The server flashes a toothy grin at me and asks if he can start us out with any drinks. Water, please. The water is passable. There aren’t any floaters in it, but it sure doesn’t taste like it came straight from a mountain spring. 

Sipping the metallic city water absent-mindedly, I peruse the menu and contemplate what I might want to eat. Of course, I’ve already looked at the menu online the night before. And this morning. And this afternoon. And downloaded the nutrition facts. In short, I already know there is only one option that won’t send me into a spiral, so I pretend to be deciding like the rest of my family. 

My mom orders chicken tenders, my sister orders some type of cheesy pasta, and it’s bacon cheeseburgers for my brother and dad. I choose a cold wrap that I plan to eat half of, and take the rest home, where one of my siblings will inevitably eat it before I can.

The server takes our menus and the conversation resumes. My family teases me about how the hot waiter was obviously flirting with me. Did you see the way he smiled at you? Give him your number! I am suddenly saddened by how uninteresting I must’ve sounded for ordering water.

I wish I were still a root beer girl. Root beer girls are fun. Flirty. Easy-going. They don’t care what other people think, they just want to have a good time. 

Even when I was first capable of decision-making, root beer was my drink of choice. My dad would read the soda options aloud to me, and suggest the ones he thought I would like: root beer and Sprite, usually. From that moment forward, every time we dined at the local family restaurant, McOtto’s, I would choose root beer every time without question. The first time they brought it to me in a styrofoam cup that I had to hold with two hands, I etched my name into it with my fingernail. My family would joke that I should work there when I grew up, and I could have all the free sodas I wanted. I did work there; I didn’t get free sodas.

The drink began to leave a bread crumb trail through the special occasions of my childhood. In the dog days of summer, I could be found sitting on a cooler, rubbing an ice cube over my sticky skin with one hand, a root beer grasped tightly in the other, trying to focus on anything but how uncomfortably sweaty I was. Relatives would be around every corner waiting to ask me about school and tell me they used to change my diapers. Taking a sip from the frosty, brown can, I could always count on being cooled from the inside out. The bubbly liquid was molasses and cedar and vanilla all at once, and I guzzled it for years like it was going out of style.

It was a can of expired A&W that I would sip at my Grandma Vicki’s house when they asked if I wanted something to drink, and it was a bottle of Mug my brother and I would split at my Grandma Joanie’s house when they asked what we wanted with our lunch. It was 1919 I would drink with my high school boyfriend when we would go out on dates, giggling and hiding the labels on the glass bottles so people might think the kids over in the corner had somehow gotten served real beer. 

“Can I get you another water?” the hot waiter asks, and I am suddenly painfully aware that my straw has been IV-dripping into my mouth for some time now and my glass is empty. My siblings snicker as I stammer out a response. 

Longingly, I gaze at the condensation-covered Coca-Cola cup sitting in front of my brother. He takes a sip, and I can almost feel the crisp, spicy mouthful of Barq’s going down his throat. My mouth watering in true Pavlov fashion, I debate asking the waiter for a second drink the next time he returns, but I can’t bring myself to ruin the rest of my night, self-loathing in the backseat of the car. Maybe they have diet root beer? I doubt it. No one has diet root beer.

Our dinner is served, and as I’m picking at my sad wrap I find myself wondering what I am going to eat tomorrow. I decide how I will meet my fruit and vegetable goals and where I can cut an extra carb or two. Oatmeal with peanut butter for breakfast before my workout, chicken, an apple, a salad for lunch, fruit in the afternoon, and a crap shoot of the lowest calorie options for dinner.

When we return home from the restaurant and everyone is stuffing leftovers in the fridge and unbuttoning pants, I sneak upstairs to the bathroom with the scale. Shedding my clothes and standing naked on the cold piece of plastic, I see that, yet again, I’ve gained. I just can’t seem to stop it. My eyes well as I shamefully dress in the locked bathroom, trying to erase the number that is now permanently branded onto the backs of my eyelids, the number that will occupy my every thought until a new one replaces it tomorrow. 

My sister says it’s muscle. My doctor says it’s hormonal. My brother proves he can still lift me. But all I see is what I can pinch between my fingers, what rolls when I sit down, and what pushes in protest against the seams of my clothes. Every morning I stand in front of the mirror to see if I’ve gotten bigger, and every night I stand in front of the mirror, obsessing over each thing that has changed since the morning. I practice different positions that look more flattering and contemplate which one will be the easiest to hold for an extended period of time. The stomach sucked in, the abs clenched for dear life, arms lifted slightly so they don’t flatten out against the sides. Chin should never point down.

I vow in that moment, as I have countless times before, not to miss another day in the gym, or it will only get worse. I vow at that moment, as I have countless times before, to eat less because I know there is an avalanche of weight waiting to pile on to me. I drink sparkling water and zero-sugar lemonade and unsweetened iced tea and diet soda and water, but all I want is to be a root beer girl again.