Somehow, she had managed to consume nearly the entire fridge.
Almost every wrapper was unwrapped, boxes were emptied, and if she attempted to think of the calories, she would probably have to go pitch herself off a bridge or something.
Instead, she zoomed through cleaning whatever was left over, putting dishes away in the dishwasher haphazardly and chucking wrappers into the rubbish bin by the armful. She took a breath, and robotically made her way to the bathroom.
No one was home, but she felt the need to turn the lock and double, triple check it. Just to be safe. She knelt by the toilet, pulled her hair back with an elastic into a sad excuse of a bun, and stuck her fingers down her throat.
Nothing.
Nothing but the scratch of fingernails and tightening of her throat.
She had no experience, had never done this before. Of course, she'd heard of it. The girls on the websites, and in school. The ones on TV who were already perfect and thin anyway. But she had never known this sensation. She was operating on autopilot, and this was where her body had taken her. She knew it was the right decision, she was a cow for eating and eating and eating, ballooning up into a creature so grotesquely obese she could hardly even think of herself as human any more.
She had never binged so hard in her life.
She knew what came after a binge. Or at least, she'd heard about it. She hadn't the foggiest how to make it actually come to life, but she could feel the churning of her stomach as the chips and chocolate and way too much et cetera began to digest. It was now or never.
Slowly, cautiously, she put two fingers in her mouth. Then, with a force and anger and drive that shocked her, she slammed her fingers down her throat and kept them there, choking. She reached further and further, brushing what her Biology teacher had taught her was called an Epiglottis, the flap of tissue that suffocates you when you swallow so nothing meant for your fat stomach could get into your lungs.
She gagged.
The bile rose from her stomach with a vengeance, and splattered, quite literally, everywhere. On her, on the floor, in/around the toilet, somehow in her hair… She had never felt more disgusted or enamored.
It took her a half an hour to get up the rest, and another half hour to clean.
By the time she was done, she was exhausted through to her bones. She chanced a glance in the mirror, regretting the sight of herself immediately. Her face was swollen, eyes puffy and red, her hair was a mess. Her eyelids barely opened properly. Staring at the now sterile floor, she let herself go, and began to sob.
She cried for her mother, the child who couldn't care less. She cried for her father, whom she'd wronged, ignored. She cried for the friends she isolated, the boyfriend she once had.
"I'm sorry," she choked out. "So, so, sorry."
There wasn't a specific person in mind. She was sorry for everyone she'd ever encountered. She was sorry about how she'd ruined everything.
She was tainted, and she was aware of it.
Slowly, she crawled over to the sink, still sobbing. She pulled herself up by the edge of the faucet, and rinsed out her mouth, getting rid of the sour taste. She should've done that before. She debated brushing, but she didn't even have the energy to reach for the toothbrush. Instead, she swilled some mouthwash around her mouth and called it even.
Attempting to stand was an event.
All of her muscles ached, shocked and deprived. She vaguely wondered how many calories purging burned, she hadn't felt this weak since her last run. Logically, she knew bending over a toilet couldn't really burn fat, but the exhaustion was almost too much to bear.
She stumbled out of the bathroom, and flopped on her bed.
An empty stomach felt better, but the amount of work it took to get her there was almost ridiculous.
Resound, she came to a conclusion.
It was worth it. To be perfect, it was worth the pain.
That was four years ago.
Today, they lower her casket into the ground. Her teeth are worn down now, the years of stress making them collapse in on themselves. Her fingernails have yellowed. Her hair has fallen out. Her liver went first, the jaundice discolouring her skin.
Her mother openly weeps as the Priest talks about her "zest for life" and uses bullshit verbs because he had no idea who she really was, before the bulimia had stopped her heart, collapsed her trachea.
He never got to see the vibrant teenager she was, fully of energy, life. He got to sit there up on his pedestal, and talk about how fuckin' zesty she was, because he had the luxury of not really giving a damn.
He didn't know Bella Swan.
He knew the creature lying deformed in a coffin, the shell of the person she used to be.
He made the assumption that it was the same shit, clearly. I kind of wanted to snap his neck in half and watch him bleed out. My father calls feelings like that a projection of anger onto an innocent victim. It doesn't really matter, though. Does it?
We know, sitting in the front pew of the church. We know who she truly was.
Before I broke her. The words hang unspoken in the air, that I destroyed her, that my absence caused all this. That if I had just reacted like anyone else on the planet, we wouldn't be here right now. It's not untrue.
Time to say goodbye now.
I walk up to her open coffin, and lay a hand on her heart, hoping, hoping, that I'll feel some form of vibration.
She remains still. No gentle flush to her cheeks, just the paled, yellow skin of another failed attempt at Eating Disorder recovery. Another teen who bit the dust too early. In her death, she becomes a statistic.
But then, don't we all?
I press a kiss to her forehead, whispering goodbye, my dearest, darlingest, dead.
My long-dead tendons and muscles ache. I know where I am going after this. I know that I can't stand to live in a world without her in it.
The service ends. I shake hands. Beautiful service, indeed. I walk out. My family sees me go. They know what I am going to do. No one moves to stop me. Then I'm sprinting, faster than sight. I'm in her old bedroom, the one from her childhood. I grab my favourite sweater of hers, and begin the slow walk to the airport.
My name is Edward Cullen.
And I killed someone.
No- I destroyed someone. Ripped her apart like she was nothing. Tore her up, from the inside out.
My name is Edward Cullen.
And as I arrive at the airport, I take solace in the knowledge that a creature such as myself will never have to breathe the same air as the pure forms of creation that walk this planet.
I am going to Italy.