Six Rules to Lose Ten Pounds in Five Days

Excerpt

1. Eat Slowly.

The hallway between classes is dense with uniforms and morning sweat by the time Kenna finds you, and she’s vulgarly radiant, a slice of emptiness in the gap between her thighs. Three classrooms away from Anatomy, she tells you she saw an agent yesterday.

Like for modeling? you ask, and a dark worm writhes in your throat when she nods.

Don’t be surprised. Limber, beautiful Kenna, your size-zero best friend, taut and small enough for all the boys to watch her with starving eyes. Even in the ugly uniform skirt, her legs stretch up to heaven.

Words are sliding from her mouth, voicemails you won’t listen to, telling you to come to castings and meet her agent and model with her. You shouldn’t be jealous.

But as you walk, you feel the fat on your thighs swaying, bouncing. God, when did you get so big? 120 pounds? What’s in a pound? 3,500 calories, 0.45 kilograms of fat. Sixteen years of overindulgence.

Jenny Hu

Jenny Hu (she/her) is an incoming freshman at Brown University. An alum of the Iowa Young Writers Studio and the Adroit Summer Mentorship, her work is forthcoming in or has been recognized by Split Lip, Bayou Magazine, and the New York Times, among others.

Patrick Ryan on “Six Rules to Lose Ten Pounds in Five Days”

There’s a terrific, chilling moment in our new issue of One Teen Story when the narrator acts out and is then asked by her mother if she’s okay. Show her your teeth, the narrator instructs herself, and tell yourself it’s a smile.

“Six Rules to Lose Ten Pounds in Five Days” is a story about body image, about friendship, about parenting and secrets and lies. It’s a story that takes us into the mind of a teenage girl crowded with external voices, including those of her thin and judgmental mother and her best friend, who’s on the road to becoming a supermodel.

The voice of the story couldn’t be more intimate. The loneliness is palpable. What I especially admire about the line I’ve quoted above is its complex layering of imperatives: Show her your teeth, and tell yourself it’s a smile. This line, I think, is a perfect encapsulation of the dynamics at the heart of the story: the painful process that goes into sculpting external appearances—contorting bodies to fit societal expectations of feminine beauty—the immense emotional and physical labor that goes into maintaining this “mask,” and the revealing moments when that mask threatens to slip.

Jenny Hu is one of the winners of the 2022 Teen Writing Contest, and One Teen Story is proud to be presenting “Six Rules to Lose Ten Pounds in Five Days” to our readers. Written by a talented new voice, it’s a story that packs an emotional wallop.