At age eight, everyone in my family called me“Bread Belly.” At the time, the nickname made sense. I did eat a lot of it. My favorite dinner was penne, then called “pasta with lines,” with Prego meatsauce and powdered parmesan cheese out of a green cylindrical container. For breakfast I had wheat bagels with cream cheese. I used Cheerios as a vessel to scrape off the bulk. I ate only the bread with a white film of cheese left behind. I would only eat the rolls at barbecues.

Bread belly. It’s where all of this and more of my culinary creations were held. I accepted this as the most sensical title.

Walking in a single file line to elementary school gym class, I did not think about my protruding stomach. Nor did I analyze my forever locked knees turning out, or my concave posture. I didn’t tuck Bread Belly in. Instead, I dreaded whether I’d be forced to play kick ball in a smelly yellow penny shirt in front of my classmates.

And then in first grade, I heard a new name from one of my closest friends. This time it came in with a laugh and a playful shove: “chubby person.” “Chub,” for short. When my dad squeezed my sister’s baby arms and legs, he referred to her chub. Chub, a feature forming these soft pieces of a person. I had plenty of those. I don’t remember the exact moment I realized Bread Belly wasn’t something everyone had. But I do know that overtime, wearing graphic tees from The Children’s Place was no longer the norm. Neither were my tankinis I wore to waterparks with my GirlScout troop. When outfits started becoming more important, I progressed with the times. I was quick to get the latest boat shoe brand, in plain and purple accented patterns. I got the flannels, the Old Navy sweaters, the denim mini skirts. Though I copied to a T, there was still something throwing off the look.

Bread belly.

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Flatness was an integral piece of fashion. Apparently, it was a highly exclusive item. I couldn’t go to the mall and buy it. I couldn’t ask for it for Christmas. However much it cost, I didn’t have enough. Technically, I could do it if I really wanted to. That’s what my mom told me when I brought up the aesthetic properties of my stomach. “If you were to eat less bread, and exercise a bit more, you could probably take care of it.”

I thought about bread again. No, the cost was too expensive to get rid of Bread Belly. Outside of dance classes, I wasn’t a fan of exercise. I loved dancing and my studio community. We’d pile over one another in the corners of the studio, ripping open bags of colored leotards, asymmetrical dresses, sequins and sticky zippers. We squeezed into the outfits and returned to our starting poses, uniform in purpose and uniformed for performance. But looking in the mirror, once again I had an extra accessory. When the music began, I sucked Bread Belly in.

Sometimes the older girls would come in and show my class their dances, even their solos for competitions. Their leotards slimmed down instead of pronouncing their features. They moved with an ease I could never quite master. When they leaped, I wondered how they got their splits and how they could jump so high. I wondered if Bread Belly was holding me down. In middle and high school, sucking in became my new posture. The worst moments were forgetting. Sometimes mid-conversation I'd realize I was too relaxed and that I'd reverted to my unfortunate posture. This made Bread Belly too obvious. I'd quickly pull Bread Belly back in and (probably) draw even more attention to it.

On top of my own worries grew another layer of awareness: boys. Boys that carried plastic gallon jugs of water around school to meet hydration quotas for sports practice. They smelled, either of B.O., too much spray, or both. I loathed the boys who snorted crushed pretzels off the desks in Spanish class. I rolled my eyes at their constant disruptions. And yet, on walks to the bathroom, when boys passed me, I shoved Bread Belly back as far as it could go.

Then, there were the girls, the ones with flat stomachs. I gawked at them. They lived in a world of constant validation. They walked with perfect parallel feet and shoulders sitting back and proud. With every joke told, every story from the weekend executed, they were loud and lacked any hesitation. I knew I couldn’t be physically smaller like them, so I shrank back in other ways. Raising my hand was a risk. Speaking caused heads to turn.

Rebellion persisted in ways not requiring words. After a family dinner and swallowing my last bite, I didn’t pull out my phone. I didn’t open the fitness tracker app. I did not search the calories in one serving of meatballs. The sauce, onions, and seasonings did not dock points, and I would not measure this total up to the rest of my eating day. As I watched the rest of my family calculate values, I did not participate because if I did, I knew I would be in it for good.

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Attraction, romantic pursuit, and flirting were all for people who already had “the look” in their back pocket. It was a kind of certificate you couldn’t hold, but people knew you had it. While I was inexperienced, I understood this unspoken rule. I placed so much focus on blending in and presenting myself as unbothered that I didn’t participate in attraction or attracting. Besides a mildly homoerotic female friendship or two, I escaped high school just as inexperienced as I had entered it. However, I was determined to make college another story. When I selected my school, I paid extra attention to the student male-female ratio. If I was ever going to get married, these next four years would be the time to do it. I crossed my fingers that a semi-nerdy, clean-smelling, perfectly agreeable man would spawn. Preferably, he would have an affinity for Bread Bellies.

In practice, this gender ratio fixation passed quickly when the anxiety of making friends trumped marriage. Luckily, my roommate was a positive experience. In addition to being a great friend, she was gay and in a relationship. I listened to the couple talk and bicker on the phone. She and I watched movies together, films seemingly curated for closeted folk. She must have smelled it on me. We also both joined the college’s dance club.

I felt early on that this dance environment differed from my old home studio. We weren’t girls anymore. We were women. During rehearsals before the show, I watched the others dance their routines. This time, skin jiggled and arms reached out fuller and stronger. Our thighs varied in shape, stretching like mine when sitting on the ground. These especially caught my attention in more ways than one. Beyond my blushing cheeks, though, I looked and saw Bread Belly on someone else. In fact, a greater portion of the girls, no women, had it. When I saw Bread Belly in front of me instead of on me, it felt different. It felt like nature.

Like beauty.

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Before our first show, I stepped into my new black leotard. At first, I winced, wiggling up the tight fabric and straps over my shoulders. And then I looked in the mirror. My roommate turned around and broke into a smile. She exclaimed, “You do have a butt!”

I had never really looked at it before, but there it was. I felt… impressed? No. Pride. I turned more to the side and saw my other companion, Bread Belly. There she was, still prominent as ever. I touched her and then sucked in, twisting and turning in the mirror. But that wasn’t me: the girl in the mirror without my companion. I relaxed my breath and let Bread Belly return. She bounced back forward along with the memories of the best meals I’ve ever eaten. She was there for all my past performances, times when I didn’t have the concentration to suck in. She would be there again for this one. She was the closest thing to me in those hallways where the boys would walk by. And now, she was there when I looked at girls, breathless and beginning to understand why. These extra pieces of body were what I desired, and part of the reason why was because I had them.

I turned away from the mirror and grinned at my roommate. As we finished packing our bags of costumes and hairspray, I exhaled with my full Belly.

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