Two simple words shouldn't have made the daughter of Aphrodite relapse so bad.
But the words - Stupid whore - even whispered from the cashier's mouth, even barely heard by her ears, still clung to her heart heavily. They made Piper want to cry, to curl up and cling to the packaged roll of paper towels she was currently being handed.
It wasn't like the after pill (or whatever it was even called - she couldn't even bear to look at it, she shouldn't have to buy it) was even hers.
The pills were for her half sister, a newly claimed daughter of Aphrodite, who had stumbled over the camp boarder bleeding and crying during late at night with half of a map and directions from her (now dead) satyr protector.
That satyr had died trying to fend off a mortal, but the mortal had a gun, and soon the mortal was forcing himself onto Piper's half sister.
The situation sucked, but even then, Piper shouldn't have relapsed so badly. Nothing about her in this even mattered - she meant nothing, she was absolutely fine.
At least, that's what her brain said.
She couldn't help but try to plan and pace her eating, choosing to skip breakfast tomorrow and instead work off the extra layer of unnecessary fat she'd grown during the past two months.
The cashier had been right, she was a disgusting, fat, useless bitch.
Piper didn't notice her habits of an eating disorder closing in on her again, trapping her, but neither did anyone else because she did such a good job hiding it, even the first time; when she'd worn the same thick sweatshirts for the first few weeks of summer before the camp had a yearly weigh in, which Piper had been so unprepared for. She remembered the feeling when her weight had been nearly twenty pounds below what it should have.
She'd felt so, so proud, so happy, even as several of camp medics forced her onto the bed and threatened to tube her if she didn't eat something.
That was five months ago now, and when the medics had let her leave nearly three weeks later, she hadn't eaten anything for another week straight. Anything she had eaten - during and after the stay in the infirmary - was purged in the bathroom, vomited up as quietly as she could make.
It had taken her another month of realising she needed help, so she started to watch some YouTube videos, go to her oldest siblings that weren't even in camp anymore.
During that month, though, she had daily weigh ins. The children of Apollo - and Chiron - were so dumb to realise she was slipping weights into her pants and shirts, into her bras and later even underwear.
(It took her a while, because the Aphrodite cabin only had one scale which was used almost all the time because they suffered the same as her, to realise she'd lost another five pounds. Then, when she saw them stuffing weights into their pants as a bug was going around and everyone needed a checkup, she wondered why nobody had warned her about the weigh in.)
All of this was remembered as Piper left the store in a hurry, giving the supplies she'd gotten from the store to her sister, before rushing into the Aphrodite Cabin bathroom and vomiting everything she'd managed to eat that day so far, from the toast and eggs she'd had at breakfast and the giant slices of pizza she had for lunch, and all the snacks throughout the day.
She froze when sweet, innocent Lacy came in (the door was locked, and Piper would later wonder how she got in) and shut the door behind her. Lacy said nothing - just pulled her sister's choppy hair back from her face as she shoved her fingers down her throat.
"We all get bad days, Piper," she mumbled from behind her. "But just so you know, you look beautiful."
So um... more angst. Sorry-