Prologue

Drake Carney sat with his hands folded in his lap, staring out the window of his bedroom. Thinking. It was raining outside, and raining hard. He didn't want to go back there. He didn't want to go back and face his fears. It was…it was just too hard to go to school every day and face those demons roaming the halls, spitting insults at him everywhere he turned.

The sixteen-year-old looked down at his hands—at the pudgy fingers that looked like they were alive. He really needed to do something about his weight. Sure, he always saw those characters on TV that were "proud of who they were" and all that jazz even though they weighed about fifty pounds more than they should. But what kind of a message was that? Hollywood producers were just like all the other corporate big-shots out there—"Hey, let's make people feel good even if it comes at the expense of their general well-being!" It was a vicious cycle, one that was reflected in every element of society, from McDonald's to all those lousy self-empowerment songs on the radio. They were just a gigantic collection of lies packaged and distributed for mass consumption. But hey, it made for successful business, so what was the point of questioning the system?

His parents had always said he was the cutest little thing when he was a kid, that he'd get all the girls when he got older…but now that he was older, well, he just wasn't cute anymore. That was the flat-out truth. He was fat. Fat, fat, fat! He could not do one thing without thinking about all the extra pounds he was lugging around. Whenever he watched TV or played games on the computer, he felt fat—and for good reason. But even when he went out for a run, he still felt fat because his stomach was jiggling around everywhere and he could feel his shirt riding up overtop of it and it was just so…so gross. So unattractive. It didn't matter if he was trying to improve his health because he looked so ridiculous doing it that it just canceled out the whole purpose of the matter. And then whenever he hung out with his friends, he still felt fat because, even though they never made fun of him outright, he knew what they were thinking.

Man, you really need to take care of yourself more.

Where's your self-respect?

Sometimes I'm kind of embarrassed to hang out with you 'cause I feel like there's…two of you.

The voices stampeded through his head, knocking down every last pitiful trace of confidence he had. God, maybe he was crazy, maybe he needed to talk to the counselor or something. But then he'd just feel even crazier, right? You couldn't just go and "see someone" about your problems—it meant you were too weak to face things yourself. Great, now he was a fatty and a pansy, and maybe even a crazy on top of everything else! How low could he go?

Drake's blue eyes darted back to the dreary scene outside. The rain conjured up a feeling of immense despair within him, one that was awfully familiar to him lately. He felt the beginnings of tears glistening in his eyes, and he tried as hard as he could to fight them back. No, he told himself, You've gotta get through this without breaking down. You can do this, you can do this.

After tearing himself away from his chair and hurrying to the bathroom, he flicked on the lights and looked at his reflection in the mirror. He saw the chubby cheeks, the protruding belly, all of the features he absolutely despised. He had a strong urge to just punch what he saw, shatter the image into a billion little pieces so he'd never have to stare at it again.

Because, when he was being totally honest with himself…what he saw simply scared the living crap out of him.