Eating disorder fics, I have a strange fascination with them. If this could be triggering, do us all a favor and don't read it, I love all my readers too much to be responsible for a relapse. There is one swear word in here, but it's the big one, sorry. It felt so good to write this, it isn't poetic or flowery, it's the writing of a teenage girl, and yeah, I really identify with this. And, JKR has a dramatically different writing style, through some savvy detective work we can deduce that I wrote this piece (*gasp*) and, I am not her (*double gasp*).
It was a Game to her, a Game that led to –in her opinion- benefits. It was a selfish, petty Game, but she couldn't stop even if she wanted to. She just wanted, she wanted to be perfect. Not for him, no, she would never be so cliché as to try to better herself for a boy (even if he was extraordinarily attractive), it was for her.
Boys loved her hair, they'd run their fingers through it, entwining their entire hands up to the wrist as they locked lips and shared heated moments of passion. They simply adored it, so they could never figure out why she hated it. That fiery hair that just took everyone's breath away, yeah, she despised it.
Rose had always felt like something wasn't right, like she was a puzzle with one single piece missing, one single hole in the perfectly arranged piece of art. It wasn't that she felt incomplete; she just didn't look like what she thought she felt like. If it had been up to her, she would have been different, she never could put her finger on exactly the right physicalization for her soul, but that didn't stop her from trying. It wasn't so much the hair, or the freckles, or the pale-as-the-moon skin as it was the whole package. She looked like a clone of every other Weasley that ever existed. And she hated it, she hated that she was so similar to her entire family.
All Rose ever wanted was to stand out. To be different. She always felt (though she would never even dream of admitting it) lost. Lost and wandering and lonely. Rose Weasley, lonely, such an oxymoron yet the absolute truth. Rose was a girl so surrounded by friends, always chattering to some person or another, to hear that she was lonely would have made anyone who knew her laugh. That's what killed her. They'd laugh. No one ever took Rose seriously; she was just one of so many Weasleys, not the first, nor the last, not the brightest, the dumbest, the most athletic, the most talented. There was no one thing she could call her own. Until, until she started playing the Game. Until she go really good at the Game. They all noticed her then.
Rose never felt unloved, just unnoticed. People would ask her questions and then walk away while she was answering. She didn't do it because she was angry, she didn't do it to lash out. She would have never been able to explain why, but it was an accident. Oh, no, it's no accident that one begins to deny all food and purge the food that does trespass their lips, but it was an innocent accident that she started down that path.
Yeah, in a way she did it for him. God knows, he did notice her when she really got good at her Game. She did it for him because it felt so good, so fucking good, to finally be perfect enough. She told herself in the beginning that it was making him love her, but she knew it wasn't. He didn't love the skinny frame that had bones jutting out and awkward elbows, he loved the girl. The skinny frame just gave her the means to present herself to him, to finally be noticed.
She was a Slytherin for a reason, that was all the Game was, a trick. It wasn't an illusion, it did come with very real consequences, but all the same, it was a trick. It gave her something to grab onto and hold tightly. Something to make the ache in her chest go away a little bit. The price wasn't too steep; she was more than willing to pay. In exchange for a little dizziness and a couple fainting bouts (who cared anyway, fainting was so romantic) she got him.
The really sad thing was, even if she knew where her little Game was headed, towards hospital beds and wires and bones jutting out, stretching pale freckled skin grotesquely tight over the impossibly acute angles, she still would have played. As unhappy as she felt in the end, it was worth it, it was all worth it because they had gathered around for her. Nothing was ever for her, but they all sat and looked worried and cried and it nourished her in a way no food ever could. It didn't give her life, their tears provided no nutrition, but it made her feel, if only briefly, loved.
He use to pass her in the hallways, he wouldn't even nod, there'd be not even the smallest flicker of recognition in his eyes. The first day she knew he looked at her for sure, really looked at her, she had done so well at the Game. That day she at only one apple and she was really feeling it. On good days, days like that one, she ate so little that the pangs were sharp and insistent. It felt good, to burn a little inside with hunger; it was a burn she felt special (for once in her life, special) for being able to resist.
Needless to say, she was a little lightheaded, but in the good, floaty way. When she saw him in the Great Hall, he was breath taking. Literally. As in, she forgot to breathe. He noticed her sliding to the ground and caught her with his strong, toned arms. He carried her to the hospital wing and stayed until she woke up (still a bit dizzy) to make sure she was okay. He was worried about her; she knew that from the way his grey eyes glinted with just a touch of fear. It was in her nature to abuse knowledge like that, so she really committed herself to the Game and managed to need his assistance in standing so frequently he took to just slinging an arm around her waist whenever he saw the now-waif-like girl.
It started out as a thing about her weight (well, her lack thereof was his concern) but he quickly began to love her quirky jokes and pealing laughter. The two of them became Slytherin's couple, and, in true tradition, their relationship started with her tricks. Her mother wouldn't have been proud of her methods, but that didn't matter because her mother didn't notice her enough anyway. They dated, it was perfect, he was her knight and shining armor and she was the picture perfect damsel in distress.
It worked out just like she had planned, well; she hadn't foreseen the dying part but that didn't matter. Rose was starving for attention in any way she could get it, she didn't just let the Game take over her life, she encouraged it. She withered and wasted away, starved herself until she was no more than bones and she milked every minute of it, because, even if it was her last breath, everyone was watching her for once.
Please, please, please promise me that you'll at least attempt to notice other people; I know it can be hard but this situation isn't far from the truth in some cases. When people don't feel acknowledged or loved or noticed they will do things to draw attention. I know because once upon a time I went down that path. Please, just learn to really listen to people, if you ask them how their day was or how they feel, don't just ignore the response. *steps off soapbox*
