Lilium

"Bulimia Nervosa is a mental illness that preys on insecure young men and women. Many people suffer from the effects of this illness. Other find the strength to overcome. Remember, beauty is not a state of body. It's a state of mind."

Lilium opened her music box, the small one with the chipped pink paint. The only sort of dim light she had was spilling out from her bathroom, where the cold porcelain toilet was just waiting for her again.

In the small mirror of the music box, her reflection was matched only by the crack leading down the half of the mirror that her tears could only fill. Her loudest sobs, and deepest cries were only ever soothed by the sound of the music box's notes that sang out from the smaller than life speakers.

Lilium dropped the music box onto her bed, a few skipping notes filling the air while she tip-toed over to her desk as not to wake up her step-father who was sleeping comfortably downstairs. Her mother, busy in the kitchen, began to hum mindlessly because she thought that nothing was wrong in the small little house of hers.

Every night, at about 6:45 p.m., the boy across the street turned on the lamp in his bedroom, and he sat at the window of his bedroom, doing God-knows-what, but he did it every night. She remembered how he always bit his fingernails, sighed, and then slouched his shoulders over before he left for the bathroom. Lilium had always heard things about him and his habits; how he was just as bad as she was with self-esteem and concern for his body image.

Lili didn't understand it because he was beautiful; more beautiful than she could have ever hoped to be.

Not one to disappoint, the teen boy sat down at his window, the dim light from the lamp illuminating his imperfectly amazing face. He stared out at the stars, a crooked smile stretching across his face. What he was smiling at, Lilium had no idea. She only knew that she was jealous of his happiness, even if it was fake.

The music box slowly stopped playing, the music dying off into a few creaky notes. Lili turned her back on the boy in the window to stare at the old and broken music box. Lilium had used it so many times, and she was sure that her dear music box was reaching its final days as a comfort object.

With disappointment, Lili turned back to the boy at his window to find him peering into her window with peaking curiosity. He squinted his eyes a bit more, scooting closer his window before smiling and waving at Lilium. Lilium didn't move her body; she didn't even dare to blink.

"There was no way this boy was waving at me." Lilium said in her head in disbelief. She looked down at her desk in embarrassment, taking another glance up at the boy across the street.

The boy held up a paper to his window, and in bold black letters was the word, "Hi." He tapped the page a few times before pulling the paper down and smiling at Lilium again. Lili timidly brought her hand up to the window and waved. She still couldn't believe it.

"He saw me." She whispered under her breath. From down below came the sound of her step-father's deep voice, speaking kind words to her mother who in turn giggled. Lilium rolled her eyes and looked back at the boy across the street. He had another piece of paper and pinned it up against the window.

"I'm Sonny." He pointed his finger at the words, then he waved his hand at Lili, raising his brow in a silent question. Lilium searched for a blank piece of paper on her desk, finally finding a pile of unused lined paper. A small black Sharpie rolled out from underneath it.

"Help me." Lilium wrote in cursive, pressing the lined page against her window. Her fingers were shaking, and she wasn't sure what she was doing. What if her step-father walked in? No, he never did that when her mother was there. She was safe as long as mother was there.

"With what?" He asked. His expression was puzzling, and Lilium, in her shy nature, looked away nervously, a shaky breath slipping past her lips like a ghost from a body.

"Lili!" Lilium jumped at the sudden sound of her mother's voice from downstairs. She looked at her door in hopes that it would stay closed long enough for her to write another note to the boy, to Sonny. When she turned back to look at him, he was already writing something down.

"Let's talk later, stranger." He waved at Lilium, and he flicked his finger across a light switch, and his beautiful face was gone.

"Dinner, Lilium!" Her step-father's voice called from the first floor of the house. Lilium's spine stiffened, and her heart skipped a beat. She hated when her step- father called her Lilium. It meant that he was being nice; it meant that later, she was going to get it.

Her stomach curdled at the thought of her step-father touching her again, like he had been doing for the past few months. That was why she was ugly. Lilium's eyes began to water, but she fought the tears away long enough for her to take a breath and regain her composure.

Lilium suffered from bulimia, as many other young women and men were. Whatever their reasons were; because they thought they were ugly, because they were abused, because they were bullied; they all suffered from the same thing. They all binged, purged and repeated. Although everyone was different on the outside, they were all the same in their minds. They were all silent, and that was the heart of all eating disorders.

"Coming." Lilium croaked before sliding out of her desk chair and slowly making her way to her bedroom door. She was dreading dinner. Her throat was already aching with acid when she was only halfway down her stairs.



With one last dry heave, most of Lilium's dinner came back up and out of the her throat. From downstairs, she could hear her mother say goodbye to her disgusting step-father before going out for her late night shopping spree, as she did every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday night. It was Thursday.

"Don't leave." Lilium pleaded in her mind. "Please don't leave." She flushed the toilet in the bathroom, somehow managing to stand up on her weak and unsettling feet and making her way to her bed. She had to be ready for her step-father or he would hit her more than Lilium really deserved, although she deserved none of this.

Lilium stood in front of the mirror and rubbed her stomach. It was flat, but in Lili's mind, it was flabby and disgusting, and she needed to fix it. Lilium always had a constant battle with herself, though, as she wanted to eat constantly, but felt guilty after eating too much. How much was too much?

A flickering light caught her attention, and Lilium slipped off her bed and crawled over to her desk. From her window she caught the gaze of the boy across the street. The boy known as Sonny. He waved quickly, throwing a piece of paper up against his glass window.

"I'll do it." The page said in sloppy handwriting. Lilium furrowed her brows together, and raised her shoulders in a quick question. Sonny put up his index finger and picked up another paper for Lilium. Perhaps he had written the notes out before. "I'll try to help you."

Lilium leaned closer to the window, her breath catching in her throat like it always did when she was nervous. Her step-father was taking longer than usual. Had he forgotten? Lili could only hope; she didn't need to be told she was ugly again. She had already heard it so many times in her mind.

Lilium grabbed a piece of paper and, in neat cursive, wrote, "I'm ugly." Sonny stared at the paper in confusion, and when Lilium stood up and lifted up her shirt to reveal her bare stomach, he grew flustered. She pinched a piece of flesh, which wasn't at all flab, and squished it even harder. Sonny shook his head, but before he could write another note, Lilium's door burst open, as though there was an explosion right outside of it. Lilium spun around, back to Sonny. Lili could have sworn she heard the faint sound of him banging on his window to grab her attention.

"Who are you talking to, Lilium?" Lilium's step father growled. He was intimidating to Lili, and she couldn't do anything about it because she was imperfect. Was he the only person who would ever love her?

He didn't love her. He used her. Just like every other man in this world would. She was ugly and no one would love her. Why would anyone love a pig like Lilium? Why would anyone like a girl who ate until she was going to burst just so she could throw it all up two seconds later?

"Stranger!" A scream came from across the way, and Lilium craned her neck to find that Sonny was leaning out of his window, body half in, body half out. He waved his hand around in the air to grab her attention, but Lili was already getting sick to her stomach, and she couldn't move. Her step-father grabbed her by her shoulders and pushed her down on the bed. He slammed the blinds down the window and then turned back to Lilium with hungry eyes.

Lilium covered herself up with a blanket, but her step-father tore it off, dribble collecting on his bottom lip. He was an animal; a savage foul beast, and Lilium could do nothing to fight him off.

"Why didn't you look at me during dinner, Lilium?" Her step-father asked. Lilium said nothing, but squirmed around the bed as she realized she was more bare than she was comfortable with. "Hm? Are you... scared?" He jumped at Lili with those last words, and Lilium just remembered kicking and screaming and biting. She thought she remembered biting his shoulder, but in the frenzy she was in, she could have very well bitten herself. She must have, because there was a sudden iron taste in her mouth, and her bottom lip went numb. She had bitten herself. After a few more seconds of fighting, he slapped her cheek, leaving a red splotch where his hand landed.

Lilium's clothes were discarded, and she remembered what it felt like now to be violated. She hated the feeling of being taken by her step-father. Her real father would have gone ballistic if he had known this was going on.

Lili cried out in pain every time her step-father decided to play with her, pulling himself in and out of her like she was his doll, his puppet, his marionette. She looked out toward her window where she could see Sonny's lights blinking on and off, on and off, on and off. Then another shout.

"Hey, stranger!" The same voice called out. Lilium closed her eyes and all she could do was imagine that she was anywhere but there. Lili was sitting at her window, looking at Sonny and all of his beauty. She imagined his crooked and broken smile; those luscious brown eyes catching her shy and timid gaze. That was all she wanted.

Just as fast as her step-father and started, he had finished as well. He slammed the door behind him as he left her bedroom. Lilium lay on her bed, left shivering and suddenly cold on this warm summer's night. Sonny's lights stopped flickering and simply stayed on. Lilium's door slammed closed.

Another dry heave came up her throat, and Lilium crawled across her floor, making her way to the white porcelain toilet, laying her cheek down on it. Her face had beads of sweat rolling off the sides, and oils collected on the tip of her nose. A dry heave came up again, and Lili let go the rest of her dinner that she hadn't managed to let out before.

As disgusting as it sounded, Lilium was hungry again. It was always like this. She was at battle with her own feelings of wanting to lose weight that she really didn't have, and the need want to binge and eat. No matter what she chose, Lilium was never good enough for anyone.

"Hey!" Sonny shouted one last time. Lilium dragged herself across the ground to her window, staring at the black haired beauty that awaited her on the other side of the window. Once he spotted her near the window he kept shouting. "You okay?"

Lilium murmured a 'no', but didn't do anything to show him. Instead, she simply turned her back on him and made her way back to the bathroom. She flicked the light off in the bathroom and laid on the cold, white tiles. She shivered once before falling into a deep sleep. As she fell asleep, her fingers formed into pincers and she played with that one piece of flesh on her stomach that she wished she could just have cut off. She had no one to help her; not even someone to tell her she could do it.

The only voices in her mind were the ones saying, "Throw it up; push your fingers down farther; don't forget the mouthwash". Even after she threw up what was left of her dinner, she felt guilty, like she shouldn't have eaten in the first place. Lilium didn't know what to do. She didn't know how to get through this.

"Help me, I'm ugly." It was only at that moment that Lilium realized how ridiculous she really sounded.