Hemorrhage.

If there was one thing that I was positively sure of, it was that my life was over.

I could feel the ache in my bones, the throb in my head, and the emptiness of knowing that I had nothing left. Standing on that dirty white scale proved that there was nothing left to live for. There was no longer a perfection that I would ever be able to reach. I could strive for it; reach my hand out until I thought my arm might disconnect from my shoulder, but it still wouldn’t be long enough.

I gained thirteen pounds.

I had three digits in my weight. When I pinched my hips, there was fat. When I slouched my shoulders, my stomach bunched together.

104 pounds.

I brought a pale hand up, cupping it over my mouth. My stomach turned, the bile inching its way farther and farther up my throat. My body convulsed, wanting so badly to gag and throw up the empty contents of my stomach. I hadn’t eaten in three days and I had gained thirteen pounds.

I was never a math genius. I didn’t take accelerated algebra and I still wasn’t sure the quickest way to complete the quadratic formula. I had no idea how it was physically possible for me to gain this much weight in three days. Or, maybe seven days. I hadn’t stepped on the scale in seven days.

Okay. How did I gain this much weight in seven days?

I gulped. I didn’t understand. Why?

Why me?

Why did I have to be like this?

Why did I have to cause myself this much pain?

There was a painstakingly small part of me that knew I was unhealthy. I knew that what I was doing to myself was wrong - it was torture, and I enjoyed it, like the masochistic person that I am. I enjoyed hurting myself.

With John - I had put so much effort into thinking that maybe what we had could be something good. He might have been something I was good at. I felt like there was a genuine friendship there, like maybe John could be the one reliable, sincere person I could lean on. Except it wasn’t like that now, because Mia was the person that was using John as a rock. Mia was the person that got his undivided attention; his friendship, his love. Mia had the one stable person in my life. I should have known there would be someone like Mia in John’s life - he was one of the most attractive men I’d ever met, but he was so much more than that, too. He was kind, sincere, funny. He was understanding and he cared too much. He was reliable. He was a good person. I should have known better than to think that he could be all mine. I had caused myself this pain.

With my body - I knew that I was doing these things to myself. I knew that I was starving, causing my stomach to growl and slowly, ever so slowly, begin to decompose my muscles. I knew that my esophagus was tearing, slowly beginning to hemorrhage from the stomach acids ripping the walls up. I knew my teeth were decaying, caused by throwing up so much and only brushing my teeth with water because I was afraid of the calories if I accidentally digested toothpaste. I knew that my bones were frail, hardly able to hold anything, and I knew that my skin was sickly, slowly edging closer to yellow on the spectrum of colors. I knew that my cheeks were hollow and my hip bones protruding and my eyes shallow, but there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t stop. Every time I thought about eating three meals a day, letting it sit in me, I would get sick. I was afraid of being fat. Or fatter than I already was.

It wasn’t fair.

Sometimes I longed for some form of normality. I wanted to be a normal girl, with a normal body and straight teeth and healthy skin, with a nice boyfriend. I wanted to go to college, get a normal job, marry, and then eventually become a soccer mom with a minivan.

That would never happen for me.

I wanted a do over, or an Easy button from the Staples commercials. I didn’t get that and I didn’t understand why.

Why did everything have to be so hard for me?

There were people out there who lived their lives easily, no care in the world. They got a good mind, a good body, a good family - a good life without even having to work for it. Why couldn’t I have that?

I closed my eyes before stepping off the scale. I was not going to will myself to look at the mirror. I didn’t have the emotional stability to look at myself in the mirror right now. I turned away, before scooping up my clothes from the linoleum floor and putting them on, one by one. I brushed out my straightened hair and then quickly padded out of the bathroom, turning the light off after me.

It had been a day.

A day and a half, technically.

I was hiding from the world, underneath my paisley duvet and the deadbolt over the front door. I didn’t want to see anyone. I wasn’t ready for the ridicule, the conformation that Mia was right.

Because Mia was right, you know.

I was just some poor little girl, too skinny for her own good. I was just John’s charity case - his constant good deed of the day. He would eventually realize that I was nothing that he needed in his life permanently. I was just some girl. Some girl he’d known since elementary, that didn’t matter anymore.

He had a new number one.

I crawled back into my bad, submerging myself underneath the layers of covers. My head rested on the feathery pillow. I stared above at the ceiling.

My phone started to vibrate from somewhere in the room, buried underneath a pile of something. I hadn’t answered my phone in a day.

I didn’t get up.