Title: Everything is fixable
Character: Rachel Berry
Rating: PG-13 [eating disorders]
Plot: Weight is fixable, Rachel learns this from the gossip magazines she occasionally reads.
Rachel was born to be a star. Nothing could get in her way....besides her weight. She had always thought her talent made her who she was---and all the negatives were easily fixable. So this must be fixed, she decides. She's in front of a director and a producer of some big musical production. Rachel sang her best---but they're whispering between each other, and it makes her nervous. Biting her lip, and tucking it between her teeth, Rachel finds herself toying with her hand knitted checkered pull over. Time seemed to have ticked by before Rachel decides to speak up, in an almost confident manner.
"I've been in Glee all through my highschool years, I've also participated in several musicals hosted at---" but she finds herself cut off by a raised hand of the snobby producer, and so she's silenced. On command.
She's never heard such deafening silence. But, what's worse is what comes next. It leaves her gasping for air, for some explanation for herself. Never before had she been asked how much she weighed. Nor had she ever seen why such a thing would matter. By the cruel looks being given to her, Rachel almost considers lying---but her father's would frown upon that so she stutters out the truth. One hundred thirty pounds---the adult's faces twist into something of disgust. She swore she was of average weight---but she's explained to that she'll never go anywhere unless she's rail thin. If she isn't skin and bones, then she won't succeed. Rachel Berry needed to be a star, it was in her to be so.
Weight can be fixed. Rachel learns this as she flips through articles in a gossip magazine. Annorexia, Bulimia---words bolded flash up from the page at her. And, she figures she could try what the celebs do, because if it works for them---it'll work for her. So she tries. Leaning over the toilet, one hand clutches her dark locks back as the other holds a tight grasp of the seat. She tries gagging, over and over---just because it seems simpler. The finger is easier---it forces it to come forth faster, she finds out. Sometimes, she didn't even have to eat to throw up her stomach, but what started out as a little idea to loose a few pounds becomes something of habit. And so she locks herself away in a public restroom day after day throwing up the lining of her insides. All before stumbling into a large room to audition. She thinks she fixed the problem---but she can't find herself a job, and her voice has gotten scratchy.
As she leans over one more pearly white toilet seat, she shoves her finger down her throat, wiggles it about baiting herself till she spills out her sickness into the depths of a toilet bowl. Some would be surprised that Rachel had gone this far all to make herself into a "star" [even if it hadn't happened for her]. While some would just be amazed that Rachel had a gag reflex at all.