Another tumblr anon prompt: "So here's another prompt for you! Miranda tells Andy about her struggles with eating disorders, body image and her mental illness." Jesus, I hope I've done this justice. I certainly tried my best. Enjoy guys.
Miranda looked at herself in the mirror and frowned. Her fifties were not treating her well. Oh, everyone else would say that she looked ten years younger, that her figure was amazing, but she rarely ever believed them. What did they know, after all? They were not the foremost fashion editor in the world. The world looked how she wanted it to look. Her word mattered and no one else's.
Perhaps she would put in another few hours at the gym this week. She poked at the slight softness at her sides. Then perhaps this ridiculous bulge would go away. Yes, she decided, that would be exactly what she would do.
She walked back over to her bed where Andrea lay, splayed out, still asleep, overlarge t-shirt barely keeping her decent. This was a girl who had the figure that every girl dreamed of. Curvy in just the right way but yet still toned and perfect. Not a model figure, of course, but that was how it was supposed to be. Models were glorified hangers and it was just so much easier to get clothing to lay right on a waif of a girl. No, Andrea was what a woman should look like. Miranda wondered if she knew how lucky she was.
She bent over and kissed the girl's forehead. Andrea stirred just slightly and turned over. Miranda smiled and shook her head.
"I'm off to work, darling. I will see you when I return home."
Andrea mumbled her assent. Miranda would have to tell her that she was going to be a bit later than normal with her trip to the gym, but that could wait until later. She would send a text so the girl actually knew what was going on. She doubted that Andrea would remember she had even said goodbye.
She descended the stairs, firing up her Blackberry as she waited for Roy to pull up. She walked into the kitchen and grabbed a pear. It wouldn't do to faint in the middle of the day. People asked questions about that sort of thing anymore that they didn't used to thirty years ago. And it wasn't healthy. Right, it wasn't healthy. She had to remind herself of that. She hadn't worked for years for herself and for the girls to make stupid choices now no matter how she felt.
She fired off a text to her new assistant, who's name actually was Emily yet again. She had cycled through enough that she had come back to an Emily Charlton clone. It was slightly amusing to her that people with the name Emily seemed to be able to stick around.
Emily texted back within instants to let her know that she would change her order at Smith and Wollensky's to a salad for lunch. Miranda smiled, satisfied for now. The girl was probably staring at her phone in disbelief that she had changed her ever constant lunch order. Oh how Miranda would love to see the look on her face.
Roy was there within a few minutes and Miranda threw the remains of her pear away, washing the sticky residue from her hands before strutting out onto the street like she owned it. Not for the first time she wished that food wasn't necessary for life. Her life would be so much easier that way.
She sighed and slid into the car. It couldn't be helped. Eating was a part of life to remain healthy and she would do it for her girls and Andrea just as she had for as long as the girls had been alive.
The week passed quickly in the haze of Runway, the girls, her trips to the gym, and time with Andrea. By the time she sat down on Friday night, finally done with the corrections to the Book, she was ever so glad it was Friday. Andrea snuggled into her side and Miranda sighed, content. She draped her arm over the girl's shoulders and reveled in the warmth the girl brought.
Andrea worked for a while and Miranda just basked in the presence of her young lover, happy to just sit for a little while and do nothing. Andrea closed her laptop a little while later and wrapped her arms around Miranda's waist.
"I feel like I haven't seen you at all this week, which is a lie, but I don't know, it seemed like you were here less than normal."
Miranda hummed her affirmative. "I did spend a bit more time at the gym this week, that would probably by why it seemed like I was gone more often."
Andrea looked up at her. "You looked good doing your normal routine. Why did you suddenly want to spend more time there?"
Miranda looked down at Andrea and bit the inside of her lip. She hadn't necessarily told the younger woman about everything that had happened in the past, there was just too much of it. Fifty years of memories took up a great amount of time, even abbreviated to the most important things. She could tell Andrea about this, the struggle she'd been going through for seemingly her whole life, or she could cop out and make up some sort of flimsy excuse.
She copped out. She would tell Andrea eventually, but now was not the time. She wanted a nice peaceful weekend to relax and stories from her past would not be relaxing in the slightest.
"I just noticed a bit of flab looking in the mirror earlier this week and decided that I'd rather not have it." Miranda shrugged as if it was no consequence. With how she normally carried herself the answer should seem completely in line, nothing amiss. Andrea should accept it with an 'oh' and assurances that she looked fine.
Except she didn't. Andrea sat up just a little bit and cocked her head to the side. "You haven't gained any weight recently and there's nothing flabby on you. I would know." Her expression turned salacious for a half a second before morphing back to serious. "Miranda, why did you really think you had to work out more?"
The girl knew her entirely too well. In that instant, and that instant alone, she missed her husbands who would have accepted the knowledge and moved on. Or in Stephen's case he probably would have told her that she needed a few extra trips to the gym. Why, oh why, had she ever married that pig of a man?
Andrea stared at her, waiting for her answer, and Miranda knew that she would accept nothing but the truth and would know in a second if she lied even the smallest bit.
Miranda sighed and looked away from the girl. She could feel a blush creeping up slowly from her neck onto her face. So this was it, the girl was going to know that she wasn't truly the self-assured woman that everyone thought she was. La Priestly was just a show for everyone she worked with, a fake it til you make it sort of façade. She had been faking it for a while, but had never made it, even with therapy sessions and a great deal of time.
She just had to bite the bullet here and get it out in the open. Andrea would do with it what she willed and there was nothing she could do about it. She opened her mouth but the first few words were still hard to force out.
"My whole life I've been struggling with body image problems. It's funny, more ironic than anything really, that Miranda Priestly of all people, the woman who causes half the world to have such issues, has them herself. I never found that quite as amusing as everyone else would." She swallowed. Now that that was out in the open she might as well tell Andrea the whole of it. "At one time I had every eating disorder that you could think of. I cycled through them like they were fashions, one for every season. No one ever particularly noticed. I work in fashion, eating disorders are as common place as leaves on trees."
Andrea had gone very still against her. Miranda didn't dare looked at the girl. She didn't want to see the expression on her face. She didn't know which was worse, pity or disgust.
"I went for years like that. Until finally one day my body had enough. It shut down and I fainted at work like some over dramatic model. When I hit the emergency room they figured out what was happening just by looking at me. I had to beg them to keep me out of some sort of mental institution, and you know I don't beg, but that was how bad it was. The doctors back then settled for therapy and I did go, but it's not like that really fixed much. I still struggled even while I was learning healthier ways to deal with my weight."
Miranda rubbed a hand over her face. She had known this conversation would be hard, but she hadn't quite envisioned this. It was a struggle to force each and every word out.
"Eventually I brought myself up to a healthier weight, healthy enough that my body started to function properly for the first time in years and then the twins were on the way and I knew that I had to take care of myself more than ever. That was the real turning point for me, I suppose. I still struggle, but the good periods are longer and even during the bad times all I have to do is remember the girls and I can make it through, make the right choices, but that doesn't make it easy." She wiped her palms on her skirt before continuing. "And you, now I can remember that you are waiting at home for me and I can make the right choices."
Miranda was exhausted now mentally and physically. It was all out now. The darkest secret she had and it was out in the air now. She couldn't take it back.
Andrea's arms wrapped around her. "I had no idea. I'm sorry you've been struggling in silence this entire time, but I'm here if you ever want to talk. Miranda, you're beautiful, even if you don't believe me. And that has nothing to do with your looks, it has to do with you being a wonderful human being." Her hands came up to cup Miranda's chin. "But you are a beautiful woman as well in looks, but I would think that no matter what. And I know that words like that don't just magically fix everything, but they probably don't hurt. Anything you need to help, if I can do it, I will. Ok?"
Miranda took a deep breath for the first time since she started this conversation. "Ok."
"Good, because I love you with all of my heart." She leaned up and kissed Miranda gently.
Miranda warmed gently from the inside out. She didn't feel any different, just a little lighter now that finally someone else knew, but that felt like enough.