Page 27 of Ready, Willing and Abel

Meredith Banks: You’ve been pretty guarded about your story and how you went from fat to fit. What made you decide to come out and tell it now?

Meredith Banks: Because I have to tell you, when my producer called me this morning, I was shocked. We’ve been trying to get you on the show for years.

Abel Cartwright: Here’s the thing, I know that as a public figure, I forfeit a certain amount of my privacy. It’s part of the gig, as they say. The truth is, I don’t owe anyone this story, and frankly, don’t even think of it in those terms. It was just my life.

Abel Cartwright: But you’re right, something changed which prompted me to come onto the show.

Meredith Banks:: Does it have anything to do with the pictures that appeared of you with that brunette in Texas?

Abel Cartwright: Yes.

Meredith Banks:: Is she someone special?

Abel Cartwright: Very special. And while I love the support my fans have given me over the years, I am furious with the callous and cruel comments on all of those pictures.

Meredith Banks:: Because your special lady is⁠—

Abel Cartwright: Beautiful. Sexy. And so many other things. What she’s not is a dumpster for internet trolls to shit all over.

Meredith Banks:: The comments haven’t been kind, to say the least.

Abel Cartwright: Here’s what’s wrong with our current culture. First of all, we need to stop acting like what someone weighs is a morality issue. Thin people aren’t better humans than fat people.

Abel Cartwright: Losing weight is hard. It was hard for me, and I had every advantage a person could have. For a lot of people, losing weight is doubly hard because eating right and exercising is a luxury some people don’t have.

Abel Cartwright: Like the single mothers working multiple jobs. When is she supposed to cook a well-balanced meal and go for a three-mile walk?

Abel Cartwright: Yet, society judges her for carrying extra weight.

Abel Cartwright: I am a firm believer that people should be healthy. They should do what they can to make their bodies as strong and healthy as possible. Sometimes that looks like being thin, but not always.

Abel Cartwright: Standards demand that women be tiny and waifish rather than healthy. We swing hard in the wrong direction. An unhealthy thin person isn’t more or less than an unhealthy fat person.

Abel Cartwright: The truth is, Meredith, no offense to you and everyone who works on this show, because I know you work extremely hard. But I never came on here before because I never wanted to capitalize on my “journey.”

Abel Cartwright: Glorifying weight loss is actually a dick move. And now people want to come at me because they don’t think I’m with the right woman.

Meredith Banks: You are obviously feeling very strongly about all of this.

AC: She’s everything to me. I love every part of her. I don’t love her in spite of her curves. I just love her. The body Esme Morales has is perfection to me because it’s her and she is my home.

chapter

fourteen

Esme

I stare at the television screen, tears streaming down my cheeks. Somewhere deep inside I’d thought he’d left. I’d imagined that all of the internet chatter made him realize we didn’t work.

“Hey, Cactus Girl,” he says.

And I realize he’s standing right next to the sofa.

“How did you get here so fast?”

“Television magic,” he says, with a wiggle of his eyebrows.

I roll my eyes.