All the Lies - Charlotte Byrd Page 0,20

that I’m about to post.”

I open the door and reluctantly let her in.

The picture is of her sitting on one of the loungers in front of the pool, earlier in the day. She's lying on her side and has an inquisitive and flirty expression on her face.

Brooke is plus-sized. I'm not exactly sure what size she wears now, but she's a good twenty pounds heavier than I am.

“Are you showing me this to make me feel bad?” I ask, looking at how she spreads herself out in the picture.

“Feel bad? Why?”

“You look fucking hot.” She’s so full of confidence, it just makes me want to cry. Not only did I just get cheated on, but I will also probably never look as beautiful as she does in that picture.

“You’re just saying that,” she says, rolling her eyes and shrugging her shoulders.

Dressed in a yellow floral print dress that accentuates all of her ample assets, she looks like a goddess. Lindsey is pretty, tall, thin, and everything that the media will tell you an attractive girl is supposed to look like, but it's Brooke who is drop dead gorgeous.

“I told you,” Brooke says. “You can't listen to Mom. Lindsey means well, but she's clueless. They both have no idea what kind of world we are living in.”

“Excuse me?” Mom walks up to us and clears her throat. “Are you actually advising my child not to listen to me?”

She likes to say that kind of thing to get under our skin and it works every time.

Mom glances at Brooke’s phone. Brooke clicks through some of the photos, stopping on the last one where she is lying on her back with her legs spread out. She shows it to Mom, specifically to gauge her level of shock. If she isn't appalled enough, then there's no way that she will be posting it.

Mom doesn't take the bait and instead says, “Honey, you know that I think that you are beautiful, right? No matter what you're wearing or how you are putting yourself out there.”

Then to put the nail in the coffin, she goes over and presses her lips to Brooke’s forehead for a kiss.

Brooke looks angry, but I wait.

If Mom adds a “but” or any other kind of qualifier to that statement then Mom remains the judgmental, old-fashioned, and out of touch person that we both know that she is. But if she leaves it at that…then Mom wins.

“Okay, I will leave you two alone. I know that you have a lot to talk about,” Mom says and my mouth drops open.

Brooke is fuming, but her anger is just below the surface. She runs a website promoting body acceptance for women of all sizes. But what strangers don’t know is that she also does it to get a rise out of Mom.

“Wow, is this how it's going to be? Does Mom finally get it after all this time?” she asks when Mom gets out of earshot.

“You know, honey,” Mom says, tucking her head back into the room. “In my day, women tried to find the most flattering clothes they could because we all knew we had our imperfections, no matter our size.”

There.

It happened.

It finally fucking happened.

Mom hasn't changed at all. She just learned how to bite her tongue and stay in her lane.

I work my eyes over to Brooke, who unlike me, has never been particularly shy in keeping her mouth shut.

I admire her greatly for that, something that I rarely say out loud.

In fact, it’s something that I have never told her.

“There are no such things as flattering or unflattering clothes,” Brooke says, crossing her arms. “There are clothes that I want to wear and there are clothes that I don't want to wear. I'm choosing to embrace all parts of me and love me for who I am. I’m not going to spend my days hating myself and killing myself with diet pills.”

My mom is about to say something else when Brooke cuts her off again.

“In my day, Mom, women realize that all bodies are beautiful and that we can wear whatever the hell we want.”

With that, Brooke drops the metaphorical mic and walks out of the bathroom, shutting the door in Mom’s face.

I realize in this moment that I have never admired my sister more. She has always been the one to speak her mind and to challenge authority, but this is exactly the kind of courage that I needed to see today.

Mom wants me to be quiet.

She wants me to