"I'm not hungry."
What was that, the fourth time she'd said it today? She wondered how transparent it sounded. The rising pain in her stomach was nothing new to her. She fell back softly onto the pale pink bedspread. Not a sound. Today she was lighter than air. She'd grown to love the ache in her stomach, her bones. The nausea and fatigue. And in this blackest hour, she realized she had grown to love the dark, too.
"I'm not hungry," the voice, only faint and soft when no soul was close enough to hear it, echoed around the empty room again. She said it for herself, and no one else. A small arm rested across her hips, lying flat on the angular hipbones, "You can't make me."
Her head turned from the luxurious pillows, and she cast her swollen glance at the glow of the moon on the curtains. The pale, milky light filtered delicately through the white lace, crawling across the shining hardwood floor, stretching to the edge of the bed. She wiggled her toes. The tendons in her feet hurt. She wanted desperately to lift herself, to stand, and to walk around the lonely little room, but she knew her legs would shake and wobble horribly before giving out if she tried to do so.
It would be all right if she could just make it through tonight. Tomorrow was a clean slate. She could start all over tomorrow, no mistakes. It could be a perfect day. She straightened the maroon pajama top she wore, unbuttoning it at the collar. It was stuffy in here. She could drink. There was always water, it would get rid of the nagging pain, if only for a while. She shook her head slowly. She needed it. Needed the pain to tell herself she was in control. There was nothing else to it.
She rolled onto her stomach, burying her face in the pillows, and moaning something inaudible. If she could just make it a few days with nothing, it would be all right. She could make it out of this. She would be perfect. She wriggled her wrists, the red, rubber bracelet on the left one catching her eyes. She looped a thin finger underneath it, snapping it hard against her long, brown arm. There. The pain stung all over the top of her hand. Now she wouldn't give in. She had given herself the official reminder.
Her heart throbbed for a moment. With troubled eyes, she stared into the darkness created by the veil of pillowcase that covered her face. The resolve she'd just made, as with so many other things in her life, fading remarkably fast. She gripped the cloth in her fists, groping with it, trying to find a cool spot, where her face had not been, to dry the sweat on her palms. That's why they all gave her funny looks. Everywhere she went. She would never get away from them. Unless... Yes. There was the strength again. Despite her weak bones, the swimming images before her eyes, the inability to stand or draw steady breath, there was the same resilience that had kept her alive all this time.
She would be perfect. It had to happen. That's what the looks were for -- yes. She did not receive the same stares a beautiful, startlingly thin woman would, this she was sure of. But when she was rewarded for her hard work, her perseverance, she would be beautiful, at last. Her hands loosened on the fabric, and she slid her face away from the pillows, drawing short little breaths. Yes, it would happen. Her chin would cast a most elegant, straight, and precise shadow across a slender, curving neck. There would be no loose skin, no extra flab. No one would dislike her. Her legs would be the picture of perfection. Her ribs would show. But for now, everyone still thought she was fat, and, coupling that, ugly, too. Of course, weight meant ugliness. It always would, to her. That's what everyone else seemed to think, anyway. And those looks she got in public places. It couldn't be awe, not yet. No, they were the uncomfortable looks people cast an ugly beast of a person. They had to be.
In middle school, and high school, she had known why people disliked her. There were the cheerleaders at the top of every class. Perfect, and thin. Beautiful. Everyone liked them. It had had nothing to do with their personalities. Sabrina had told her, after... after her father had gone -- told her that she was never going to be perfect. The defiance surged within her. She had to prove her wrong. Useless. The first step, logically, she thought, though her mind's eye clouded at the words on her lips, to becoming useful, was to become beautiful. No one would put up with her if they knew how it was. Blah, blah, they told her she was thin, told her she was gorgeous. They lied. They all lied. She could decide that on her own.
She felt herself swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, unaware of what she was doing. Where to go? She tripped as she stood, feeling her legs quake beneath her. The flicker of doubt crossed into her heart again. She thought of him -- the mocking blue eyes, the rosy, joyful cheeks. The laughing manner. That's why the all thought she was a bad daughter, a bad sister -- she wasn't as good as Boone.
She stumbled through the doorway, feeling along the walls outside her bedroom for the door frame of the bathroom. Ah. There it was. She felt along the polished wood of the door until her hand rested on the knob. She turned it, stepping inside the room. Her eyes flicked across the white tiles of the floor, the dark, plush rug that sprawled over them, and finally, in the corner, the scale. The judgment of her worth. Boone said there was more to people than their weight, more to people than beauty. Who was he kidding? He was perfect. Everyone loved Boone.
She shuffled across the carpet -- a toe colliding with the hard, curving plastic circle, smarting almost as badly as the skin she had snapped the rubber bracelet over. She took a deep breath. What did they know, right? They didn't know how hard it was to be... she shivered. Unloved. Yeah, that was it. They didn't understand how hard it was to be unloved. People would like her more if she wasn't a pain to look at. It was simple as that. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut-- if only she could be perfect. Sabrina and Boone wouldn't hate her. No one would hate her. She was sure everyone did. Of course they did. They had no reason not to.
The selfish feelings she couldn't resist flooded her mind as she stepped onto the scale, hearing it tick away the pounds. It was a ceaseless noise, it seemed. Suddenly she felt bloated, huge. The ticking stopped gradually. She was afraid to look at it. What if she was still as large as ever? Then, there was the defiance, the resolution again. It was all going to change.
She forced her eyes open. Her heart sank immediately. One hundred and five? Still? She panicked, stepping off the scale, and on again. She bent to her knees, turning the object over, checking its settings. Everyone else lied to her, about everything. They said she was thin, they said all sorts of things. And they lied. So why not the scale, too? One hundred and five, she barely felt herself flying from the bathroom and back to the bedroom. She flung herself down on the bed, failing to gather her thoughts. She felt dizzy, unable to focus. When was the last time she'd eaten?
No. She shook that thought from her head, too. Can't give in now. A familiar wave of warmth washed up to her face, and she felt hot water spilling from her eyes, a ragged sob catching in her throat. Five foot seven, size one, one hundred and five pounds. No. No. No. She had to be a zero. She had to be perfect. She had to be the perfect woman. Boone's words from so many times before stabbed at her. 'Maybe it's not the way you look, Shan, maybe it's you.' Boone had flawed logic, of course. Didn't he understand that perfection and beauty went hand in hand? And that likewise, beauty and a thin body did, too? He didn't understand any of her thoughts. He probably knew about her, too, to make matters worse. She pounded on the bed with unwilling fists. Her own body seemed to be rejecting the energy-consuming fear and anger that sprang into it.
And now the sob escaped, loudly. She couldn't be that big. She had to be a zero. Had to be under one hundred. She was so close, so close. The doubt was hitting her full force now. What if she never reached her goal? Wiping a sleeve across her face, she walked a hand to the small, blue diary on her night stand, flinging it open to the most recent entry:
"Breakfast: 120
Lunch: 200
Dinner: 250"
"What the hell is wrong with you?" she cried aloud, flinging the diary away. She wanted to eat, suddenly. "Uhh!" she grated, throwing her pounding fists down on her thighs. She couldn't get there-- she wasn't going to. Five hundred and seventy calories? It was embarrassing. There was only one way to deal with the disappointment. She gulped.
There were all sorts of things in the refrigerator. They were all fattening, awful, and would pacify her, to be sure. She slammed the door shut. That wasn't good enough. In the freezer, she stared hungrily at the large tub of ice cream, but soon the foolish hope, that same one that quickly came and went with each breath, found to her again. She noted the trays of ice inside the cold, buzzing box, too. Her eyes traveled back and forth from the ice cream to the ice. The ice cream to the ice. The ice cream to the ice.
Slowly, hand quivering, she drew out one of the ice trays, bending it with frail arms to hear the rewarding crackle of the ice being loosened from the plastic cube-shaped indentations. She plucked a cube gingerly from the tray and popped it into her mouth, overjoyed as the freezing water trickled painfully down her throat, as the ice destroyed any semblance of feeling on her tongue, numbing her nerves.
"I'm not hungry."
The ice was only the beginning. She breathed in, digging her nails into her palms. No more backing out. No more shifting thoughts. Yeah, the ice was only the beginning. She would be perfect. Boone would never goad her again, because she would be better than him. Sabrina. She narrowed her eyes. It would all change. But first, the ice would do its work. It would make her numb.