The ED Diaries

I think about you all the time. You are my world. I'll never find another like you.

The words whispered through Tinny Matthews' mind until she squeezed her eyes shut, blocking the memory out. Those words that used to make her feel so alive, so happy, so beautiful, were now like razor blades across her skin.

Every once in a while, Tinny would pull out those words and those memories, talking and laughing with Jessica told the jokes she was always so good at. Sharing chocolate milk shakes and going to movies together when the family budget allowed.

Kissing and touching and feeling with Jason, long nights spent with him, in his arms. Sometimes all they did was lay there quietly in the dark and listen to each other's hearts beating.

But that was long ago and far away. A different world completely.

That was a Tinny Matthews who could smile, who could laugh, who was beautiful.

This, now, was reality. The reality that Tinny Matthews was ugly. Jessica was dead, laid down cold in the ground, two years now. The light and the smiles in Tinny's life had died along with her best friend.

And Jason . . . Jason was something she desired, wanted, needed.All she had to do was make herself good enough for him.

That was why he had abandoned her. That was why she did this to herself.

Skinny, skinny, skinny.

Pretty, pretty, pretty.

That was what Jason wanted. He had Alyssa now, because she was skinny. Pretty, skinny. Tinny had to be pretty, skinny, or he would never want her again.

But once she achieved that goal, he would take her back and everything would be okay. Everything would be just the way it was supposed to be. Jessica might still be dead, but there was nothing Tinny could do about that.

She could- and she would- get Jason back.

Tinny had been a diabetic since she was twelve, learning how to control her sugar intake and how to test herself and regulate her insulin. It had been scary at first, but she had learned, and it hardly affected her.

Until she had learned that she could regulate her insulin to make her lose weight. It had made her sick for a while, but it wasn't anything she couldn't live with.

Anything, even that discomfort, was worth it to get Jason back.

Tinny smiled every time she stepped on the scale and saw the number lower than it had been the previous week. Now I have a chance, she thought.

But every week it wasn't enough. Whatever she'd lost wasn't enough. She needed to lose more. She was too fat, she needed to be skinny.

Skinny, skinny, skinny.

Pretty, pretty, pretty.

She had to make herself good enough for Jason again.

No matter what it took.

Things had gotten bad a month before graduation. Tinny remembered how little insulin she had given herself, how she felt like she was walking on air, delirious with the thought that maybe this week would be the week Jason noticed her.

Well, she'd landed in the hospital and he had noticed her. Tinny had been thrilled to receive a Hallmark card from him, however impersonal. But it was a step in the right direction.

Her parents didn't care. They knew something was wrong with her but they had ignored it, saying it was just something teenagers do, their daughter would get over it.

The doctors said that it wasn't anything to be taken lightly. Her parents, God-fearing, lower middle class parents with two daughters to feed and a son they almost never saw, couldn't believe that their daughter, one they had raised, had done this to herself and to them.

They wanted her to finish school. Tinny was grateful for another month to win Jason back and make everything right again.

It never happened. The get well card meant nothing. Tinny saw him kissing Alyssa in the cafeteria. Nothing had changed.

She had to try harder.

Skinny, skinny, skinny. Pretty, pretty, pretty.

She had almost fallen over when she walked up to receive her graduation certificate. Now it was over, now they were taking her to this Seabrook place.

Maybe when she came out she'd be perfect.

Skinny, skinny, skinny. Pretty, pretty, pretty.

Perfect.