He talks about just embracing yourself, about being a work in progress. Markus, who has moved around A LOT and is mostly content just being his own person and not trying to fit in, is surprisingly open with Will, who is not giving him much to work with for friendship. And when he meets a potential new friend, Markus, he’s really forgotten how to interact with anyone. He swings between denying himself food and bingeing on food. And, frankly, and painfully, he seems to hate himself most of the time. Now three years later, he’s used to hiding, trying to stay invisible, being uncomfortable. He withdraws himself, pulling away from his friends and really just getting lost in his notebooks full of drawings. All he seems around him are skinny people. It haunts him, the way the classmate spat “you’re fat” at him. It’s probably safe to say we’ve all been made to feel horrible by someone, horrible about something we can’t change, some fact of ourselves, some trait. He doesn’t have this stuff floating around his brain, ready to help him. Maybe we’d say that Will should shake it off, we’d give some pep talk about self-esteem or about letting other people make you feel bad. In 2023 and especially as adults, we might want to start in on some lecture that there is nothing inherently bad about the word “fat,” that it’s just a descriptor, that there’s of course nothing wrong with being fat. Will’s entire sense of self falls apart starting in 4th grade when a classmate meanly tells Will he’s fat.
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