title: disturbia
author: of snow and hearts
summary: a study in pain, in two parts — dylan-centric / jaimexchris
rating: t
notes: i'm writing this now because i'm suffering with a bout of anorexia. it's been coming around once a year or so since i was eleven, and i've always wanted to write something about it. i was considering doing someone other than dylan (this trope is overused enough, but especially where she is concerned), but she was the easiest to describe. this isn't great, but i needed to get it out.
Nobody has to say anything; the looks are enough. Their glares are only slightly masked, but they can't hide their distaste as their eyes trail over Dylan's bloated stomach and thunder thighs, down to her size nine feet.
She knows what she is: fat. What they don't understand is that she can't just quit; it's not enough to exercise and diet — nothing is ever that simple.
What is simple is the way the world stops when she eats. All her worries, her pains, her stresses, even her family and social life disappear when she is faced with a bowl of ice cream or a bar of chocolate or even a glass of lemonade (though it's never just one bowl, one bar, one glass, and that's the real problem).
It hurts when they look at her like she's disgusting, or different, because the truth is that she's the exact same person, and they would get that if they ever really got to know her in the first place. Wouldn't they?
But they are shallow, and stupid — or so she tells herself — so they only care about her looks and not what's inside and why would she want friends like that anyway?
Her futile morality is worthless when they ditch her at TCBY so she inhales three cups of vanilla. The only reason she does not buy more is because she can't stand the looks the server gives her when she approaches the counter to pay for each one.
::
They stop talking to her at school, just like that — a snap of a finger and the blink of an eye and suddenly she is no longer one of them. It isn't like she didn't know it was coming, but it hurts nonetheless.
Once she is kicked out, no one wants to be seen with her. They have the power, all of it, and she no longer holds an ace. The cards have slipped out of her grasp and scattered on the floor, and what's the point of picking them up?
::
Recovery is such a dangerous word: twisted and full of negative connotations that she doesn't quite understand. She can remember one of them laughing, shrugging at the idea of recovery, before sticking two fingers down her throat and returning to join the rest on the treadmills.
It's a sickening thought, and she knows that, but it can't be worse than the alternative. She won't tolerate any more of those looks, and she's not foolish enough to believe that they'll go away. Not unless she makes it happen herself.
::
She chews, she swallows, she holds her breath for three seconds. She brings her plate to the counter, she excuses herself, she races for the bathroom. She forces her index and middle fingers into her mouth, she chokes, she expels the contents of her stomach into the porcelain toilet bowl.
At the beginning, she'd been eager to take the paper towel and scrub at the seat until it glistened. Now, it takes all of her energy to reach for the Lysol and spray it twice. It's almost too hard to push the lever, but once she does she's able to watch the poison swirl into the depths of the earth and it might just be the most beautiful thing she's ever seen.
She starts small, honestly: purging only once every few days, after dinner. Sometimes nothing even comes up, but that only makes her try harder and she spits out gooey bile that burns her tongue.
It's once she loses control that the bad things happen. Suddenly, she's not eating breakfast or lunch. She serves herself three or four helpings at dinner, not even letting the food reach her stomach before she gets rid of it. The laxatives come next (she's been stealing them from Ryan's cabinet, but when her sister notices she switches to taking them from her mother instead; she can't deal with suspicion now, not when she's this close to her next goal). Then she doubles her doses.
She can fit into the True Religion jeans that she hasn't worn since she was ten. She squeezes into her second training bra, no longer needing the C cup she bought three months ago. She doesn't even have to bother with tampons anymore. Every day, she follows them down the hallway, hoping they'll notice the improvement.
Their disinterest only pushes her to try harder.
::
She knows that she is losing the weight — after all, the scale wouldn't lie to her. But she still doesn't completely trust the flashing numbers. They throb and pulse in front of her eyes, morphing into bizarre combinations that can't possibly be correct, there's no way that she's lost that many pounds. No, there are still five more to go.
Five more.
And five more.
::
She smells horrible — sweat is constantly dripping from her armpits, stomach, and thighs. It's almost as though she can feel the cells in her intestines rotting. She has to shower every day, sometimes once in the morning and again before she sleeps, but she can't keep that up because her flaming hair is started to fall out in chunks whenever she washes it. Sometimes she wakes up and dozens of bright red strands are resting on her pillow. There is a wastebasket in the back of her closet, filled with formerly luscious curls.
Watching her mother cut the roast chicken makes her queasy, and she faints from the kitchen chair, head slamming into the white marble floor. Ryan and Jaime leave Dylan alone when she smiles and waves off their concerns, holding one hand to the lump next to her ear. It is wet with blood.
This isn't new because she's bleeding all the time now: whenever she throws up, or passes urine, or even scrapes her leg. She tapped her wrist with a knife the other day, just to see what would happen, and warm red liquid spilled for over an hour. It's no surprise that the blood wants to escape its owner; she would leave herself if she could.
Her stomach hurts constantly; the cramps are vicious. Merri-Lee hands over two blue capsules, telling her daughter that she's able to relate. Dylan almost laughs because it's hilarious that her mother can believe that she's just menstruating, just like every other girl, no big deal, not at all.
::
At one o'clock, she is sitting in study hall, flipping through an issue of Vogue. She catches sight of her hands whenever she turns a page, and it's sickening because her knuckles are red and raw and her nails are ripping off. She's a skeleton, a shadow of her former glory.
She doesn't understand how this happened to her.
Six hours later, she wakes up in the hospital.
::
She hears snippets of her family's conversations as she slides in and out of reality. Phrases containing the words support and bulimia and tubes and how and why. They're there too, crowding her in and making it impossible to breathe. One girl even has the nerve to smooth Dylan's hair back and pray for a quick recovery.
(There's that word again, but now it means something entirely different.)
She would puke all over that brunette if there was any substance left in her stomach. As it is, she can barely twitch her fingers and toes.
::
When she truly rises, more than sixty days later, the doctors inform her that she is supposed to be in her junior year of high school. Merri-Lee, Ryan, and Jaime have moved to California. They appear though, to hand over a gold plaque engraved with the signatures of dozens of classmates, most of whom she does not even remember.
We love and miss you, Dylan! Get well soon.
She does not believe even a single word of the message, but she certainly knows better than to think that she will ever be well again.