged you and said, I can\u2019t believe how fast you\u2019re growing up<\/em>. And you liked that, you liked being her grown-up girl. You weren\u2019t a baby like your sister. You were growing up \u2013 a young lady \u2013 and you were so pleased that she could see that.<\/p>\n

In the changing room, you took off your red polo to replace it with the white one you wore for P.E, and you heard a snicker from Chelsea behind you. It started quiet, but then it got louder \u2013 Ashley, Sarah, then all the girls were giggling and pointing at something. At you<\/em>. At the bra. Because the bra was absurd. The bra smelled like a grandmother\u2019s house. You wanted to tell them that you needed to wear it, you were a young lady not a baby. They\u2019d have bras of their own soon, your mum had said. But they laughed over your words and your nipples itched and you tugged the polo shirt over your head and ran out without your shoes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

ii. Curvaceous <\/em><\/p>\n

You were fourteen when you realised that there was something wrong with you. You and your sister sat on your Mum\u2019s bed while she placed her white dress into a dust-proof cover. You loved her wedding dress almost as much as she did. Even though you had decided that weddings were patriarchal<\/em> and sick,<\/em> privately, you\u2019d loved going with her to the boutique downtown. All the lace and chiffon, the high neckline, the crystal buttons on the sleeves. Mum looked like a princess. She was so happy to be married again, and Larry was nice. You could put your hot takes on marriage aside for Mum and Larry.<\/p>\n

It would make me so happy if one of you girls wore my dress when you get married<\/em>, she said, running shiny red nails along the fabric. Then, she wrinkled her nose and said to you, Well perhaps not you. You\u2019re the wrong shape. You\u2019re so\u2026 curvaceous. This style dress would suit Abbie so much better. <\/em><\/p>\n

You\u2019d thought about that before. Your hips were too wide and your chest too big, it meant you had to wear a size too big for the rest of you. Your sister was tiny, ballerina small. You\u2019d always been a little afraid that there was something wrong with you, but nobody had ever come out and said it before. The word curvaceous <\/em>made you want to peel your own skin off. Tear chunks out of your arms and thighs, rip the skin back from your hips and hope to find someone like Abbie on the inside.<\/p>\n

But then Abbie shrugged and said, Nah<\/em>, I\u2019d never wear an ugly dress like this. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

iii. Angry Fat Girl Disease<\/em><\/p>\n

At seventeen, you decided that your thing was being mean, especially to boys.<\/p>\n

One night, curled up in a sleeping bag at a party, you overheard Matt and Tom talking about girls. Fat girls are more grateful<\/em>, they said. Jolly. Like you know\u2026 <\/em>You know they\u2019re talking about you, their whispers get quieter, they shift around, checking if you\u2019re awake. She\u2019d be\u2026 proper fit if she lost some of the heft. <\/em>Then they laughed amongst themselves and you thought comprehensively about sinking into the ground.<\/p>\n

It hurt because you\u2019d felt fat since forever<\/em>. Your outfits made you feel lumpy. A bag lady. You were so sick of fighting with Mum about your clothes. You\u2019re torn between wanting to cover yourself completely, and desperate to show that you aren\u2019t some gelatinous blob beneath your ankle length black skirts and shapeless black sweatshirts.<\/p>\n

After that night you decided that you weren\u2019t going to be jolly or nice or grateful for anything a boy said to you ever.<\/p>\n

Mum calls you curvaceous, voluptuous, shapely. <\/em>You feel bile rising in the back of your throat every time she says it. You want to scream. You\u2019re so tired of her trying to excuse it away. You take after your father\u2019s family. You have Grandma\u2019s ankles. You just gather weight in the wrong places. <\/em>Worst of all \u2013 Well, obviously, you\u2019ll never be Abbie\u2019s size. Your bones are shaped differently!<\/em><\/p>\n

You skip P.E to eat biscuits behind the old school greenhouse and mope. You\u2019ll never look how you want so what\u2019s the point in even trying. You scowl constantly. You always have an edgy comeback. You get so<\/em> good at picking out someone\u2019s insecurities instantly. Nobody is going to call you<\/em> jolly or grateful or anything.<\/p>\n

You get asked out by Dave from the caf\u00e9 where you both work on Saturdays. He\u2019s dorky and awkward and you and your co-workers all make fun of him behind his back. But one day after work, he asks you to go and see a disaster film with him at the cinema. He\u2019s nice about it, shy, nervous, trying to make it sound like it\u2019s no big deal, but you can see from the look on his face that this is very much a big deal, this is huge. And maybe a year or two ago, you\u2019d have been nice. You\u2019d have made up a boyfriend, a commitment to your exams, a strict mum who won\u2019t let you date. But you\u2019re a mean girl now, you\u2019re not grateful for his or anyone\u2019s attention. Sure you\u2019re not\u2026 Megan Fox levels of beautiful, but it should be obvious that you\u2019re several social stations above Dave.<\/p>\n

So you\u2019re not nice. You laugh like he\u2019s told you a joke. And when he gets mad, you tell him you\u2019d rather drink paint than be seen with him. You text the group chat about it. Everyone tells you that you\u2019re a riot, you\u2019re Stone-Cold-Steve-Austin.<\/p>\n

A week later Dave has handed in his notice and when you\u2019re taking the bins out at the back of the caf\u00e9, you overhear Ffion and Jake talking about you. At first, you think it\u2019s just about Dave. They\u2019re laughing about how weird he was, how glad they are he\u2019s gone. But then Ffion says that you are ridiculous levels of harsh<\/em>. Jake shrugs and says, Yeah, well, she\u2019s got angry fat girl disease, doesn\u2019t she? <\/em>Ffion snorts, What\u2019s that? <\/em>\u2013 You know, <\/em>he says, she\u2019s like\u2026 perpetually angry and mean because she\u2019s angry about being fat. Classic case. <\/em><\/p>\n

After that you realise that there\u2019s no way for you to be seen that doesn\u2019t revolve around your weight. If you were funny, you\u2019d be jolly<\/em>, if you were nice, you\u2019d be grateful, <\/em>if you\u2019re laid-back, you\u2019re a typical lazy fatso. <\/em>And if you\u2019re dry and sarcastic and mean, it\u2019s angry fat girl disease. <\/em><\/p>\n

There\u2019ll always be a label, there will always be someone laughing no matter who you were that day. You\u2019re still stuck.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re still you.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

iv. Lookalike <\/em><\/p>\n

The family GP tells your Mum that Abbie is severely under-weight. That night, you and Larry sit watching The Simpsons<\/em> while Abbie and Mum scream at each other in the dining room. It goes on for over an hour. Crying and shouting, something being thrown. Are you afraid of looking like your sister? <\/em>Larry turns the volume up and up and up but Mum keeps saying it and you don\u2019t want to hear her but she\u2019s shouting, she has<\/em> to shout over Abbie who screams Shutupshutupshutupshutupshutup <\/em>over and over again.<\/p>\n

After that, Abbie starts going to see a therapist once a week. There\u2019s a member of staff who watches her eat all of her lunch at breaktime, follows her and waits when she uses the bathroom. She gains a little weight, not much, but enough to keep everyone happy.<\/p>\n

You wait in the car with Mum while you\u2019re waiting for your sister to come out of her appointment one evening, and you try and confront her.<\/p>\n

Are you blaming me for Abbie being ill? <\/em>She tells you that your sister is having a tough time at the moment and she can\u2019t believe you\u2019d try and make that about you.<\/p>\n

The two of you sit in a frosty silence until she adds, Well<\/em>, maybe a diet would help. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

v. Freedom<\/em><\/p>\n

You love being away at university. You like living away from your mum. You reconnect with your dad on Facebook. You\u2019re having fun for the first time possibly ever. Of course, alcohol is the reason for this.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve been low-key drinking since you were fourteen \u2013 trashy Lambrini<\/em> with Carys, blue WKD and stolen beer at someone\u2019s terrible house party. But now you can drink legally. Now you can have as much as you want. You like to drink. You feel confident when you drink. You find that the only time you\u2019re not embarrassed in your own skin is when you drink.<\/p>\n

When you drink you can be laid-back without being lazy, you can be funny without being jolly, you can be mean without having angry fat girl disease, you can be nice without being grateful.<\/p>\n

You just wish that you felt the same way when you go to lectures. When you\u2019re sober you hate yourself all over again. You avoid people. You don\u2019t put your hand up in class. Sometimes you don\u2019t even go to class. You hate seminars where you can\u2019t blend into the background.\u00a0 You wait for that confidence to kick in, but it never does, does it?<\/p>\n

You\u2019re still you.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

vi. Pose<\/em><\/p>\n

You\u2019re sat on Mum\u2019s bed, helping her sort through old Christmas decorations. You\u2019re laughing about old times \u2013 where you used to think she hid the presents when you were little.<\/p>\n

While you\u2019re chatting, she finds an album of old photos. She gushes over you and Abbie as toddlers. You don\u2019t like looking at old pictures of yourself. You feel completely detached from the happy, bright-eyed little girl in Mum\u2019s album. You feel like you let her down, that little girl. You filled her insides with junk and lard and wiped that happy little smile right off her face. You made her ugly and gross and if she saw you, she\u2019d cry.<\/p>\n

But these photos make Mum happy, so you smile and tease Mum about her terrible 90s bob instead.<\/p>\n

Only at the end of the album, there\u2019s one photo from just a few years ago.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re fourteen, stood with Abbie at the beach facing the sea and you\u2019re thin. And that thought wrecks you because you remember <\/em>being fourteen. You remember<\/em> skulking around in shapeless black band t-shirts. You remember your double-chin, clutching at the flesh beneath your face, trying to push it up and up and up until you looked like everyone else. You remember hating yourself. But here it is, you at fourteen, you can see your long slim legs and arms, your stomach is on show. You were fine, but you thought you were a lost cause. You let yourself rot because you believed there would never be a way to feel good in your own skin.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re twenty, but your body feels like a fat suit you\u2019re stuck inside. Lumps of gelatine clogging up your throat, strangling the words out of you.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s okay, because your mum always knows what not to say \u2013 You were so slim back then. Such a shame, eh? <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

vii. LOYL<\/em><\/p>\n

Clark is the love of your life. His positivity cancels out your negativity. You had decided that love was patriarchal, and you had no interest in becoming an unpaid cook, housekeeper and bedwarmer to some idiot man.<\/p>\n

Clark surprised you and you became the clich\u00e9 you hated. He\u2019s perfect, from the curl in his hair to his hairy hobbit feet. He\u2019s quick to laugh and never worries about looking stupid for not getting the joke.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t know what he sees in you.<\/p>\n

This is where it all falls apart. You wince when he tells you that you\u2019re beautiful. You get angry with him when he tells you that he loves how you look. You hate eating in front of him. You take 100 attempts to take a nice photo together because you will only let yourself be photographed from a certain angle.<\/p>\n

Then you agree to meet Clark\u2019s parents and that\u2019s worse. Because you see the disappointed look pass between his parents. They wanted their little Romeo to bring home Juliet, not Juliet\u2019s<\/em> Nurse. They make polite conversation about your course, your friends, your life, but you can see their eyes glaze over. You imagine them ten years\u2019 time, joking around with Clark\u2019s new girlfriend about Clark\u2019s fat fetish back in university.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A week later the two of you get into a fight about nothing in particular and you break up with him. You do it shouting and vicious and you scream It\u2019s over <\/em>at him when he stands there, stunned. He\u2019s heartbroken and you sneer in his face and tell him that you\u2019re just giving him the chance to impress Mummy and Daddy by bringing home someone suitable<\/em>.<\/p>\n

You end your relationship with the only person who has ever loved you, without ever finding out what he saw in you.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

viii. Cut-Out <\/em><\/p>\n

You start to think of your body as a fat suit. Once, drunk and unhappy, you get a red felt-tip pen and you draw yourself thin. You draw legs onto your legs, half the size, slim and beautiful. You know just what to leave out. Someone could cut you \u2013 the ideal you \u2013 out with your directions. Chop off this excess fat. You stand naked in front of your bedroom mirror and admire yourself. How beautiful you could be if there was only half of you. You press your fingers in hard enough to bruise. You dig in and find your joints under the mush of flesh.<\/p>\n

After you wash the red ink from your body, you feel itchy and sore from scrubbing. You curl up with your laptop, hair still damp from the shower and you google cheap plastic surgery. You don\u2019t even know where to begin. It\u2019s not a matter of a tummy tuck, a breast reduction, a face-lift. You want it all gone. You want to just press undo on your body and have them start you from scratch.<\/p>\n

You\u2019d take care of this one. You\u2019d diet. You\u2019d exercise. You wouldn\u2019t let men treat you the way you do now, you\u2019d demand respect.<\/p>\n

You\u2019d look people in the eye. You\u2019d smile. You\u2019d chat. You\u2019d do all that \u2013 easy! You\u2019d want<\/em> to take care of you.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

ix. Graduation<\/em><\/p>\n

At your graduation dinner, you upset your Mum by telling her that you\u2019re moving to Swansea to live with Dad. The two of you get into a screaming match in the restaurant toilets. She slaps your face \u2013 something she hasn\u2019t done before \u2013 you stand there in shocked silence. She apologises and you tell her that you will never ever forgive her.<\/p>\n

The next day, Mum stays in the car when Larry and Abbie come and say goodbye. Larry has a sad look on his face when he gives you a hug and says Keep in touch, kiddo. We\u2019ll miss you at home<\/em>. You tell Abbie that she\u2019d be welcome to come and stay with you and Dad whenever she wants. She shrugs her shoulders resigned, Thanks but no thanks, he\u2019s basically a stranger, I wouldn\u2019t be comfortable. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

x. Being Good<\/em><\/p>\n

Her name is Laura-May and you\u2019ve started to wish that she\u2019d just die. The small accounting company you both work for hired her after your far superior colleague, Ellie, went on maternity leave in October. Before Laura-May, the office was a nice place.<\/p>\n

But then they hired Laura-May and now you\u2019d jump in traffic if it meant you\u2019d never have to see her again.<\/p>\n

Laura-May is a size 10 at the most but thinks she\u2019s enormous. She tells everyone that she used <\/em>to be \u2013 you\u2019ve checked through her Facebook, she wasn\u2019t. Ever.<\/em><\/p>\n

Laura-May started the tradition of ordering from the deli on Friday. Fat Friday<\/em>, she calls it. Soon everyone is asking you if you\u2019re up for Fat Friday<\/em> and you find that familiar urge to peel your own skin off. Once on a night out, Laura-May places her bony hand on your arm and asks if it\u2019s alright to call it Fat Friday<\/em>, you\u2019re not offended, are you?<\/p>\n

You smile and report any mistakes Laura-May makes to your manager. You daydream about her being arrested for fraud or arson.<\/p>\n

The truly sad thing in this is that you are<\/em> dieting. You\u2019re replacing lunches with a food supplement shake that tastes of baby sick. You skip breakfast, have a baby-sick lunch, and then head home to a small grilled chicken breast and green peas.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

xi. My Big Girl<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s awkward at Abbie\u2019s graduation, but you put that aside. Today isn\u2019t about you. Sure, you haven\u2019t spoken to your mum in four years. But you promised Abbie that you\u2019d be civil.<\/p>\n

You mull over every way this reunion with Mum could go badly. You panic and calm down and panic again. You enter the Arts Centre and spot her at the top of the stairs. She looks older, more grey hairs and glasses \u2013 she was always way too proud to wear her glasses before. She\u2019s holding Larry\u2019s hand, glancing around nervously. You realise that she\u2019s just as afraid of seeing you as you are of her. She seems very human in that moment and you\u2019re struck by how much you want to run to her.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When she sees you, her eyes water and she yanks you into a tight hug. You blink fast to try and stop yourself from crying and ruining your mascara.<\/p>\n

Gosh there\u2019s my big girl! <\/em>she says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

xii. Hank Marvin<\/em><\/p>\n

You fall off a treadmill at the gym and walk away with a split lip. As you sit with an ice pack in the staff room, one of the tiny blonde personal trainers asks in a quiet, kind voice, if you\u2019ve eaten today.<\/p>\n

You open your mouth to answer, to explain about your bottle of baby-sick and your grilled chicken breast waiting for you back home, but your split lip starts to sting and suddenly you realise there are tears running down your cheeks.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

xiii. Thirty Years of Fatness <\/em><\/p>\n

You share a bottle of wine with Abbie on the last night of her visit. She\u2019s ripped the label off so you can\u2019t try and count the calories. She tells you that she loves you, but she\u2019s worried about leaving you. You tell her that you\u2019ll be fine but see right away that neither of you are convinced. She rests her head on your shoulder and the two of you stay like that for a while.<\/p>\n

You close your eyes and wonder how long you\u2019ve wasted hating yourself. How you mull over every encounter of your existence and how different it would have been if you were thin. You think about that reset button so much that at times it feels close enough to touch.<\/p>\n

Then you say it, you say it out loud: I\u2019ve ruined my life<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Your sister asks you why, she very slowly and kindly lists all the amazing things about you, all the things she admires. And you start to cry because everything she values in you feels fake. All of it seems fake. You aren\u2019t strong, you aren\u2019t smart, you aren\u2019t kind. You hate yourself so much. You\u2019re wrecked your body beyond true repair. You want to scrub out your life and start again, even if it meant erasing the good.<\/p>\n

Why, <\/em>she asks, why does how you look matter that much? <\/em>And that\u2019s so unfair because it\u2019s not just women gathered in an office kitchen moaning about the wait for cheat day, it\u2019s not that permanent media-driven misogynistic dissatisfaction with shape, it\u2019s not about wanting to look like a model or an actress or someone with limitless access to fucking Ozempic. This is your daily horror that you live in this body. The urge to squirm if you catch your reflection in the mirror. The fact that people are aware of your biggest fear all the time, people have an opinion on you right away: lazy or fat or greedy. You stopped going to the doctors after every issue you brought to their attention was somehow looped back to your weight. Depressed? Lose weight. Insomnia? Try losing weight. Suicidal thoughts? Oh I bet if you lost some weight, you\u2019d be much more cheerful.<\/em> And there\u2019s something else as well, there\u2019s always the fear that in ten years\u2019 time you\u2019ll see a photograph of yourself as you are now, age thirty, and you\u2019ll realise that you were actually fine. It wasn\u2019t as bad as you thought at the time. And it\u2019ll make you want to die because that\u2019s three generations of your life gone. You\u2019ve wasted your whole life hating yourself.<\/p>\n

She tells you to get help. You start ranting about how much you hated going to Slimming World<\/em>, about how you tried to get help before and nobody would help you, no-one! She tells you it won\u2019t be like that again, but it will. You know it will.<\/p>\n

Do you want to try something? <\/em>Abbie says after a while. You shrug and wipe your eyes. She tells you that the psychologist she used to see when she was underweight, had her write a letter to herself. He said I had to include all the worries I had, all the bad things I thought about myself in that letter, so I did. I wrote about how much I hated myself, I wrote about how I couldn\u2019t look at myself in the mirror. But then he told me to picture reading the letter to myself. I told him that would be easy. So he told me to imagine reading the letter to version of myself who last felt comfortable in her own skin. At the time, that would have been me at age ten. <\/em>You don\u2019t want to do that; you hate looking at the happy little girl you used to be enough. Try it, <\/em>Abbie says, try writing that letter to the you who liked herself. I thought it would be easy, but it wasn\u2019t. Try it. For me, as a first step. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 xix. Dear Rebecca,<\/em><\/p>\n

How\u2019s it going? How\u2019s school? This is Thirty-Year-Old-You and I\u2019m writing you this letter because I\u2019m not doing so great-<\/span><\/p>\n

I know you\u2019re excited about growing up, but for now, you should try and enjoy being eight years old for as long as you can because you\u2019ll never get this time back and <\/span><\/p>\n

Listen, Rebecca, I know you\u2019re excited about growing up. I know right now when you think about the future, you think you\u2019ll be a genius inventor or a lawyer, you think you\u2019ll be married with three children. Happily married, not like Mum and Dad. I\u2019m sorry, kiddo, but I\u2019ve let you down-<\/span><\/p>\n

Biggest piece of future advice – don\u2019t listen to your Mum, please. She\u2019s going to tell you you\u2019re shaped differently, your bones or whatever. It\u2019s bollocks. It\u2019s complete lies. You\u2019re going to believe her and hate yourself until you\u2019re as big as a house and then that woman is going to have the nerve to tell you that losing weight in your thirties is so much harder than as a teenager-<\/span><\/p>\n

You\u2019ll let yourself get treated so badly that when someone does love you, you\u2019ll respond to every kind word like it\u2019s acid in your ear. You\u2019re so fundamentally broken that you only know how to accept relationships that are bad for you-<\/span><\/p>\n

You diet and you diet and nothing changes. You\u2019re paranoid that everyone around you is judging you for your weight. You don\u2019t get that promotion at work because you decide the boss has already decided that you\u2019re lazy and unmotivated. How couldn\u2019t she think that? You can\u2019t even drop a dress size all the way-<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to let you down so many times and I-<\/span><\/p>\n

You\u2019re a such a sweet girl. Seriously, you\u2019re so kind. I know you want to think that you\u2019re mature and sophisticated but being kind is good too. Remember how you used to sneak into Abbie\u2019s room when Mum and Dad were fighting and play that Disney CD so she wouldn\u2019t hear and get upset? And I know your Mum is going through the worst heartbreak of her life right now. You\u2019re so gentle with her. In a year or two, when Larry comes onto the scene, you\u2019re never difficult about it. You accept him and Mum won\u2019t ever tell you but that meant the world to her. You have such a big heart. I\u2019m so sorry I didn\u2019t protect it better. I wish I could properly tell you that you\u2019re beautiful. You\u2019re smart and funny and bright. You deserve respect. You deserve to be treated kindly. There\u2019s nothing wrong with you inside and out. I know there are going to be times ahead where you hate<\/span> really don\u2019t like how you look. But please remember that your body is you. It\u2019s your home, not your prison. Don\u2019t let go of yourself. Keep holding onto us and I promise I\u2019ll do the same.<\/p>\n

Stay with me, girl. We\u2019ve got this.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

____<\/p>\n

Rachael Llewellyn<\/strong> (she\/her) is the author of two novels and a collection of short stories. Her short fiction has appeared in anthologies and journals, including Divinations Magazine, Crow & Cross Keys and Polari Press. She is currently a PhD candidate at Swansea University working on her thesis on trauma and memory in folklore. In 2019 she was awarded a Francis W Reckitt Grant. She lives in South Wales with her husband and their rescue cat.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image: \u00a9 Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries i. The Bra\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You were nine the first time your shape displeased you. The bra had been a present on Christmas. Absurd. You\u2019d wanted a doll. The bra was white and smelled like a grandmother\u2019s house. 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The Bra\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You were nine the first time your shape displeased you. The bra had been a present on Christmas. Absurd. You\u2019d wanted a doll. The bra was white and smelled like a grandmother\u2019s house. 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