"This is kinda awkward, isn't it?"
It was a stupid question. I knew it was awkward for the both of us. We had just had a movement. A big one. One that I felt like could change our life but in the end it had amounted to nothing.
I cursed him for ever putting the idea in my head. Not just be sex we had had but the idea of us.
I hadn't thought about him after I left. Not that much. I hadn't thought about anyone. I had tried to keep in touch with my father but it had pained me all too much. All of this had hurt me because I have never been sure about the choices I had made in my life.
I could have been where Sakura was today.
It wouldn't be impossible. I could have lead the simple and quiet life that she had. If she makes a mistake nobody cares, if she's down she have people to bring her up again, if she had trouble she had help to sort it out, if something was bothering her she had people to confide in.
I had to spend money for all that. I had no one there for me. I was having doubts that my fiancée even cared about me. I was all an act. If I was to disappear people would have wondered where I went but no one would care to look.
My breath became rapid and I clutched the countertop not to fall down.
"Calm down Ino, it's not the end of the world. It doesn't have to mean anything."
I watched him place another piece of egg on his fork. I saw how the bacon shined in the lights and how the fat seeped out of the sausages. I had just eaten that. I had placed it all inside of me and it was upsetting me.
Grease was flowing freely in my veins replacing my blood. If you cut me a thick yellow matter would ooze out only made liquid by my body heat. I would slowly turn into a pig. I would have heart trouble and diabetes in no time. I wouldn't be able to stop eating like the pig I am. I would probably have to have my foot amputated but I would die of a heart attack on the operating table.
All because I devoured bacon.
All because I stuffed myself with sausage.
All because I scoffed the embryotic matter of a hen.
I was supposed to be vegan. I wasn't supposed to eat things that came from animals. Animals meant carbs and fat. It wasn't good for me.
I could feel my stomach turn against me. There was a war inside me. I didn't know who was fighting but I was certain no matter who won I would be the one to lose.
"It'll be fine, Ino, really."
No it wasn't. I had soiled my body in more than one way. I couldn't take it. I was so filled with confusion and regret that there wasn't room for anything more.
With hasty steeps I made my way over to the bathroom. I had been so calm about the whole ordeal. I had been. Now it was all turmoil. Everything was a mess and there was nothing good in my life. There was nothing good in my life.
I threw myself down on my knees. With arms resting on the toilet seat I tried bawling.
Nothing came. Only the friction and sounds my body made as I tried to get rid of the content it was so desperately clinging on to.
My body would be used as a weapon against it. With one elbow on the toilet seat I steered the other towards my mouth.
There couldn't be filth inside me. I needed to keep clean. I needed to keep thin.
Tears rolled down my cheek as the second wave left my body. The cries I made bounced off the walls and hit me again. There was an echo in the room. I had to listen to my defeat and shame once more.
I was pathetic. This was a new low. I never ate anything I hadn't calculated and agreed with myself to eat and keep down.
I didn't eat to throw up.
Never.
I knew Shikamaru was behind me. I had left the door open and probably ruined his appetite and therefore his meal.
Xoxoxo
I saw her resting on the bathroom floor. This wasn't like the times we had drunk too much sample booze and gotten sick to the amounts and mixing. We were young and didn't know better.
Ino in front of me wasn't a teenager. The Ino in front of me was a woman. A beautiful and tainted on that is. She had ruined herself chasing dreams no teenage girl should have.
She was fully conscious this time and it was a sad and pathetic sight.
Her red heels adorned her feet that used to be placed in bunny slippers as a child. Her dress barely covered her after squirming on the bathroom floor. Her dress length had grown as she had, but it was to no avail this time. Her perfectly laid makeup was smudged by tears. Tears only. Just as teenage Ino, woman Ino never cried.
The smell of throw up entered my nose. I don't know if she had thrown up because she had eaten or if it was because of what I had told her. I didn't rule out that she had thrown up because she could blame it on what I had told her.
Grown up Ino, unlike teenage Ino seemed to throw up what little she ate.
"Go ahead and judge me."
She had spoken it as if I had been holding a gun to her head. She had spoken it as if she had lost all her will to live. There wasn't much life left in her anyway.
"You speak as if you want me to grant you death, yet it is you who's granting that wish."
She used the inside of her hand to wipe something off the corner of her mouth. There was no reason to keep her perfect classy lady act for me. She knew I saw right through it. I know her.
"Do you think I enjoyed this?"
Icy blue electric eyes were directed towards me as she lifted her head.
I had thought about it. I had thought about a fair deal ever since I first saw her on the bus. I didn't know much about her. I didn't know how she had done in the big city. I knew that she was doing well. Even I have seen the magazine fronts and billboards.
I didn't know her road from leaving this town to the top. I didn't know what she had done while there and I didn't know her road down and back to this town.
I hadn't felt fit to judge her.
Now that I saw how she had reacted to my love for her. Now that she was on the floor with her hear sticking to her face and her body shaking I couldn't help but to think that she loved this.
She had let her life become her disease and she seemed to embrace it never wanting to part with it. Anorexia had seemed to become as much Ino as Ino had become Anorexia.
"I know you have the means and will power to beat this disease and yet here you are crawling on the floor having just thrown up the only proper meal you've probably had in years. What do you thing that tells me?"
I've always had this fight with her. I had always been the only reasonable voice in her life. I hadn't been there for the last year and she had broken. Ino was broken. Only the shell of a human body was left on her and she didn't seem to want to change that.
"I am trying!"
I left my hands roll through my pony tail. She was trying? She hadn't been down on the floor had she been trying. She had been in the kitchen eating seconds if she had been trying. How hard could it be to just eat? Everyone else was doing it. What was it that she didn't get?
"Are you trying? Are you really trying when you're just throwing u your food?"
I was getting madder by the second. I was so frustrated. If only there had been a way to make her see what I saw. I didn't know much of her disease, but I knew she needed to eat before it cost her own life.
"Do you think I want to do this? Do you think I enjoy fearing food? Do you think I enjoy avoiding any social gathering were I'm required to eat food, do you think I enjoy always keeping tabs on the calories of the food I eat? Nara boy, you don't understand a thing. Nara, you know nothing!"
I couldn't understand what could possess a human to act so wildly against human nature. If she didn't enjoy it, if she didn't want to do it then why did she keep doing it? One would think that she would stop when there wasn't a single soul that wanted her to keep going on like she was. One would think that ending up in the hospital would make her eat.
"Then why do you keep doing it?!"
"Because the only thing I fear as much as being sick is the idea of being cured!"
Xoxoxo
There. I had told him what I had never dared to admit. The only thing I fear as my condition was being free from it. I had based my whole life on it. My life revolved around me not eating. My fiancée was with me because I had stopped eating. My career I had gotten because I had stopped eating. My fame came from not eating.
What would I do if I wasn't composing a meal trying to rid it of fat and calories? What would I do if I wasn't counting calories? What would I do if I didn't spend the majority of my day obsessing over food? What if I let myself go and became fat and what if what scared me the most happened? What if I regretted it all but was never able to go back to this life?
If I got well I could possible lose everything I cared for.
I couldn't become well. I could become better. I needed to gain weight and I would do that. I would show them that I was better for the time being. I would trick them all. I would go back to my job and I would be able to do whatever I wanted without anyone caring for me.
Nobody cared enough to challenge me in the city. If no one cared for me I was free to do whatever I wanted. I just needed to get another job and taking those pictures would help. I have been gaining weight and with the promise to keep gaining maybe somebody would hire me. I was considered a model and if the salary was low enough who would say no?
No, I wouldn't let you ruin everything Shikamaru. I would not let your love devourer me and destroy me. I would use my bones and body as a shield and I would get away from here where everything is wrong.
Xoxoxo
As I've written on my other story I took on a lot this fall and there wasn't any time for writing between two jobs and studying 400%. By the end of it I was exhausted and sick.
I apologize to all of you who have been waiting for an update. I'm back (for) now but I still have a busy schedule. You can expect updates but don't be surprised if they're slow. I'll be studying and working even more this spring, but I'm hoping to find some time for writing. It is my hobby after all.
Hope you enjoyed the story
Holiday cheers, I'll be celebrating Christmas tomorrow for sure!
EMG