The ED Diaries

11:48. Holly hears her brother's snores through the wall and the steady click of the clock on the counter. She slides her hands over her pale thighs, trying to get rid of the goose bumps and flab. She pinches and pushes and pulls so the skin is raw and pink. She presses into the purple blossoms she's created on her ribcage, trying to stop the tears welling up in her eyes. The bones aren't prominent enough. They never will be.

The tile beneath her knees is cold, and she shakes. The heart between her lungs is cold, and she shakes.

Tick. She thinks, this is what I get.

Tock. She thinks, just do it, coward.

Tick. She thinks, you didn't need a fucking snack.

Three seconds feels like thirty minutes. Her brother's cigarette packs lurk behind the cabinets, in the same corner Holly keeps her pills. Green tea, Alli, anything that promised magic results and a skinny frame. It smells like Lysol and piss. Holly looks at the porcelain, then at the spoon she's nicked from the kitchen downstairs. A sick smile crosses her face.

This is the price you pay for pretty. He told you so, he knows best.

Pulling her hair out of her face, Holly thinks of her mother, sleeping soundly down the hall. Oh, if only she knew the things Holly did late at night, when she was supposed to be curled up in silk sheets and dreaming of boys.

Holly hears the murmur of cars down below, bright blue lights creeping in through the windows. She picks up the spoon, examining it with the cloudy eyes of a sickly skeleton. Running jagged fingernails over it, she takes a deep breath in and doesn't breathe out.

11:49.

It smells like piss and puke.