The last letter.
Rachel
Four letters, many more people, countless words later and still you have not defined who is really to blame. Almost every person you have ever come into close contact with has given you a building block to create this huge mountain looming above you, but it was you who took all those blocks and built them on top of one another. You could have taken a weapon and destroyed them. You could have kept them separate and tackled each one individually, you could have enlisted someone to help you with the weight, but you chose to let them become this.
From the age of five when a little girl named Quinn started your insecurities, you made all the wrong decisions. After that was a long, long chain reaction of events, crashing into one another like dominoes and leading up to his one letter. You made each of those wrong decisions and then you justified them in your twisted mind that had proved itself untrustworthy from the very first tiny rock of the mountain.
You can blame the self hate on as many people as you like, but it is with your own eyes you look in the mirror. It is your hand that puts down the food and pushes away the plate, it's your mouth that eats those few lettuce leaves for lunch instead of a real meal, it's your body that forces itself to run just one more kilometre or do just ten more sit ups, then another ten, and another until your muscles burn as if someone's set you on fire from the inside out. Well guess what? You're the one with the match in your hand.
The mountain was not always there. Your five year old mind, although advanced for its age, did not know what a calorie was. It didn't know about the amount of fat that could be burned per hour in correlation to the intensity of the workout. It didn't deduce, as it studied your body in the mirror, that perhaps your nose was above average and it was about time the puppy fat came off. At five years old it was still innocent and naïve, it still believed you were a special girl.
When did you stop believing that? When did you start to look in the mirror and see everything scattered with fault? When did you decide not to eat those chips and have an apple instead? Well, the thought was always there. Right from the first years of Elementary school, you began to wonder if they would leave you alone if you looked more like them, but it wasn't anything real. Back then, all it took was a reassuring comment from either one of your dads and you believed they were the ugly ones. On the inside at least.
It wasn't until Middle School that stopped being enough, when Karen's comments went round and round in your head, that you weren't good enough for your own mother, that she never wanted you; when they were still taunting you with Quinn at the front of it all, enjoying the pain that flashed across your features with every word. That was when you began to look in the mirror and want to change what you saw, but you only looked for a second before you turned away, afraid of the soft voice whispering all your imperfections.
Then came High School, the years everything was supposed to change. Well, it did that all right. Everything fell apart around you as you could no longer avoid the truth the popular girls in the red and white uniform had been telling you all of those years. Finally, you looked in the mirror and saw what they did. It was their words that haunted you as you stared into that glass, but it was your eyes that distorted the figure reflected in it.
The diet started discreetly. First, you ate things like chocolate and any large calorie meals less and less. Becoming a vegan was easy, it was an excuse to cut out all those foods, a reason for not having a slice of pizza with the Glee Club when you ordered out after a performance and no one questioned it when you ordered a salad instead. It was a reason for turning down the large roast dinners dripping with gravy prepared by your fathers, just about the only attention they ever paid to you by that point. But all of that, it was your choice. Quinn did not stand by your side and whisper 'don't eat that, you're far too fat' into your ear.
Then came the working out. Even that was harmless at first. An hour's session every morning, no more than what is recommended daily. You justified that by saying it kept you fit and ready for your active lifestyle, but that was just it, you already got your daily exercise in the form of dance classes and Glee rehearsals. Adding the morning workouts too it made it too much. But still, it wasn't an unhealthy amount. It kept you in shape and ready to tackle the hard demands of the life of a rising star.
When you began to eat no more than an apple for breakfast, it was okay because there was so little you could eat anyway, and it was something quick to munch on the way to school. You didn't want to be late. Then of course lunch was hard too, the cafeteria offered so little vegan options that you were often forced to chose a peanut butter sandwich on brown bread. But soon it was just the crusts. You had eaten peanut butter so much, you had gone off it.
In the evenings, once you were done with Glee Club, homework and dance rehearsals, it was almost dinner and there was no need for a snack. You were always ravenous by that point, and because you were still at least partly in a world of reality, you allowed yourself to eat a proper meal. Your dads had started their business trips by then so you were left to prepare your own. Pasta, tofu, vegetable stir fry, jacket potato. It was the only real food you had all day. But that was fine because the point was you were getting a proper meal.
But soon that proper meal stopped being a part of your daily life. That was because both Jesse and your mother had abandoned you in the space of one week. They had both been your life line, your dream come true. All your life you believed your mother didn't want you, but then there she was and at the same time, you had this amazing boyfriend who treated you like a Queen. When they both went away, there was no point in that meal. That meal became no more than two rice crackers, or yet another apple.
Still, it was okay because Jesse and your mother, along with the years of taunting and Finn's inner rock star had just knocked your confidence. It was nothing really, you'd soon get back on your feet and be the Rachel Berry that everyone knew and...hated. No. You wouldn't be that girl again, it was time for a change because you were tired of hurting. But it was still okay because it was a good change, one that would make your mother want you, make you good enough for Finn and show those cheerleaders how wrong they were about you.
Each one of them knows their part in this mountain building now, they have their letters and you've told each one their story, but what you failed to mention was it was never really for them. You wanted to be your mother's daughter, Finn's girlfriend and a friend to everyone else at the same time, but the only one who truly hated the sight of you was yourself. So now, you get your own letter. You finally get to admit your own part in this.
It was you who stopped eating that apple in the morning and slotted a three kilometre run into your morning routine on top of the hour's workout you already did. By the time you set off for school, you were exhausted, but you still made yourself walk instead of driving. It didn't matter though, you were just looking after yourself. You were getting in shape ready to take Nationals. You didn't need a lot of food, just the crusts from your peanut butter sandwich and a couple of vegetables in the evening to fuel your busy schedule.
Even that was too much though, wasn't it? Did you really need both the carrots and the potato for dinner? Wasn't just one enough? Two was too many, even for someone with an ordinary diet. That was the same amount everyone ate, you needed the body of a star and that meant the diet of one. So the two vegetables became one, the crust became a tiny salad that was never finished.
Still, it did not matter. You were healthy. Healthier than any of those who stuffed themselves with pizzas and chocolate and other junk food all day. It wasn't enough for you though. It wasn't even enough when the scales told you you were underweight because the mirror told a different story. The mirror showed you every roll of fat, it showed you your bulking belly and thunder thighs. The mirror told you the truth, the scales always lied. It became both your worst enemy and your best friend, because it always remained truthful when everyone else was trying to lie to you and tell you that you were getting thinner.
So you kept doing it. You increased your workout, decreased your food. When you absolutely had to eat something that was not on your daily intake allowance, you had to force an extra hour into your day to burn it off. You were still taking care of yourself though. It was all over the media that teens were never getting enough exercise, eating too much junk food. You were being one of the good ones, doing what was right for your body.
Finally, after several long months of hard work, you could see the weight just beginning to creep off. You were not thin, you were not even close and there was no way you were good enough, but it was a start. You were getting somewhere, at last doing something to banish that stupid worthless girl that resided inside you. Finn was finally starting to look at you like he used to look at Quinn, and when you swapped the sweaters for dresses, the rest of the school's scathing looks lessened. Of course they were still there, twisted into their smiles.
You used him and everyone else who had ever hurt you as a reason to carry on. It was him whose voice chanted 'super hot' in your ear time and time again as you forced your tired body to work out, but it was your ears that listened. It was Quinn's sneer you saw as you rejected the steaming plate of pasta you could picture in your mind and chose a carrot instead, but it was your eyes that paid attention. It was Shelby's dismissal of you as her family that pushed you to carry on with that workout, but it was your mind that decided: just ten more minutes.
They gave you the fuel, but you started the fire. They supplied the bricks, but you built the wall to keep out anyone who cared. They gave you a huge piece of land and all the lumps for the mountain, but it was you who let them build up on top of each other, piece by piece. You could have taken their words, their looks and their actions in your stride and had you climbed each rock as it came, you could have ended up on the peak, looking down at them all from the top.
Now you have told your own story, entwined with the stories of those you love, and those you don't, it is time for the ending. The ending that has not yet been written. You've always been a clever girl, if nothing else. So clever, you have even managed to fool yourself. But you're not just looking after yourself, you're not preparing your body for its tough life as a star, you're not creating your longed for image that will prevail above all critics. What you're doing is destroying yourself.
A raw carrot and a handful of leaves are not enough for a daily food intake. An hour of morning workout followed by a three kilometre run, a brisk walk to school, a session of dancing in Glee Club, another two hours dance rehearsal in the evenings and more sit ups, more kilometres on the exercise bike is not a healthy life style. It's part of a disease, a disease that has you in its unrelenting hold. It's a destructive monster that whispers to you at all hours of the day, it's a roaring voice of agony that won't let you feel pretty. It's your own voice, it's the voice of all those who have ever made you feel anything less than perfect.
It's the voice of anorexia and I, Rachel Berry, am a victim.
And that concludes my letters. I don't know when it will be up, I'll try to make it sometime not-too-far-away.
Reviews again are very appreciated, especially since it's the last one and I know some people weren't sure about this letter idea.
Oh, and another thing. I want to know what everyone wants in the next part. I have some of my own ideas and a general strucure, but I think it's going to be longer than the past two, about ten chapters, and I think some of it would be best coming from you guys, so what would you like to see?
Although I will say one thing. No Faberry. I don't care if each and every reviewer begs for it, I will write a couple of scenes between them because there are things left unresolved, but they are not friends. Quinn doesn't secretly love Rachel. Rachel doesn't have a crush on Quinn. They just dislike one another.