Trigger Warning: possibly triggering for people with eating disorders... and maybe depression. Just to give you a head's up.

"I've gotten used to ignoring them and I think, as a result, they've kind of given up on me. I think that's what it's like with all our dreams and our nightmares, Martin, we've got to keep feeding them for them to stay alive." —A Beautiful Mind

I don't know how many calories I ate today.

That is what the voice in my head has decided is more important than sleep. I was just getting to the hazy state between conscious and unconscious, reality and Dreamland, when this question smacks me in the pit of my stomach, just like the x calories I consumed in the past twenty-four hours.

My alarm clock tells me it is 12:46 am. I have to get up for school in less than six hours to primp now that I have someone to look nice for. Wonderful.

I close my eyes and try to force sleep. I haven't done this in I don't even know how long and I certainly don't want to do it now. I toss and turn and stare as hard as I can at the inside of my eyelids for what feels like forever but it's no use.

I open my eyes and check the time. 12:56 am.

Guess we're doing this.

I decide to get comfortable because I won't be on the inside in no time. I reposition myself so that my comforter stops at my naval and my hands are folded behind my head.

Go.

I didn't have time for breakfast this morning so I grabbed something at Emma's. Cereal. The colorful, sugary kind with lots of milk on top. In a big bowl. I didn't measure the cereal; I didn't measure the milk.

Lunch was particularly disgusting yet I was so comfortable sitting with my friends I absentmindedly ate everything on my tray, plus I stole some of Emma's green beans because I felt like it. But what had been on my tray? Two spicy fajitas with black beans, x celery sticks with a side of ranch, a carton of chocolate milk, and a miniature carton of orange juice. And a bag of BBQ chips Phillip bought for us to share.

Thankfully I had swim practice. Daniel always makes Wednesday "Challenge Yourself Day" (I make some sort of disrespectful noise every time he utters the phrase) meaning, to my relief, I must've burned off at least breakfast.

I went to Emma's after to do homework. We each ate a piece of the gross anchovy lasagna her father made. Medium sized? Average?

My parents were working late (shocking) so I ordered takeout for dinner. Sushi. Specifically edomae chirashizushi. Who knows how much I ate.

I got bored while texting Phillip so I popped and ate an entire bag of popcorn. Full butter.

I couldn't crunch those (certainly horrifying) numbers if I tried.

The stupid part is I'm more bothered by not knowing than I would be by knowing for a fact my net exceeded 2,000. Even approaching 2,000 used to send me into a panic, used to equal staying up all night on the stair climber until I without-a-doubt-except-not-really had burned more than I'd consumed.

Let me rephrase that: one of the stupid parts is that not knowing is worse than knowing. The other stupid part is I haven't known in so long, so why has my obsession about knowing decided to make its reappearance now?

I don't know when or how I fell off the train. I used to be so good at this, starving until I was in a situation too tempting or potentially dangerous to resist a binge, and then I'd purge in the bathroom because el oh el it's not like my oh so caring medically renowned parents are ever home to hear me anyway.

And why do I keep doing that? Throwing mental digs at my parents? I'm not even mad at them, not really. I mean, yeah, there are days where I can't paint the picture anymore, where I'm falling off the Perfect Cruz Tightrope and tumbling down into an abyss of rage over either the fact that they have never noticed or the fact that it's perfect they've never noticed yet here I am, not taking advantage of that, pigging out all the time, wasting what so many people in my position wish they had. Which it is, I've never been sure of. Maybe it's both.

I can't imagine ever trying to explain this crap to Phillip. I know what everyone says about my frame, how I'm a big personality in a tiny body, but regular people also sometimes have the basic knowledge about eating disorders, how it doesn't matter what others say you look like because it's a mental thing. It's all that your eyes don't work when they look in the mirror. It took me years to even begin to wrap my head around that concept and I still don't understand it and I don't usually try to because when I think about it too much, I start to get paranoid. Like, what if they're all lying to me? What if the people who came up with this are just pulling one over on every person with an eating disorder? What if nothing's wrong with our eyes and we really are fat and everyone can see it but they pretend not to just to make us go insane? Paranoia is not my style; white noise is. If it's deep and confusing, it is destined to be white noise to me. Don't give it more than a passing thought. It's nothing more than background brain chatter.

Anyway, let's assume for the sake of my sanity they're telling the truth and I'm tiny (ha). How would I explain to Phillip, someone who just a few weeks ago learned the meaning of family (or as much meaning as the Van Pelts can give to the word), that his skinny little apple-of-his-eye girlfriend sees herself as disgusting and therefore doesn't eat to try to fix that? Phillip was a brain-devouring zombie for the majority of his life; he knows primal instincts. If you're hungry, you eat. Simple (ha ha). He doesn't understand—has probably never even considered—you can choose to deny your urges.

He knows the limbs on the top half of his body are called arms. He knows the limbs on the bottom half of his body are called legs. But does he know what a liver is? A pancreas? A gallbladder? I think he emotionally grasps the concept of a heart, but does he understand that it's also a physical organ inside of him? Does he know one person's eyes can work differently than those of another? Does he know food can come back up your throat just like it can go down? Does he know starvation and purging can kill you? Does he know what either of those things are?

My boyfriend has made me feel more special than any other person on the planet ever has. I almost think it would hurt him to know the only girl he has ever found beautiful finds herself repulsive. His compliments are hard to swallow. One part of my brain loves the sweet words he has to say. That's the part that really wants to believe he's telling the truth, to believe the research behind eating disorders is true, that I'm the one with the faulty eyes. That's the part that has stayed awake countless nights, desperately clinging to his words in the hopes I will believe them.

That's the part that fights against the other part.

The other part calls bullshit. The other part is the open box of negative words/self-hatred/splayed guts in my head. It tells me the things he says are lies, that he doesn't even really like me, that you programmed him to like you for gosh's sake how much more pathetic can you get, that none of it's real.

Sometimes the voices blur so much I give up on trying to figure out what's real and what's not and go to sleep.

I have never known which voice is mine. If they were both mine, they'd agree, right? Yet they don't, which means one is something else... someone else. My eating disorder. I have never known if the negative self-talk is that of Andrea Cruz or that of "ana" or "mia." How messed up is it that we act as though they're people, by the way? How messed up is that we have to because the voices are so real to us we can't tell if they're our own?

How am I still alive? When I really stop and think about everything that has gone on inside of me, I shouldn't be. I should have lost it by now. I probably would have if Emma hadn't moved here freshman year. I think—no, actually, I'm sure about this one: I know—the deep-down reason I'm so content with focusing on her life and her relationships and her problems is not because I think magical ass-kicking is cool; it's because she changed everything for me. Emma, her Australian, Phillip, and I like to do double-date movie nights at her house all the time, and on more than one occasion when "Jemma" thought I'd fallen asleep have I heard Jax call her his angel. He's half right.

She's an angel alright, but not his. She's mine.

Back before Maddie and the Panthers were tolerable…ish, I was their number one target. Why? I guess because I have never given a damn about what they think. I could've come to school dressed in my nicest jeans and I still would've gotten ridiculed. It could've been my clothes or my hair or my tomboy attitude. It probably could've been the fucking color I chose to color a worksheet during kindergarten arts and crafts time. Maddie and her irrelevant followers went after me for everything and for the longest time their critiques ate away at me on the inside. It wasn't that I cared what they thought; it was that I was afraid they were right and saying what everyone else was too nice to tell me. I was never brave enough to tell anyone, never thought telling my parents would help. I was too stubborn and scared to speak up so I let the bullying go on.

And then Third Grade Height, Weight, and Vision Screenings Day rolled around.

The first thing Maddie did was laugh at how I still hadn't grown meanwhile she'd shot up two inches.

The second thing she did was get called fat by none other than my good ol' buddy Daniel Horatio Miller.

Okay, he didn't actually use the word fat, but what he did was entertaining enough he might as well have.

First our class was split in half. One half stayed in the classroom while the other half went to the auditorium to get the screenings done, and then we'd switch. Daniel, Maddie, and I were in the screenings group. From there we were divided into small groups to go to each station, and within those small groups we were arranged alphabetically. Cruz, Andrea. Greene, Charles. Miller, Daniel. Van Pelt, Madeline. That was my rotation group.

Our first stop was the height station. "Shockingly" I was the same height I'd been for the past two years. Charles, who was the stereotypical dumb jock of our elementary class, had grown four inches. Daniel had grown a whole foot, freaking beanstalk. When Maddie found out she'd grown two inches, she smirked and waved her card in my face, making it a point to look down at me. "I grew two whole inches." She stole my card and announced my height aloud, though I tried in vain to stop her. She erupted into laughter and asked, "Do you plan on looking like a kindergartener forever, Andi?"

Daniel scowled at her. "Knock it off, Maddie."

I ripped the card back and led my group over to the next station: weight. I had only gained a few pounds from the year before, which was apparently behind schedule. I didn't pay attention to how much weight Charles or Daniel had put on as I was too busy sulking off to the side, away from my group, worrying about my weirdly short body.

And then suddenly I heard Daniel's voice exclaim, "Whoa!"

I turned around, only half caring what was going on. Maddie was screaming and jumping as high as she could, trying to grab something out of Daniel's hand which he was holding way up out of her reach. He'd stolen her card.

"You really weigh that much?" he asked the blonde in a purposely too-loud voice that attracted the attention of everyone in the room. "And you were making fun of Andi for being short?"

Her face was beet red. "GIVE ME MY CARD BACK!"

"Mr. Miller…" our teacher began, marching toward the commotion.

"At least she's skinny!" was the last thing he said before 1) the teacher grabbed Maddie's card from him and 2) Maddie punched him in the face.

Charles laughed so hard he had to be escorted to the nurse's office to get a puff of his inhaler.

By lunchtime that day, the other girls in our class had heard what happened. They were siding with Maddie and ignoring me, as if it was somehow my fault. But I didn't care. Daniel's words stayed in my head. At least she's skinny! I smiled and ate my lunch because I could without gaining weight. During snack time, I bought a baggy of gummy worms but didn't eat them.

When recess rolled around, Daniel and his black eye had to sit out. I walked over, sat down beside him, and handed him the candy.

"Why are you giving me these?" he asked.

"Thank you for standing up for me," I said with a small smile.

He smiled back and tore open the baggy. "You're welcome."

Everything changed that day. Daniel and I became good pals. Maddie made it her mission to get Daniel to like her. And I had a way to cope with the Panthers' bullying: I was skinny. Maddie may have had better clothes than me. She may have had the favor of the girls in our class. But I was skinnier than her. I was skinnier than Maddie Van Pelt, and I was damn proud of it.

For a while, it was enough to fill me up.

And then I had a growth spurt the summer before fourth grade.

I grew three inches and put on about ten pounds. And I. Flipped. Out. It was like everything in my body wanted out. Everything hurt and felt wrong. Every mirror told me I was fat. Every time I tried to calm down I couldn't.

Thus began my relationship with ana and mia.

And suddenly, I started dropping weight. A lot. By the end of fourth grade, none of my clothes fit right. I thought that was a good thing. But then I started getting dizzy all the time and yelling at people and losing my mind. The negative side effects of the eating disorders I had developed (which, at the time, I didn't even know that's what they were. I didn't start referring to them by name until sixth grade) were taking me over and I needed a way to regain control.

Daniel liked to go swimming at the beach so I started accompanying him. We both joined the Sharks in middle school. Swimming helped me a little bit. It made me feel like I didn't have to starve as much because I was burning off some calories each school day. For a while, things were mildly okay.

And then the ultimate low hit. Eighth grade.

Maddie asked Daniel out.

He said yes.

I felt like a piece of my heart had been ripped out.

I'd never liked him that way; I'd never liked anyone that way. But Daniel's friendship was my solace, and I felt as though he'd betrayed me by agreeing to date the reason I had so many problems. It never crossed his mind this might bother me. He's a guy; they don't think like that. Plus middle school was when the guys' hormones first started kicking in. Obviously his number one priority was dating a pretty blonde girl and not worrying about his weird awkward fellow Shark.

I acted as though nothing was wrong. What was I supposed to do? Pout? Throw a tantrum? Not my style. No, my style back then was taking control over the only thing I had a hope of controlling: my weight.

All my habits came back worse. I restricted more. I purged more. I got more mood swings but passed them off as PMS. At practice, when Daniel would tell Diego, Mac, and me about how Maddie broke up with him for the nine billionth time that day, I'd call him Loverboy and swim off before he could say another word, pretending the remaining pieces of my heart weren't screaming SHE DOESN'T DESERVE YOU HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME at the top of their lungs.

By the time eighth grade ended, I hit my lowest weight ever. I also hit my lowest point in life. Losing weight was supposed to make me happier, become fonder of what I saw in the mirror.

It didn't.

I saw no reason to get up in the mornings, to go to swim meets where I'd hear Maddie complain/gush/rant/squeal about Daniel from the bleachers, to live in the same house as two doctors who didn't realize there was a reason they rarely had to go to the grocery store anymore. They couldn't tell that their daughter's skin was sickly white or that her clothes had stopped fitting again or that there had been a first time or that she needed help.

Help came the day before freshman year. I was taking a walk because I didn't want to sit alone in my room with my/ana's/mia's thoughts or risk boredom binging. So I left to get some fresh air when I came across a pretty girl with dark hair and bangs unpacking boxes from a moving truck. I walked on up and introduced myself and learned her name was Emma.

And suddenly, everything changed again, only this time it was better.

The two of us became best friends. We quickly figured out Emma had magic powers, but the way my life changed that year was a magic all its own. I had a friend to have sleepovers with every weekend. My dad started having more free time and made an effort to spend time with me, working on cars. Daniel finally called it quits with Maddie and started dating Emma, which was particularly fun for me to watch happen to Miss Bitch. When I was around Emma, I didn't feel like I needed to be skinny to have something. I already had something: the best friend a girl could ask for. That was something Maddie and her dimwits would never have.

But even though my life had majorly improved, my issues didn't just float away forever. There were times when I was alone that I'd break out into intense workouts. There were weekends no one was home and Emma was busy with her dad or Daniel that I'd "forget" to eat as I slummed around the house all day. One Sunday, I even got so desperate I created my own zombie boyfriend in my favorite video game. That I told Emma about; most other personal things I didn't. She told me everything about her; I shared select details of my life that built the persona I wanted to have. Tough. Wacky. Wild. Emma would cry if she ever found out my secrets. She's soft.

Or she was. Over the next two years, she became tougher, freer, more confident.

Take one guess at who helped her become that way.

Jax and I may not be the best of pals (we may not be pals at all. Honestly, I don't know what we are), but I am grateful for the confidence he brought out in my best friend. Over time, I could see it in the way she interacted with them each that Emma loved Jax and not Daniel. At first I hated this thought because I hated Jax. But as time went on, he became less annoying and I warmed up to the idea of the two of them together. Plus there was possibly maybe a tiny part of me wayyy deep down that was just a liiiittle satisfied to watch Emma break Daniel's heart. I never considered if I should feel bad for that or not; I made it white noise before the deep psychological musings had time to start up. But I do remember distinctly thinking, Now he knows.

With Emma's new confidence intact, the two of us set out to convince the Council I was guardian material. To my surprise (though it shouldn't have been; this is Emma we're talking about), we succeeded. We also succeeded in turning Phillip into a human. I really shouldn't say we; it was Emma who did that. She did it for me, to make me happy.

So yes Jax, Emma is definitely an angel. She's just not yours.

Actually, on second thought, maybe she is. Maybe she's both of ours. Jax's dad is the textbook definition of a douchebag. As much flack as I like to give the self-proclaimed rebel wizard, it's obvious why he has the issues he does. Given his father, Jax turned out pretty well if I'm being perfectly honest, not that I'd ever admit it out loud. If I had his situation, I'm afraid to think I wouldn't even try to overcome Jake's genes, that I'd just "give in to the beast" and be a dick my whole life. Jax has made and continues to make a conscious effort to be a better person than his father, but he had no interest in trying to fight the bad parts of his DNA until he met one adorable, sweet, kind-hearted witch.

I have friends, a boyfriend, and a job protecting my best friend to fill me up now instead of hurting myself.

Jax is dating the love of his life and doesn't hate himself anymore.

Emma Alonso is, like, a glittery miracle worker.

I catch a chill and move my hands to pull the covers up over my shoulders. The clock tells me it's nearly 1:30 am. I want to try again for sleep, but I don't think my brain is done. I give it a minute... two... and then:

I can't decide who I should blame: Emma and Jax for making it so easy to eat or maybe overeat or whatever it was I did today; Phillip for being so cute and impossible to turn down for dinner dates; or myself for being so messed up.

I turn over onto my side and trace the outline of my hip bone with my index finger. It's not as prominent as it was before. I remember how it felt in eighth grade and this is not it. How did I not notice this sooner?

And just like that, it comes to me.

Maybe I'm recovering. Maybe tonight is what a therapist would call backsliding. I can't even name the date of the last time the voices showed up; that's how long it's been. So is there really any other reason for them showing up tonight than I'm simply backsliding? That this is a roadblock I have to get past on my road to recovery?

Without allowing myself to think about it, I reach toward my bedside table and grab my phone.

Andi: You awake?

Emma: Yeah, still texting Jax. :) Why, what's up?

Andi: Look I know I don't say it a lot but you mean a lot to me and my life wouldn't be nearly this wonderful if I'd never met you so thank you and I love you.

Emma: AWWWW Andi! :D I love you, too! :') My life wouldn't be nearly this wonderful if I'd never met you, either!

Andi: Please don't feel the need to bring up this conversation tomorrow. Or ever.

Emma: Hehe weeee'll seeeee. ;)

Andi: Just text your Jaxy Waxy, woman!

Emma: Hahaha I will! Goodnight, Andi. *heart*

Andi: Goodnight, Em. *heart*

I shut off my phone and reposition myself once more until I'm comfortable. As I drift off to sleep, I'm vaguely aware of the faint smile on my lips.

The thoughts didn't win tonight. And with any luck, from this point on, they'll be winning less and less.

Review? :)