This is my second favorite chapter, and I do like the plotline, but I'm not sure how much of it I'll be able to draw out. But I hope you guys like it! And it might be triggering for some readers, so there is mention of eating disorders. Leave a review telling me what you think!
Tori.
I was a fat child.
I mean, if you looked at me now, you'd never guess that I used to be the size of a ten year old when I was only five. Food made me happy, and everyone likes being happy.
I used to be miserable when I was younger. My dad was always away because of work, and they had him doing a lot of late night stakeouts. He and Mom used to fight all the time because she missed him.
She's been a teacher since I was two, so she's always had a set work schedule; she would never understand what his job was like.
When Trina and I were younger and our parents fought, she'd go to her room and cry; I know it hurt her a lot more than it did me. She never spoke that much, and she eventually started sleeping over at other people's houses just to get away from our own.
So a lot of times, I was left to myself.
My parents had the decency to argue in their bedroom, not that it helped much. And I don't know why, but food helped. I'd been a stress eater for as long as I could remember, so I would always find myself in the kitchen, eating whatever I could get my grubby little hands on.
As my sister and I got older, Mom stopped cooking because she was so upset.
Trina was never home, so if I was going to eat, I had to make it myself. We didn't have YouTube back then, so I had to learn from books she had lying around the house.
And it wasn't like I kept it all to myself.
I'd leave food at her door for her to eat if she wanted. There was always an empty plate waiting for me whenever I would check on her a half hour later.
Anyway, my parents marriage was crumbling, my sister was never around, and I weighed 109 pounds going into fifth grade.
Middle school was especially hard, and I was bullied a lot; everyone thought a fat Latina was hilarious, and that's one of the reasons I've always hated stereotypes.
Trina didn't want to even be associated with me-Hey everybody! Look at Trina Vega's fat little sister!-and I didn't blame her. But because of that, I was more alone than ever.
Halfway through fifth grade, I couldn't take it anymore; I was bullied so much at school for my weight that I was eating lunch in the bathroom. I was humiliated and so ashamed with myself that my sadness turned into anger.
I wasn't angry at the kids who picked on me; I was angry at myself for turning into such a fat lard.
The way I rationed it, I understood that food made me fat; if eating it made me gain weight, then I had to stop. But first, I had to get rid of everything I had ever eaten in my life.
At the time, I didn't know bulimia was a thing, but I knew that my stomach was always empty after I threw up whenever I was sick. So that's just what I did.
I would do it before school, between classes, and right before I got on the bus to go home-any time I knew there would be no one around to hear me.
It was one of the worst things I ever could have done, but it was working. The weight was falling off, and I was getting smaller and smaller.
This went on for about a month when my hair started to fall out. I was terrified and stressed out about it, that I picked up my old eating habits. So then I was eating and forcing myself to puke and losing my hair.
My body was so messed up from all the vomiting and the lack of food in my system that one day I just collapsed in class. I was sent to the hospital, and the doctor told my parents that I had acquired a severe case of bulimia; though I wasn't sure what it meant, my parents were horrified.
They sent me off to an institution for a year where I had people monitor me during every meal; I was never alone in that place, because they had to make sure I wasn't making myself sick. And eventually, I got better.
My therapist said that it was caused by stress, and my parents took that to heart; they went to couples' counseling and my dad talked to his police chief to see about a different position. He stopped doing so many stakeouts and was home more. Mom was happier, and it made Trina want to come home.
When I went back to school, no one bothered me about my weight anymore. I was just as small as the rest of them, and I even made friends. Suddenly, everyone wanted to talk to me. I had so many friends, and I even got my first boyfriend.
I don't think it counts since I was only eleven, but it was nice anyway.
But… then I went to highschool and everything changed.
I'd been dating this guy named Danny, and he cheated on me; I couldn't believe he'd done it. I was skinny and sexy and beautiful, but I wasn't enough for him. It made me think that maybe I wasn't any of those things.
I was smarter about controlling my eating, though.
I still ate, but I ate smaller bites of food. I was able to manipulate people into thinking I ate. My food still disappeared from my plate without anyone noticing, but it ended up in plastic bags inside my backpack instead of my stomach.
As well as acting, I'm really into dancing, and I'm good at it. If I dance, I don't think about food, and I don't really have time to eat. Being a dancer has given me a little bit of muscle, but not enough that I'm not sexy.
As soon as I started going to Trina's high school, boys flocked to me left and right. All the attention felt nice, and I never wanted it to end.
So far, everything's coming up Milhouse.