Work Text:
Bethany Walker sips at a cup of cold coffee and puts it down on the dressing table, so no wet marks will get on the desk.
She starts with Egypt.
The notepad on her right is covered with translation notes as she makes her way through the second, and only textbook, in the high school library.
She puts down the pen at 1am to rest before school.
She finds working through the curriculum remedially takes more time than she'd hoped, but she needs the GPA more then the rush of her current obsession.
Three months later her report card is stunning - her parents take her out for a meal and she eats three courses and doesn't leave a crumb.
Friends stop asking her to come out with them.
The preppies abuse her in the corridor for her lack of make up.
She draws maps of the school and maps of the local area. She uses her phone for the GPS and plays with key-gen cracked software.
People stop following her on Instagram, but she doesn't notice. She hasn't looked at it in months.
Her parents worry about her spending so much time in her room. She eats there, sleeps there, studies there.
She snacks as she studies, constantly. One day she puts her hands behind her back and gets surprised by the width of her ass. She finds the new weight makes her feel safer. She finds comfort in feeling full.
Her mother has a talk with her about her eating habits and she begins to hide food in her room.
Her contact lenses go past their expiration date. She prefers her glasses, anyway.
When her mother tells her to go out with them in her best dress she feels physically sick at the thought of wearing it.
The next day she throws out all of her clothes.
She buys replacements from goodwill. Short sleeved shirts, a few pairs of pants and shorts. She likes the way the waistcoat hides her breasts. (She buys a bowtie but keeps it in the drawer by her bed.) She gets told she dresses like a nerd.
Pictures of her are put on Instagram and the comments fly hard but she's too busy deciphering hieroglyphs to care.
Her hair is too long to bother looking after so she gets it cut short.
Her parents sit her down to ask Bethany if she's a lesbian.
Sheldon tells them that he's a man.