Yumi's Eating Disorder

90 pounds, the scale read.

I looked down at it happily. For once I felt good about myself. Maybe I should lose another five pounds. Then I'll stop.

My strange eating habits happened a few months ago. One day I looked in the mirror, and all I saw was ugly fat. I thought that I had really let myself go. Ever since the super computer was shut down, life seemed to get so much better and worse at the same time. Jeremy and Aelita grew closer, and they started kissing more often. Odd really seemed to excel at skateboarding and art, and seemed happier than ever. Ulrich's life seemed to improve to. His grades, improved, his soccer playing had improved, and his mood has improved. Since there were fewer Xana attacks, my grades started improving with all the free time as well. My whole family was thrilled for me. The gang all seemed to be closer than ever, even with Sissi joining us.

Bad things did happen as well too. My life seemed to have no purpose, since the world was already saved. My parents got divorced and as a result my dad moved back to Japan. I would never get to see him ever again, he refused to make contact with my mom, Hiroki, or me. After the divorce, my little brother Hiroki passed away from getting run over by a car. It was unknown weather it was reckless driving, or if it was a result of my brother just being careless. My mom and I were never the same after that. Since my dad wouldn't even bother to make contact with us anymore, he didn't even know about the accident. After Hiroki's death, my mom became a depressed alcoholic. I had to be the one to take care of myself from now on. All motherly love seemed to vanish. To make things even worse, if that was possible, on the way home from school, a random stranger grabbed me and pulled me into a dark alley. Once there, they painfully raped me and just left me laying there. I never saw his face. It was scarier and more painful than any Xana attack. I came home crying from that and due to my mom drinking, she didn't seem to see my pain.

My friends knew about my dad leaving and Hiroki's death, and tried to comfort me. I would always put on a tough girl's façade, and say that I'm okay. It took some convincing, but eventually they stopped worrying and thought I took those terrible events pretty well. They knew my grades were okay and they also knew that they were there for me if I needed them. Although, they didn't know that my dad wasn't in contact with my mom and I anymore. And they also didn't know about my mom's alcoholism. Or that I got raped.

Ever since those tragic events, I lost so much confidence. I also started to wear baggy clothes to school, become more introverted, and even started cutting myself every night. It seemed that I've lost all self-esteem. When I looked in the mirror I thought I was ugly, and I thought that I was fat.

Maybe if I lost someone weight and became skinny I would gain back some of my confidence, I thought. Since then I was counting calories, and cutting back. There were some days where I would just eat an apple. There were also other days where I would do on a complete fast. All this starvation wasn't hard to do really. In the morning I would normally pretend to eat breakfast at home anyway. My mom didn't seem to notice my lack of eating, and when I got to Kadic, it seemed that I had just ate breakfast at home so my friends didn't seem to notice me skipping breakfast. At lunch I would say I had to go to the library to study, was sick, wasn't hungry, had detention, see a teacher, or had to do other things. Skipping lunch was fairly easy. Sometimes I would have full lunches with the gang, but then throw it up. No one suspected a thing. When I got home, I wouldn't have any dinner. My mom was to busy drinking every evening to see my skipping dinner. Instead of normal dinner, I would go up to my bedroom and do homework. But also up in my bedroom I would go into my sock drawer, grab a razor and cut my left arm. This routine has been going on for months.

I'll admit I did lose quite a bit of weight. People have been noticing, and people have been giving me compliments about it. Some people said I look good. I was so proud of myself. Maybe if I just keep on losing more weight, all the terrible events in my life won't seem so bad. Sure I've been feeling weaker, but it was worth it. It was worth it to be skinny.

The day after I weighed myself, I sat down at the lunch table with the rest of the gang. Everyone else was eating ham and grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. The gang greeted me with a "hi Yumi," before I sat down.

"Odd, you can have my lunch, I just had an Italian food day today and I'm stuffed." I told the blond who was sitting across from me wolfing down his lunch. It made me want to throw up just watching him eat. Fortunately throwing up will make me skinnier, so I'm perfectly fine with watching him eat his disgusting sandwich.

"Don't mind if I do Yumi. They really don't give us enough lunch food to eat." Odd replied happily, before getting up back to the lunch line for a second helping. Everyone laughed at his comment. "By the way Yumi, there's something different about you that I can't put my eye on. Something about the way you look has changed since the last few months."

"I've just been happier the last few months," I lied, watching Odd leave to the lunch line.

"Hey Yumi isn't William in your Italian class? Apparently he didn't eat too much from the food day you've all been having," Aelita pointed out to William Dunbar passing their lunch table with a tray full of food.

William stopped when he heard Aelita's comment and responded, "Food day? In Italian? I wish. No, all we had was a boring lecture."

William walked off and everyone stared at me in confusion. I couldn't help but glare at William angrily, before lying, "We had a food day and a lecture. William never pays attention in Italian anyways. There was food in the back of the room, he just didn't see it."

Jeremy raised his eyebrows, "How could he not notice that there was food. People would've sat next to him with their plates full of food and the smell of food would be very apparent in the room."

"Yeah, well William has his stupid moments." I replied, not even bothering to look up at Jeremy.

Sissi who was sitting diagonal from me laughed. "Actually Odd is right you have changed. You've lost a lot of weight these last few months. Have you been dieting or something?"

"Of course not! Don't be ridiculous, it's not like I want to lose weight or anything. I'm perfectly happy with my body." I answered flatly.

"Really?" Sissi asked me obnoxiously. "Well….. for the last few months you wouldn't eat lunch with the rest of us usually. When you do have a full lunch, you head over to the bathroom. I've been going to the bathroom myself after lunch, and have noticed you gagging and it throwing up afterwards."

Everyone at the table gasped. Automatically I looked at Sissi and shouted, "Liar! Why would I do something so disgusting? Are you saying I have an eating disorder or something? Why would I have an eating disorder? My life is perfectly happy the way it is! There's no reason for me to purposely starve myself or throw up."

Aelita calmly spoke up, "Yumi not that I'm saying you have an eating disorder or anything but you have lost weight and you've become awfully quiet to. And it also seems like you've lied to us about the food day in Italian."

I stared at Aelita angrily, feeling betrayed. Did everyone at the table think I had a problem? All I could do was say, "My life is perfectly happy. I'm perfectly happy with myself and my body. I don't have an eating disorder. Plus I haven't noticed I've lost that much weight."

I tried to say this as calm as possible, but my voice was shaking. It didn't help that Sissi seemed to be smirking evilly at me and commented, "If you were really that happy, what's with all the baggy clothes. Also, if we happen to notice that you've lost weight while you were wearing those baggy clothes, then you haven't just lost a little weight. And also if you were really happy why would you be cutting yourself?"

The last thing Sissi had said startled me in shock, and not notice her pulling up my left sleeve showing everyone my evident red scars causing the whole table to gasp. Jeremy and Aelita looked at the smirking Sissi angrily. I didn't even bother looking at Ulrich who hadn't said a single thing to me during lunch. The last thing I wanted was to see washis reaction to me depressed, to me cutting myself, and to me having an eating disorder. He probably thinks I'm a pathetic coward.

I stood up trying to hold back the tears and said, "these cuts are from the bushes, and…. a stray cat. I'm happy okay!"

I left the table, not even bothering to look at any of my friends, or Sissi. I never considered her a friend, especially after today. While I was leaving and had my back turned I heard Sissi say, "Ulrich dear, you don't want to be with a pathetic anorexic loser like her do you? I mean she's not mentally stable. You want someone who is beautiful and has lots of confidence, like me."

I passed by Odd who was heading back to the table, but I completely ignored him. This was mostly because I was on the verge of tears and didn't want him to see me cry. I didn't even bother to answer Odd when he asked, "Hey Yumi are you okay? Where are you going?"

I hate Sissi.

I ran into the forest of the school grounds, and went down into the sewers to the factory and up onto the roof crying my heart out. All the uncontrollable sobbing was pathetic I didn't want to show my face back at school. I didn't want to have to explain myself. I didn't want to talk to the gang. I didn't want to talk to my teachers. I didn't want to see my mom. I just wanted to sit on top of the roof and cry my heart out.

I picked up a sharp piece of metal, placed along my left arm and started cutting myself some more. The glorious pain felt wonderful, it made me feel something. The tears were spilling even more. Trickles of blood fell on the factory roof, and all over my sleeve, but I didn't care. Thoughts of suicide or running away were going through my head. I just couldn't bear going back to Kadic.

"Yumi please stop!" a voice called behind me. I didn't bother facing the voice, but instead walked over to the edge of the roof and continued cutting myself, crying even harder, as if I didn't hear anyone behind me.

One arm pulled me back and another snatched the piece of metal and flung it to the they pulled me in and gave me a warm comforting hug. I look up to see Ulrich holding me with a pained look on his face.

I sank down on to my knees and Ulrich knelt down with me forcing me to turn and face him. The brown-haired boy asked me, "Why are you doing this?"

His voice sounded shaky and evident that he was trying not to cry like I was. I just buried my head into his shoulder and started crying even harder like a baby. Pathetic. "I….I…. I've been having a hard time."

I looked up him and saw him looking down at me in concern. He held me close and tried patting my back, comforting me. He told me, "You can tell me anything you know. I won't judge you, I promise. What's going on? Please Yumi. I'm here for you no matter what."

That's when I had to tell him everything. I told him all about my dad leaving to Japan and never coming back, Hiroki's death, my mom's alcoholism, me getting raped, me cutting myself, and my eating disorder. For every bad thing I told him, he held me even tighter. I then heard him say, "Hey Yumi, don't worry. We'll get through this, I promise. The gang and I are here for you. We don't agree with anything Sissi had to say. In fact, we were furious with her, me in particular. She's not going to hang with us anymore"

His voice was so soothing. Then Ulrich pulled my chin up and forced me to look into his dark eyes. He then told me, "I love you, you know that right?"

Those words seemed to heal all the bad things that happened to me. I nodded at him and before I knew it, I pressed my lips into his and kissed him. "I love you too Ulrich. And don't worry, I will get through this."

For little while longer, rested against Ulrich, holding on to him not wanting to let go. I've never felt so secure in such a long time. There was part of me that didn't want this moment to end. There was also another part of me that was looking forward to a happier me.

I got through it all.