Chapter 1

I'm the head cheerleader for the Westbrook High football team.

I couldn't walk through the front gate without a crowd closing in around me, and one candid photo could set the entire school message board on fire.

Then I woke up one morning inside the body of the two-hundred-pound girl in my class, the one everybody called ugly. Our souls had traded places.

She sent me a message.

[Your good days are over, Corinna Vale.]

[And let me be clear, this swap is permanent. From today on, everything people ever envied you for belongs to me!]

[As for you, go rot in that body for me!]

But I looked at the girl in the mirror and laughed out loud.

She had only seen the shine on the outside.

She had no idea I'd paid for that beauty with my life.

From the age of six, every meal I ate was a diet plan measured out to the gram.

To keep my figure, I was put on an operating table and had a rib taken out.

I could still picture the ugly looks on my parents' faces.

To them I was not a daughter.

I was a pretty piece of merchandise to be sold to a rich family.

I tightened my grip on the phone.

She wanted to use my face to steal my boyfriend, take my place in my family, and turn me into a joke.

But I had no intention of letting her have any of it.

Getting beautiful and fit again was only a matter of time for me.

But that hollowed-out body and that loveless family were hers for life.

Chapter 1

I turned off the phone, rushed into the bathroom, and studied the girl in the mirror.

In the glass, rolls of fat shifted on her stomach and her skin was rough.

But her body was healthy.

All her ribs were intact, and her chest rose and fell normally.

Her knees carried a lot of weight, but they had not been deformed by years in high heels.

I stared at the mirror and the tears came.

"This is amazing..."

So this was what it felt like to be healthy: breathing without pain under my ribs.

So this was a normal life: eating until I was full without having to make myself throw up.

A girl didn't have to hurt her body just to please other people.

There was a knock at the door.

"Eleanor, are you awake?"

Eleanor's mother, Marianne Brooks, pushed the door open with bread and warm milk in her hands.

When she saw I was crying, she set the tray down.

"Does something hurt? I'll take you to the hospital!"

She pulled me into her arms and put a hand on my forehead.

I froze.

The day my fever hit 106 degrees, my mother, Vivian Vale, summoned the family doctor, but not because she was worried.

There was a dinner that night, and she was afraid a hospital stay would keep me from meeting the right people.

And yet the mere sight of her daughter crying frightened Marianne this much.

I held her hand and said quietly, "Mom, I'm fine."

Hearing me say it, her own tears spilled over.

"How long has it been since you called me that?"

She wiped her eyes and pushed the breakfast toward me.

"Is it still the people online, saying those things about you?

"Those little bitches have filthy mouths. I don't read any of it. As long as you're happy, you can be as big as you like and you're still my baby."

Something in my chest went tight.

So Eleanor had the one thing I wanted all along.

She just didn't think it was worth anything.

The phone buzzed again. I opened it.

Eleanor had sent a selfie.

In it, she was wearing my face and my nightgown, smiling wide.

[Your parents sent a gown over for me, and Carl came to pick me up for dinner.]

[Corinna, are you going insane with jealousy yet?]

I looked at that familiar face in the photo and laughed softly.

She thought she'd stepped into heaven.

She had no idea that the pretty shell she was wearing had rotted through a long time ago.

I didn't answer her again.

I picked up the sausage sandwich and took a bite.

The savory flavor filled my mouth.

I ate in big bites, like someone who had never tasted anything good in her life.

Eighteen years.

This was the first time in my life I'd eaten a sausage sandwich without hiding.

Chapter 2

In the afternoon I went to the hospital for a physical.

The doctor studied the report, then explained, "Your weight is far above the healthy range, but the main problem is insulin resistance.

"Years of taking weight-loss drugs without medical supervision have thrown your metabolism off.

"Follow the diet and exercise plan, complete the treatment, and you have every chance of recovering."

I had barely nodded before he added, "At your current weight, don't do anything reckless.

"Get healthy first. Then take the weight off slowly."

There were two months left before school resumed at Westbrook High.

I had never planned on any extreme method. All I wanted was a healthy body.

I left the hospital and found a registered dietitian, just as the doctor recommended.

She wrote me a detailed meal plan.

Looking at portions half again as big as anything I used to eat, I couldn't help smiling.

Vivian used to plan diet meals for me too.

Half an egg for breakfast, four lettuce leaves at noon, a glass of milk cut with water at night.

If the number on the scale didn't drop, I was locked in the home gym until it did.

The dietitian said matter-of-factly, "Don't starve yourself, and don't try to drop dozens of pounds in a month.

"You're trying to get healthier, not kill yourself."

My eyes went hot. I nodded and said, "Okay."

When I got home, Marianne looked at the meal plan and protested, "Chicken breast isn't half as good as thighs. Don't starve yourself into the ground." Even so, she went out the next morning and bought me fresh ingredients.

Eleanor's father, Ray Brooks, went even further.

The day he heard I wanted to exercise, he bought a treadmill and hauled it home for me.

"Take it slow, baby. Even if you never lose a pound, we love you."

I looked at the two of them and almost cried.

Eleanor, you idiot.

You had parents this good, and you were ashamed of them.

Chapter 3

On the first day of training, I lasted only fifteen minutes on the treadmill.

My back was soaked, my heart was slamming, and my legs shook so badly I could hardly stand.

The trainer told me to stop. I said, "Five more minutes."

Every time I used to run, Vivian stood behind me holding a digital scale.

Now I was free, and each step felt steadier than the last.

When the fifteen minutes were up, I held on to the treadmill and caught my breath.

I smiled at the girl in the mirror with her hair stuck to her forehead with sweat.

"Eleanor. Day one, done."

For the next two weeks I walked fast every morning and did basic strength work every afternoon.

My conditioning was terrible.

Five squats and my legs gave out. Ten seconds of a plank and my knees quit.

I didn't grit my teeth and push through. When it hurt, I rested. When I was hungry, I ate.

The scale moved slowly, but my waist came down a solid two and a half inches.

Two weeks later, someone from the school group chat sent me a DM.

[Hey, fat girl, I hear you got a gym membership? Is that for real?]

Right after that, a photo someone had taken without my permission appeared in the school group chat.

It was me in workout clothes, drenched in sweat, hauling myself along on the treadmill.

The chat filled up with people laughing at me.

[Eleanor, look at the state of you.]

[How does the gym even let her in? Aren't they afraid she'll break the equipment?]

[At her size, what's even the point of trying to lose weight? Will she manage two pounds before school starts?]

Then one of the cheerleaders tagged "Corinna" on purpose.

[What do you think, head cheerleader?]

A few seconds later Eleanor showed up, wearing my name.

She posted a laughing emoji first, then followed it with two messages dripping with fake concern.

[Leave her alone, everybody. It's impressive that she has the willpower.]

[But you can't rush losing weight. Don't wreck your health trying to catch up to me.]

Someone jumped in immediately.

[Catch up to you? Like that? Not in a hundred years.]

[Our head cheerleader is too nice. She'll even stick up for someone like that.]

Eleanor sent me a DM, pleased with herself.

[See that? All your effort is a joke to everyone else.]

[Six weeks until you're back at school. I can't wait to watch you humiliate yourself.]

I didn't argue. I muted the chat and started making my meal.

You don't change your body by talking about it.

In six weeks they would see it for themselves.

I dropped the shrimp into the pot and set the timer.

The mirror gave me back my heavy body.

I touched my own face in the glass.

I said firmly, "Don't rush. This time, I'm walking into Westbrook High with confidence."

Chapter 4

For the remaining six weeks, I stayed out of the class group chat.

They still dragged me out to laugh at me now and then. I never answered.

Every morning at first light I went downstairs and walked.

Half an hour at first, then an hour, then two.

Strength work in the afternoon, skin care and posture work at night.

It was only after the weight started coming off that I realized Eleanor wasn't ugly.

She had naturally good features. She was simply heavy and covered in acne, and that was enough for people to mock her.

When she smiled, she had dimples.

After one month I had lost thirty-three pounds.

My insulin numbers were normal and my knees had stopped aching.

In the second month, I focused on building muscle and definition.

The muscle memory from more than ten years of dance came back to me even in this body.

I stood in front of the mirror and ran the basic dance drills over and over.

Marianne saw me and thought something was wrong with me.

"Baby, why are you standing pressed against the wall like that?"

"Posture training."

She circled around me, laughing. "My baby is beautiful. You look like a movie star."

I couldn't help laughing.

A sincere compliment. I'd never had one before.

When I took gold at a dance competition, Vivian had only said coldly, "Don't think winning one award gives you the right to be proud."

And now the smallest improvement was enough to make someone genuinely happy for me.

The week before school started, I went back to the hospital.

A hundred and forty-five pounds.

Fifty-five pounds in just under two months.

The weight had come off fast, but every health marker was still in the normal range.

The doctor read the report and smiled.

"Keep it up."

At home I stood in front of the mirror and looked at myself for a long time.

I still wasn't what they would call thin.

There was soft flesh at my waist, and my upper arms were no longer thin enough to encircle with one hand.

But the girl in the mirror had color in her skin and light in her eyes.

That was what beauty really looked like.

That night a poll popped up in the school group chat.

[Vote for this year's head cheerleader.]

There were only two candidates.

Eleanor.

Corinna.

The people who had laughed at me came swarming back.

[Eleanor? She thinks she belongs on the same list as Corinna?]

[They're not even in the same league.]

[I'm not voting for Eleanor. She'll embarrass our whole school at the competition!]

They all said they weren't voting for me, and my count shot to first anyway.

Under the rules, whoever received the most votes had to organize homecoming once school started and choreograph the new cheer routine.

Eleanor, still wearing my name, sent me a DM.

[Do you like the surprise I set up for you?]

[I had someone add you to the ballot specially.]

[Homecoming gets streamed to the whole school. The second you step out, everyone will watch a two-hundred-pound pig try to dance.]

[You wanted to compete with me, didn't you? I'm giving you the chance.]

Right after that she sent a photo.

A long gold gown, with a twenty-one-inch waist.

It was the couture piece the woman who used to be my mother had ordered for the opening ceremony.

But the Eleanor in that photo didn't look well in it.

She was thinner than she had been two months ago.

Her cheeks were hollow, her face almost skeletal, and exhaustion filled her eyes.

So the last two months had clearly been treating her well.

I was about to close the chat when another message came through.

[Carl's getting ready for the game too. Want to guess whether he'll be disgusted when he sees you like that?]

I looked at the screen and smiled, then hit the button and cast a vote for "Eleanor."

I sent her a message.

[Thanks for putting me onstage.]

She kept demanding to know what I meant. I didn't explain.

On the first day of school, Marianne insisted on taking me shopping.

I changed into a forest-green high-waisted tank and an A-line skirt that stopped just past the top of my thighs.

Marianne looked at me in it and said nothing.

"Mom, does it not look good on me?"

"It looks good. My baby looks good in anything."

Homecoming night was held in the school gym.

The bleachers were packed, and the number of people watching the stream kept climbing.

The school group chat was scrolling too fast to read.

[Why isn't Eleanor here yet? She didn't chicken out, did she?]

[She picked her own cheer squad, and not one of them has posted a photo of her.]

Up on the stage, the announcer was already calling out, "Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for the Westbrook High cheer squad!"

Laughter went up inside the gym.

At that same moment, I stood outside the doors and pushed them open myself.