This is... for every person that won't look into a mirror. That can't look into a mirror. This is for every person that feels ashamed of the body they're stuck with, no matter how you dress it up.

This is for me. I love you all.


Mirrors are the devil.

They must be.

They hate her. And she hates them too and whoever decided to put mirrors in bathrooms should rot in a shallow grave. And were she ever to meet the lonely grave she'd spit upon it. Mirrors are evil. Mirrors are the devil. And the one facing the shower she steps out of screams silence into her.

It's her own silence.

And it's her own image that stares back. It's a sad sort of something that droops her shoulders. It's a resignation that darkens her eyes. It's a disgust that sneers her lips.

"Pig," she hisses at the sad girl in the mirror. She thinks to herself, whale planet cow walrus, and so many other vile things. Because she is vile. The mirror is evil because it will never let her forget. Not as though she could the stretch marks on her upper thighs won't let her. The soft swell of her belly refuses to leave her mind for any second.

Fat filth.

Even a cold shower - cold because she'd heard once that cold makes you burn more calories - and scrubbing her skin raw can't make her feel less disgusted and disgusting. Not as though she could scrub the fat away. She wished she could. She wished she could cut it away.

She imagined the pain she'd feel but somehow the idea of slicing it off is still more appealing than anything. Diets. Exercise. And still STILL she was just... a blob. A-an unappealing, gross jiggling fat blob.

The sad girl in the mirror glared back. Her eyes judging and burning. Hate, she decides, that girl in the mirror hates me. Which is fair because she most certainly hates that girl in the mirror. That ugly ugly thing. The thing that sniffles and cries and pities itself. She hates that girl.

HATES her.

So very much. A curse floats from her lips and in the bathroom it echoes back at her, but distorted. An angry warbling murmur that tells her what she already knows. What the mirror never stops telling her. What the girl in the mirror always projects with her sad eyes and stretch marks and cellulite and ugly ugly ugly UGLY fucking ugly creature. A louder curse leaves her before she finally grabs the towel draped over the shower curtain bar and briskly wipes water droplets from her skin before wrapping it tightly as she can about her rotund frame.

She can't stand looking at that girl in the mirror anymore. Can't stand her sad angry eyes and unattractive body. She can hardly stand attractive bodies but at least they are nice to look at. She's almost certain her eye balls are puking right now. Or maybe she's just crying. Because she is, unfortunately, that girl in the mirror that cries and pities herself.

Most people would be surprised, if they knew her self loathing, that she doesn't slice at her own skin with a razor. But... it's bad enough there's so much fat and skin, she couldn't imagine adding scars to it. Even if the idea of bleeding out her pain is almost intoxicating, she knows she can't. Never will... She's grotesque enough without adding scar tissue.

Her room is almost unbearably cold. What with her overhead fan spinning so hard the wide round base holding it to the ceiling trembles, plus the box fan close to her door but in front of her dresser cranked up to it's highest setting, it's positively frigid. But she needs it needs that icy calorie burning crisp air.

The air flow slams her bedroom door behind her and she jumps, turning to open it and yell out a quick apology that goes unanswered before she very carefully and quietly closes it herself. She leans against it then. Shivering.

It's partly out of cold. But only partly. She drops her towel and keeps her eyes firmly locked forward, refusing to allow her eyes to track down her front. She knows they'll catch on her stomach and she was finally biting back tears. She's really really been trying this week. She's had a meal a day. She runs everywhere.

It feels like she's gained weight regardless. And maybe that's why the mirror is such a despicable thing. It lets her know that her starving and hard work were all for nothing. She dresses as quickly as possible and then stands back and faces the door. There's a mirror hanging from its back and she admires herself clothed in it. It's not as though there was ever the question present for it, but she decides she is most certainly much better looking with clothes on.

Three sharp knocks very slightly rattle her mirror and draw her, scowling, out of her own spiraling thoughts. She hasn't a chance to call out before a voice, muffled, calls to her,

"Anna? Are you decent?"

Decent? No, she isn't. Far from it. She's just shy of bearable. She's she's she's... there doesn't exist a word to accurately describe her. She's already used disgusting, and whale, walrus cow, pig AND planet. She needs a thesaurus. And then maybe she'll be ok. But she answered, raising her voice only very slightly,

"Yeah, you can come in," as she bends over and grabs her towel. There's a hook on her closet door for this lovely. She leans up to hook it as her bedroom door creaks open. She takes a breath before turning to the beautiful man leaning his back against the door. Nervous, but perfect. Some small part of her truly resents her elder brother.

"What's up?" He asks with a wide grin. His teeth are seriously Chip Skylark teeth. Shiny and perfect. Like everything else about him. Her brows quirk up as his question finally registers.

"Uh... just, just showered?" What a dumb question to ask of her. Knowing she'd been nowhere but up here on the second floor, just existing in various ways. His eyes widen a fraction before returning to normal as his cheeks burst into a wonderful shade of pink. He makes blushing look like it is his sole purpose in this world. Then again he could do and be anything and it would still suit him absolutely perfectly.

He pushes himself away from the door and steps over to her bed. He seats himself, gingerly, on the edge of her bed, looking away from her.

"How... how was your day?" She might even like her prefect brother if he didn't try so hard. She got it, she was gross and useless and stupid and fat and ugly and spending time with her was a chore he had yet to tire of even though their interactions had become closer to formal than anything else.

Or that's how it felt to her.

Still, she allowed it without question, mostly due to the fact that he was her last hope that maybe she was still stuck in some ugly duckling sort of phase. Despite he never had this problem.

"That jerk from my class tried to make fun of me today," she offers as she throws herself across the bed next to her big brother. "I shut him down."

"Good! That's... good," he says and she thinks maybe he was attempting that to sound cheerful. It comes out strained. "What, exactly, did he say?"

"He tried to insult me, so I turned it back on him. Made his friends laugh at his expense so points to me."

"Very nice," still strained. "So he said what exactly?"

She rolls her eyes. "I think he was trying to call me fat? Or like round. He says, 'Wow Anna,'" the voice she imitates is nasally and pitchy, which isn't how he speaks but it's how she pretends he speaks. "'You're looking really hot. Like a super hot... dog!' And I mean... he just called me a hotdog so I'm obviously confused. And I ask, Why Hans, is that joke about you being hungry for my dick?"

She glances at her brother as she tells this, and catches his lips twitching into a grin. Snickering follows, he shakes his head in disbelief. She manages to smile and continues,

"Well he didn't find that very funny. So he retorts, and quiet angrily, 'No! I was calling you a fat log of meat!' To which I respond, For someone not hungry for my dick you sure are sucking it pretty hard right now. And then the teacher walked in in time to hear him call me a fat ugly slut and threaten to beat my ass."

"He WHAT?"

"So he got detention for a week and I got his butt buddies to laugh at his expense." And she totally had not taken those last insults to heart. 'Cause he's not worth her getting upset over. He's not.

"Anna I want you to tell me everything you know about this Hans right now, because he won't get away with that I swear I'll-"

"What kick HIS ass and get suspended or worse, expelled? Yeah no, no you aren't."

"But!"

"But nothing! I don't need your help I can handle this. Besides that he's already been handled!" She didn't need his help. She wasn't helpless. Just fat.

"Yes but from what you always tell me he's like this all the time! He's just going to do it again!"

"And it'll get handled then too, and NOT by you."

"Why won't you let me help you?"

"Why don't you just leave me alone!"

One of them might blink eventually and break the glaring contest they're locked in. She doesn't really need to be so callous to her brother. It's just that his existence mocks her. Her father and mother are lovely, positively beautiful and radiant. Yes, even her father can be described as beautiful.

But her brother? Gods above he's just not fair. It's like, the amalgamation of all the things that makes her parents beautiful, concentrated, with some protein powder and a green tea tablet added to the person smoothie and then BAM her brother. He was perfect and beautiful and gorgeous and wonderful and dreamy he was just dreamy...

Unfortunately her parents had used up all their hotness juices on making her big brother and thusly here she existed now. He's the one to break their gaze. He lets out a sigh or a huff and looks away. Off to the side again.

"Are you eating dinner?" She flinches very slightly. What is that supposed to mean? Which she apparently says out loud, because he glances back at her, expression just shy of sour. "Mom wanted me to ask. Since you're always on some stupid crazy diet."

"It's not crazy," she spits back. "I'm not stupid."

"I never said you were."

"No, just the things that I do, right?"

"Anna-"

"No, I'm not eating dinner tonight."

"Anna, come on, I-"

"You should probably go let mom know." She won't look at him, too busy scowling down at her bare feet, but she can feel his gaze burning into her. After a long, slow ten seconds he finally lets out a soft sigh, standing from his spot next to her. He says,

"Ok. Ok..." And stops at her door, hand curled around the knob. "I love you Anna." He looks back and she looks up and there's something in his big blues that she doesn't quite understand.

"I... I love you too Ellis." But she returns the sentiment, even despite the bitterness gnawing away at her insides. Or maybe that's just hunger. His smile is made of sugar and sunshine when it flashes across his face just before he opens the door and slips out. She stares at it for a few moments, listening to the sound of her brother barreling down the stairs to tell mother not to set a plate for her.

And then she turns, crawls into the middle of her bed, grabs the fuzzy wolf she holds at night to ward off more self-loathing induced tears, and buries her face in his soft belly. She closes her eyes and prays for sleep.