Fashion Is Painful, Unless You Have a Toothbrush

2 Years Ago
I stalked into my hotel room, tears welling up in my eyes, another hate magazine rolled up in my fist. I had made it on the cover of this weeks latest magazine article. A reporter noticed that I had stopped at one of the nearest fast food restaurant nearest to my home in Orlando, Florida, and decided that it would make a fascinating article to ridicule my eating behaviors on.
I slouched down on the couch, getting all ready to go into a pout mode. My friend and roommate Jen stood at the counter drinking tea and watching me idly.
"Is anything wrong?" She asked me after a moment. I looked over at her. She should know by now that everything was wrong.
"Another fucking tabloid editor decided to burn me in this weeks magazine." I said, slapping the magazine down onto the coffee table. She flinched when it hit the coffee table, but didn't say anything. Instead she just walked around the counter and picked up the magazine that I had slapped down.
"You don't look too bad." She admitted to me.
"No. I do. Look at me. I have fat rolls! I look hideous." I moaned. Jen shook her head.
"You're a model. You're good at what you do. So what? It's just a bad picture of you. Why get all worked up about it. There'll be other pictures out there. Better ones." She encouraged me.
"I'm a model." I sniffed "I shouldn't have bad pictures."
Jen sighed and got up, defeated. I knew for a fact I was acting like a bitch, but I didn't care to apologize just then. This was the fourth time they had burned me in three weeks. It hadn't been just this magazine either. I was the 'chubby model'. 'Thunder Thighs'. I was fat.
I sighed and moved grudgingly into my bathroom. There was a scale placed in the corner beside the bathtub. I walked over to it and stepped on the scale. 142 pounds. I was five foot six. I should weigh less than that. I sat down on the toilet seat and began to cry. Modeling was my life; it was the only thing that had ever brought enjoyment to me ever since I was a little girl. Not because my parents had forced me into beauty pageants, but because I wanted to do this. Now it might be going down the drain just because I wanted to slip from my diet and eat a Big Mac once in a great while.
My eyes moved over to the medicine cabinet. There's an idea. Before I could realize that I had been walking, I was over at the cabinet and searching through it. My eyes wandered until they stopped on a bottle on the third shelf. Laxatives. A girl when I was sixteen used to use laxatives so she could loose weight.
I read the label on the medicine bottle. I decided to go with my weight being one-fifty instead of one-forty, because then I would be able to take two tablets instead of one.
"The more the merrier." I said, pouring out the tablets into my hand before tilting back my head and throwing them down my throat.

Present
"You're in the next lineup, Hillary." Craig, one of the crew members called to me in the dressing room backstage. I had just finished tying up the back of the dress that I now wore, worried that it wasn't going to fit or I was going to look ginormous in it.
The dress was a yellow and white stripped spring outfit, with yellow buttons going up the front of it. It was for this season's fashion line, along with yellow ballet flats that were fashioned on my feet, with a white flower on top.
I was terrified.
I had requested the black and white stripped one to wear so it would make me look even thinner, but Harriet the Hag had got it instead of me. I turned around and nearly collided with the hag herself.
"Good luck out there." She said coolly to me. Harriet had an Asian ancestry, so her glossy black hair fit the dress perfectly. Along with her black heart. My dirty blonde hair would of contrasted poorly with the dress, though I would never admit up to it.
"Same to you." I said, flashing a smile innocently to her. She returned it and began to strut off where she could stand with the other models in line.
"Oh and by the way," She said, pausing to turn and look back at me "I'll alert the judges that a beach wale in a yellow and white dress will be coming onto the catwalk."
She grinned as she saw my face change. Harriet knew that she had hit my weak spot. Even if she was a complete hateful bitch, I wondered deep down if I sincerely did look as horrifying as she made me out to be.
I turned back to look at the mirror, pretending to touch up on my hair when instead I was looking at my waistline. I did looked sort of pudgy, especially compared to how I would of looked in a darker color.
I trailed out behind the seven girls in front of me, being the last one in line. I felt completely distant in my own thoughts as I walked the catwalk, not really paying attention to anything but how I was walking.
This was a dress rehearsal for the real show that would be taking place within three hours from now. The judges along with the tailors were looking at their work, making last minute decisions in the lineup and who should wear what costumes. They were calling any model back onstage that they felt needed some more work done after we were done walking the catwalk.
"Hillary Dawson." I heard my name being called from backstage. Harriet giggled beside me. I walked back onto the catwalk, my legs shaking. A male tailor stopped me in the middle of the catwalk.
"Let me fix your zipper, dear. It looks like something is wrong with it." I nearly busted into tears right then. That was him just telling me that I was fat, and that I couldn't wear the dress for the show tonight. It seemed like it took him hours to finish fixing my dress, and when he finally did, I ran backstage, just pausing momentarily to grab my handbag and went straight to the restroom.
I checked underneath the restroom stalls, making sure that no one else was in the bathroom with me. Once I made sure it was clear, I walked over to the counter.
I searched through my purse and picked out my toothbrush and then walked into one of the stalls. I grasped the sky blue stick in my right hand. I know a toothbrush wasn't completely original, but it got the job done.
I had started making myself throw up three weeks after the laxative pills, and four months before I began popping diet pills to make myself feel pretty.
I was addicted, I know I was. Even while I was vomiting the contents of my stomach into the toilet that time in the bathroom during rehearsals, I knew that I was addicted to being thin. I was now down to 104. Yes, 104 was good, but it wasn't good enough. I thought that maybe I could make myself go just a little thinner, and then I would be beautiful.
My toothbrush didn't just make me feel pretty, it made me feel better. The world of fashion was harsh and cut throated, and sometimes my toothbrush helped build my self-esteem and give me confidents to take the sneers and taunts of my competitors. Just like a kid hooked on a razor to cut themselves, I was hooked on the toothbrush to make myself feel better.

"You're up." Craig told me again while I was just done getting ready for the fashion show. I looked over at him, trying to comprehend what he was saying. Up? I watched the other girls get up and decided to mimic their actions. I got up and followed them out to the catwalk.
Ever since my episode in the bathroom, my head felt as if it was swimming, and my vision was a little more than just foggy. Maybe I needed contacts. Besides that, I had an intense headache and my throat still burned.
I walked to the edge of the catwalk and came back, slipping into a white sundress. Usually I would say that white would make me look gigantic, but I didn't have enough energy to complain at this point. I just slipped it on.
I was about to step on the catwalk when Craig grabbed my arm.
"Hillary, are you okay?" He asked me, his voice sounding distant. I looked over at the young man who surely wasn't even thirty yet.
"Yeah, I'm fine." I meant to say. He gave me a strange look, and I wondered if I had actually managed to say that. I didn't know. I don't remember hearing my voice. Before Craig could say something else to me, I walked onto the catwalk.
Cameras flashed around me, and I smiled to them, feeling in a surreal world. Their flashes made my head pound more, and I put a hand over my eyes to shield myself from their glow. I felt then as if I was rocking, and when I looked up again, I felt myself tilt, and then noticed that I must of been falling off the catwalk, and I couldn't even stop myself. I heard very distant and muffled screams as I fell, and then I heard nothing.
The ambulance would be called, and for two weeks I would float in and out of comma due to starvation. I remember Craig walking into my room at one point when I was semi conscious and placing flowers on the bed stand next to me. I had wanted to say something to him, but never managed to.
When I finally pulled out, I noticed Craig was sitting beside my bed, along with Jen who sat next to him. Jen was the only one I would of expected; my parents died three years ago when I was nineteen in a car accident.
"What? What happened?" I asked them. Their heads shot up at the sound of my voice.
"You passed out, Hillary." Craig told me. "You've been in comma for two weeks now."
"Oh." I said. I tried to think back to my schedule and think what I would of missed in two weeks worth of time.
"That means I missed three shows." I told him. Jen looked over at Craig, and Craig shook his head. When he looked back at me, he looked guilty.
"Hillary, I'm sorry. You can't work as a model anymore. The doctor says you can't work in the field because of your health." He said. Tears welled up in my eyes.
"No." I whimpered. Craig's sympathetic hand touched mine.
My career. It was over.