Please don't read this if you have, or have ever had an eating disorder. In fact, please don't read it if you have any food issues.
Thin.
That's how it started. She wanted to lose a few pounds, just slim down and take off the ravages of fast food, although they were hardly visible at all.
She wears a red rubber bracelet on her wrist.
She told herself, at the time, that she was mostly doing it to keep her best friend company. She didn't want Manny to have to go it alone; surely if she had, temptation would have won out. But then when Manny showed she didn't have what it took, Emma had to have enough discipline for both of them. And she did.
She was good at hiding--good at hiding from everyone but Manny, whom she never suspected would be her ultimate downfall. She knew all the tricks in the book. She left plates with crumbs on the counter. She took food to her room (she knew what would make it safely down the toilet, and what would have to be crushed and sent on its way, and what could be thrown out the window, and what was the easiest to vomit). She had more after-school activities than ever before, never mind that the school closed at 4 o'clock on Thursdays and Fridays. She ran and if her parents asked, she wasn't trying to lose weight; she wanted to be strong and healthy.
Her classmates knew--she knew they knew. But they didn't care to stop her. It wasn't their business to do anything but admire her body and her willpower. Manny cared, Manny worried, but for awhile, Emma could keep her at bay. She threw anything and everything in her face but eventually, her luck ran out, and she was sent to the hospital.
And she managed, after a bit, to convince them that she was healed. She almost convinced herself. Yet, she still found herself spending the second half of her summer in an intensive inpatient program.
Thinner.
She cried for the entire first day. She cried until she felt sick, and then until she was sick. She threw a fit when her parents tried to visit and eventually, they gave up and went away. That made her cry even harder. She was losing control--they'd taken her control--and it was almost a relief to be allowed to cry and scream and act like a child.
They tried to take her red rubber bracelet, but she said, if you do, maybe I'll give myself a red bracelet. Maybe I'll bleed and have a permanent bracelet.
It didn't stop them from taking her bracelet, but it did land her in lockdown for a full three days, no matter how many times she tried to tell them it was a joke, that she was just poking fun and cheering herself up. They don't have any sense of humour, she thought. None at all.
You have to eat, they said. Or we'll force you to eat, they said. So she ate. And she drank. And drank some more.
For whatever reason, her charming family had neglected to mention the few times she'd thrown up. Perhaps Manny was the only one who knew. Perhaps Manny was still secretly seething.
So after meals, Emma would head to the washroom as inconspicuously as possible. She drank and drank and drank milk. They weren't allowed water or diet soda or anything empty or near-empty of calories. But the milk was enough. If she drank and drank, she could kneel in front of the porcelain god and all she'd have to do was push lightly on her stomach (her fat, bloated, disgusting stomach), and it all came up. And she was the good girl, talking and talking and eating and eating and no longer threatening to carve red bracelets and no longer crying, and they didn't doubt her. She was in recovery, even if she were still losing weight, she would gain it soon, they were sure.
But she still wears her red rubber bracelet, whether or not they can see it. She can see it. She knows it's there, staining her skin, and taunting her with what she can never be.
You're anorexic, they said. You have to face the fact, they said.
No! But I'm not anorexic. I still have my period. I'm not good enough, she insisted. I'm ED-NOS at most, a failure. I'm not ana. Not that I want to be anymore, she added quickly, but not before she raised their suspicions.
They were nameless and faceless and one and the same. They were her doctors and nurses and hospital volunteers and friends and family and the pictures on the walls and the gown she couldn't wear during weigh-ins and the air she breathed. They wanted her to be fat, they wanted her to give in and be weak and be ugly and be even more imperfect than she already was. They didn't want her to be pure. They were against her. They would always be against her.
We love you, They said. We want what's best for you. We don't want you to die.
I know, she said. I know. But she didn't. Because it wasn't true. Because They wanted to be better than her.
She exercised in her room at night, trying to burn the calories she'd already thrown down the toilet and hidden on her neighbour's plate. They couldn't stop her from clenching her thighs. Even if They tied her down, she could still clench them and fidget and hold in her monsterous stomach.
And she knew They were lying when They told her that strawberries had more calories per cup than blueberries. She knows that strawberries only have 43 and blueberries have a whopping 79. Not that They let her have either very often. But she always knows the lowest options on the menu. She knows them better than she knows the periodic table, and she had to memorise that for a school test. And she remembers the hours spent on the internet, the beautiful bodies of strangers, the numbers and letters of obscure sites written only in her head in order to avoid detection. Double-you double-you double-you dot see ee are . . . what was the rest? Her brain was fuzzy, but that wasn't the important knowledge anyway. The only thing she needed to remember was to not eat.
She's proud that she's the second thinnest girl on the ward, but she's ashamed that she's not the tiniest. She should be. She should be the smallest, most beautiful. She should be the inspiration to everyone else. Her size zero pants fall off her hips (hipbones), when They let her have them, but it's not good enough. Never mind that the smallest girl is four inches shorter than she. Never mind that her legs are like matchsticks and her skin near-translucent.
But one day, They catch her. She's throwing up her guts, her stomach acid, the few bites she couldn't hide and had to take. How long has this been going on, They say. It's unacceptable.
And now They watch her all the time.
I don't want to eat, she says. I don't need to eat. Leave me alone.
I can't, They say. I want to help you.
I can exist on air, she protests.
No, They say, you can't.
And seeing no way out, she eats and eats and eats. She balloons to one hundred and one pounds. She knows the fat is dripping off her thighs and pushing out her stomach, but she says she's still too thin. She placates Them. She lies so her lies agree with Their lies.
Yet They keep her chained up. They lock her in her room and make sure every bite goes in her mouth. They don't trust her. They won't leave her alone. She knows it must be because she has the potential to be so much better. They pick on her because They don't want that to happen. She hates Them, but she smiles anyway. They can't know that she knows their secrets. She has to find some way to make Them trust her.
You're not telling me everything, They say. Please tell me the truth. Tell me what you're thinking about. I need you to be honest with me. I want to help you, but you have to let me.
I am being honest, she protests. I'm being honest. I feel better. I feel good. Not good, but better. I want to eat. I want to be healthy.
And when did this start, They ask. What changed.
I saw the light. You convinced me, she said. You were right all along. I can find my control somewhere else.
And They bare Their teeth and she bares hers right back because she's finally won. She's beaten Them and soon They will leave her alone and she can be perfect and pure and clean and free of her own (im)mortality.
Thinnestestestestestestest . . . (with a red rubber bracelet on her wrist).