Brittany wiped up her mouth with toilet paper and then threw it in and flushed the toilet. She then sat on the bathroom floor for several minutes after that, feeling a little lightheaded.

She could not believe she seriously just did that. Never in her life would she have imagined a moment like this occurring for her. She didn't even know what to think right now. She was going through so many different emotions with so many different things racing through her mind.

It was all too much for her. She knew she should be horrified with what just happened. After all, she felt awful physically and could still taste the bile in her mouth. The whole bathroom reeked of her vomit.

No matter how hard Brittany tried, she just couldn't wrap her head around the fact that she had just thrown up. And it wasn't like throwing up from a virus or food poisoning. She actually did this to herself. She had intentionally made herself sick. It was just so hard to accept.

But the thing is, she wasn't horrified in the least. And she wasn't disgusted, like she normally would be after puking. Instead, she felt... relieved. Maybe that was what had made this whole situation even scarier.

It was like all the food she had eaten for breakfast somehow was symbolic for all the bad feelings she had. All the stress she was under, her grief over Miss Miller, her broken heart over Alvin, the hurt she felt over losing all her friends from cheerleading, her fear that she soon would no longer be popular, her newfound insecurities about her body... all of that. And by purging, she had felt like she was somehow releasing all those bad feelings.

In addition to this sense of relief, she also felt like she had just taken back some of the control she had lost by allowing herself to indulge in all those fattening breakfast foods earlier.

But whatever she did from this point on, she knew one thing was for sure. She could never, ever let anybody find out about this whole incident. Especially not her sisters. They were already breathing down her neck as is.

But even if somebody outside her family were to find out, it would still be way too risky. It was bound to end up getting back to Jeanette and Eleanor somehow. And then she'd have to put up with even more people blowing this whole thing out of proportion.

The last thing in the world she wanted was for all the people who cared about her to find out about this whole episode and make a big deal about it. Because it wasn't a big deal. It was just a one-time thing and she wasn't going to do it ever again. This did not make her bulimic and the last thing she needed was people thinking she was.

She knew she'd never hear the end of it and would probably be forced into seeing the school guidance counselor. Not to mention, her reputation at school would take an even bigger hit and literally everyone would be gossiping about her.

Then there was her whole career to think about. She still hadn't been cleared to perform yet. At this rate, she was starting to fear it was never going to happen. But if anyone found out about this incident, she knew it was guaranteed to keep her out of performing for even longer. Possibly forever.

Dave was the manager of The Chipettes now, in addition to The Chipmunks. They even did a lot of joint concerts and tours together. But Dave had always been super protective of Brittany and her sisters and treated them as if they were his own daughters.

And that had only gotten stronger ever since Miss Miller passed away. So she knew there was no way Dave would ever let her go back to performing if he believed she had an eating disorder.

And then of course, there was the fear of the tabloids finding out and how they would end up spinning this into something that wasn't even close to resembling the truth. That was a whole other nightmare she didn't even want to think about. At all.

Finding the strength to get back up after a while, Brittany turned off the water to the shower and then took a look at the toilet. She cleaned up after herself. Once finished, she took a good look at herself in the bathroom mirror.

Her makeup was totally wrecked. Her icy blue eyes were red and puffy. She could feel tears stinging them, threatening to spill once again on this very emotional morning. Her beautiful auburn hair was falling out of its ponytail and sticking up everywhere. There was no way she could go to school looking like this.

The flustered Chipette turned on the sink faucet and started washing all the makeup off her face. She took her hair out of its ponytail as well and smoothed it out with her hand.

She then reached for her pink toothbrush and the tube of toothpaste and brushed her teeth for the second time that morning. She knew this was necessary in order to get rid of the smell of barf that was guaranteed to be on her breath now. She even followed it up with mouthwash, just to make sure all evidence of purging was no longer on her breath.

Once she was through with brushing her teeth and had spit the minty mouthwash out into the sink, the Chipette brushed out her hair and put it back into a ponytail. She was glad to now have the taste of mint in her mouth instead of vomit. Once finished with her hair, she then redid her makeup.

Brittany was aware that she was going to be incredibly late for school this morning, but she didn't care. She had to make sure she did everything she could to cover her tracks.

Once she finished with her appearance, Brittany remembered there was still one more thing she had to take care of. The scent that was still lingering throughout the bathroom.

She knew Jeanette and Eleanor had probably long since taken off for school by now. But she couldn't take any chances in case one of them happened to come back home early today.

She picked up her favorite Eau de Dream perfume. She sprayed some extra on herself and then sprayed it all over the bathroom. There! With that, she should now have all her bases covered.

Brittany gave herself one last glance in the mirror and sighed. She was no longer satisfied with her reflection the way she used to be. All she could think about was how chubby her face now looked to her. But she knew this was as good as she was going to get right now. So with that, she finally took off for school.

It turned out that Brittany was almost two hours late to school. This meant that she missed her first two classes. She narrowly avoided detention by telling Principal Talbot her knee had been giving her a lot of trouble that morning and it really hurt when she woke up. As a result, she had trouble walking. So she had to sit with an ice pack on her knee for a while until she felt ok enough to walk again.

Principal Talbot sighed heavily and simply let the pink-clad Chipette off with a warning. Brittany was very relieved. She wasn't sure if Principal Talbot truly bought her story though, or if he simply took pity on her since he knew all about her situation with Miss Miller, her emancipation, her guardianship over her sisters and her injury. He realized how hard this had all made things for her recently.

She wondered if that was the only reason he let her off the hook, since Principal Talbot was usually known to be pretty strict about enforcing rules like this. But even if that was the case, the young Chipette was still grateful she got away with it this time.

But she was more than aware that sympathy would eventually run out and she was only going to be able to use her knee as an excuse for so long before he started demanding doctor's notes. She was going to have to be more careful with her time in the mornings from this point on.

Either that or come up with a way to forge notes like she did for her school hours make-out sessions with Alvin back when they were still boyfriend and girlfriend. But Alvin was much better at that than she was. He had always helped her out there. She really didn't want to get her red-capped ex-boyfriend involved in all this though. This was her battle and she would face it all by herself.

Eleanor also happened to be in Brittany's second class and Brittany knew she was going to notice her absence for sure. So now she was going to also have to come up with an excuse her baby sister would buy, as she was sure Eleanor was going to question her over it at some point today.

Brittany went on to her next couple of morning classes. But she was having so much trouble paying attention. All she could think about was the way she had purged after breakfast. It was like a dark cloud over her head that followed her around for the entire day.

When lunchtime rolled around, Brittany was able to carry on with her usual routine of skipping out on it. She avoided the cafeteria and went outside instead to do her homework. And on days when the weather was bad, she would spend her lunch period in the library.

On those days, she noticed other students in there were staring at her and whispering to each other whenever they saw her. After all, nobody expected to see Brittany Miller doing her homework in the library during her free time. This did make her feel uneasy about the whole thing, worrying that her cover would be blown at any second.

But she figured if anyone asked, she'd say that her social worker has been on her case about getting better grades. So she needed to make sure all her homework was done in order to make sure she and her sisters stayed together.

After lunch was over, Brittany went on to the rest of her classes for the afternoon. But just like in the morning, she was struggling to focus. And in addition to the intrusive thoughts, she was starting to feel lightheaded again. Kind of like how she did after the purging incident from before.

At the end of the day, when Brittany was at her locker gathering all the things she needed to bring home and placing them into her tote bag, she felt a tap on her shoulder. The auburn-haired teen turned around and found herself facing her youngest sister.

"Why weren't you in Spanish class earlier?" Eleanor asked her oldest sister. Her brown eyes appeared to be a mix of concern, confusion and frustration all rolled into one.

Eleanor continued. "You know Senora Rodriguez asked me where you were. I had to think fast to figure out how I was gonna cover for you. And of course, she asked me and made me answer her question about you in Spanish. Do you have any idea how awkward it was to try to make up an excuse for you and remember all the words in Spanish at the exact same time? Ugh! You owe me for that one. And I better get an A in Spanish this semester just for that."

"Sorry, Ellie." Brittany responded sincerely, genuinely feeling bad for dragging Eleanor into this.

The pink-clad Chipette sighed, then asked her sister an important question.

"What did you end up telling Senora Rodriguez?"

She really hoped Eleanor's story was somewhat close to the one she told Principal Talbot. If the two ended up giving completely different excuses for Brittany's tardiness this morning, she was screwed.

"Just that your knee had been acting up and you needed to rest it. And I told her you should be in a little later today." She then eyed her big sister carefully. "Hopefully you told Principal Talbot something similar?"

Brittany let out a big sigh of relief. She was so glad she and Eleanor seemed to have the same kind of thinking when it came to things like this.

"I did. Looks like our stories match up."

"So what was the real reason you were late? You were still in the shower when Jeanette and I left for school ourselves this morning. I know you always take forever to get ready, but still..."

"It really was my knee!" Brittany answered quickly. "It hurt after I got out of the shower, so I needed to ice it for a bit before I could walk to school. But I feel so much better now. Really!"

Eleanor raised her eyebrow. There was something about what Brittany was telling her that just felt off. She couldn't shake the feeling that something else was going on. But she wasn't sure exactly what that was.

"Well, I don't have soccer practice today. So why don't we walk home together? Just in case you need help."

"Ok." Brittany agreed. "And actually..."

The auburn-haired teenager then tried to hand her green-clad sister her pink tote bag.

"Do you think you can carry my bag for me? It's pretty heavy today. I don't think that's going to be good for my knee."

Eleanor groaned.

"Seriously, Brittany?" The blonde Chipette shouted. "It's not enough for you that I helped save your ass this morning? Now you expect me to carry your books when..."

"Relax Ellie!" Brittany said with a smirk, as she rolled her eyes. "I was just kidding."

Brittany then threw her bag back over her shoulder and started limping out of school, knowing Eleanor would be able to catch up to her in no time.

Eleanor huffed as she adjusted the straps on her spring green backpack and followed her eldest sister out. Brittany and Alvin may not have been a couple anymore, but it seems that the red-clad Chipmunk's sense of humor had rubbed off on her sister from years of dating.

Soon enough, the evening came around and it was time for dinner. Eleanor made lasagna, dinner rolls and salad. Brittany was all prepared to say that she had too much homework tonight and didn't have time to sit down to dinner.

But she knew that wasn't going to fly this time. First, because it just so happened to be a Friday night. But also because Eleanor had been watching her like a hawk ever since they got home. If she skipped dinner tonight, she knew her baby sister would be jumping all over her about it.

Jeanette was nervously biting her lip while she repeatedly threw concerned looks Brittany's way as well. She realized Eleanor must have told her about her late arrival to school today.

Brittany started picking at the vegetables in her salad, like she had been doing on the occasions when she did sit down to eat dinner these last few weeks. Only now, she noticed that both of her younger sisters were staring at her, waiting to see what she did next.

Wanting to avoid any further questioning from them both, Brittany devoured the rest of her salad without really looking at it. She desperately wanted to excuse herself from the table right then and there, but she knew Eleanor was going to say that wasn't enough food for her.

The pink-clad teenager looked at her plate and sighed. She looked up and still saw her sisters shooting glances in her direction. They would notice if she left her plate untouched. Brittany picked up her fork, cut off a piece of lasagna with it, brought it to her mouth, chewed and swallowed it. It was like a flashback to breakfast, just with different food this time.

The next thing the teenage Chipette knew, she had eaten her entire portion of lasagna and the dinner roll that was on her plate as well. She didn't even think about it at all this time. Everything on her plate was gone without her being aware of what she was doing.

As Brittany left the table and put her dishes into the dishwasher, she told Jeanette and Eleanor that she was going to take a bubble bath. Nothing unusual about that for her. Brittany always did enjoy taking a nice long bath after a stressful day. And ever since hurting her knee, she had also discovered taking a hot bath was a great way to help alleviate her sore muscles.

When Brittany got to the bathroom, she locked the door behind her and made her way over to the bathtub as fast as she could. She turned on the water. Not yet filling the tub, but just letting it run.

The auburn-haired teenager then lifted up the toilet seat, got down on the floor, opened her mouth and started bringing her finger to it. Just like before. But then she stopped herself.

No! She couldn't do this! She made a promise to herself that this morning was just going to be a one-time thing and that she would never, ever do it again. She did not want to wind up like Muffy's cousin.

But then the blue-eyed teenager put her hands on her stomach. She still felt super bloated from all that carb-filled food she had eaten for dinner. And she could feel her favorite miniskirt that she was still wearing getting tighter on her by the second. She knew if she didn't do something about her most recent meal, it would only be a matter of time before her skirt went back to not fitting her once again.

Brittany found herself getting lost in her thoughts. She closed her eyes and pictured herself getting fatter and fatter. She just couldn't take it anymore.

The pink-clad teen let all the tears fall from her eyes and roll down her cheeks as she went to do the very thing she swore she wouldn't do again. She continued crying as she opened her mouth and brought her finger back to it, actually following through this time.

Once Brittany finished up and flushed the toilet, she went over to the sink. She brushed her teeth and used mouthwash just like earlier today, getting rid of the smell and taste of vomit in her mouth.

But no matter how much she erased all the evidence, she still couldn't understand the strange sense of relief she was once again feeling after purging. It was strange how much feeling relieved was actually bothering her. She simply couldn't understand why she had these feelings.

The Chipette then plugged up the bathtub and let it fill up. She was so happy to finally get out of the clothes she had been wearing all day and step into the tub. As she laid down in the tub, she let the warm water relax her, washing this whole awful day away. She let the aroma of the various Bath & Body Works products she was using take over the bathroom, covering up the smell of her barf.

When she was ready to come out of the tub after what felt like a million years, she drained the tub, dried herself off with a towel, grabbed her pink bathrobe off the hook of the door and slipped it on. She then went into her bedroom. In her room, she closed the door behind her, flopped onto her bed and cried into her pink pillowcase.

She was so scared. And yet, she still refused to accept that this was turning into a problem for her. The once again determined Chipette threw on a silky pink nightgown and climbed into bed.

After tonight, there would be no more purging. This was absolutely the very last time she was going to engage in such harmful behavior. She was the one who was in control, after all. She just had to keep reminding herself of that.

However, it looked like that would be another promise Brittany made to herself that she wasn't going to be able to keep. The next day was a Saturday, which meant she had physical therapy.

Her appointment that day was early enough that she was actually able to dodge breakfast that morning, as she waited outside the Seville house for Dave to give her a ride. When Brittany finished up with her hour long session and said goodbye to her physical therapist, Kristina, she took a seat in the waiting room. She was waiting for Dave to come back and pick her up

Unfortunately, the only seat available was right across from the vending machine. This meant Brittany was going to be tempted to purchase a snack. She looked outside through the window nearby. Despite how nice the weather had been this morning, it was now raining hard. So waiting out there was not an option.

This proved to be challenging, because the Chipette's hunger was getting the best of her again. Unable to resist the temptation any longer, Brittany went over to the vending machine.

She pulled her pink wallet out of her matching pink purse. She took a dollar bill out of her wallet, inserted the dollar into the slot and waited impatiently for the pretzels she selected to drop down.

Once she pulled the pretzels out of the bottom compartment, she sneaked off to some tiny little corner where nobody would see her. The last thing she needed was a bunch of strangers judging her for what a fat-ass she was when they saw her stuffing her face with junk food. She felt it was best not to draw any attention to herself.

Brittany practically inhaled the entire small bag of the delicious, salty snack. Once she was finished, she shoved the now empty pretzel bag into her purse for hiding and made her way to the office's single stall bathroom. Thankfully, there was no line and no one in there at the time.

Brittany locked the door behind her and just instinctively repeated the act of purging from the day before. It was almost like she was in a trance and wasn't even aware of her actions while she was doing it.

Once the blue-eyed teenager finished up and flushed the toilet, that same sense of relief came back. All the anxiety she had built up over yesterday's events was gone. But once she started cleaning up after herself, she felt the same fear from right before she went to bed come back.

Brittany sobbed once again as that scared, helpless feeling overwhelmed her. It was crazy to her how quickly this was making her mood switch from relieved to scared in less than a heartbeat.

Is this how the rest of her life was going to be from now on? And how much longer would she have left if she kept going on like this?


A/N: It's scary to see how quickly Brittany is sliding down this very dangerous slope, right? How much longer can she really keep this all up though? Her sisters may have caught on to her skipping meals. But how long do you think it will be before her more frequent (and longer) trips to the bathroom are noticed? Think there are any other signs that will give it away to those that care about Brittany?

Next chapter will have some interaction between Alvin and Brittany! Are these two very stubborn Chipmunks finally ready to confront their feelings and actually TALK to each other? How awkward do you think it'll be this time? And will Alvin notice anything is wrong with Britt?

We will also get to find out Brittany's future as far as performing again goes in the next chapter! What do you think the verdict will be there? And how will it change things for Brittany?

Girl is clearly not doing good right now, despite what she's trying so hard to make everyone around her believe!

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the reads, reviews, favorites, and follows! I am so grateful for all your kind words, encouragement and support. Honestly, it's what keeps me going. You guys rock! Super excited to hear what you thought of this chapter too!