Skinny Love

99 pounds. Less than a hundred. A pound less than the day before.

I couldn't seem to hide my joy when I stepped off the scale when they checked the patients' weights. But the woman standing next to me with a clipboard was stone-faced and seemed to glare at me. She seemed to think I was doing this just to make her job harder. But, really, I was doing this for my own happiness.

Because this is what I strived for. This is what I had worked so hard for. Years of continuous jogging on the treadmill and around the park near my house. Endless binging and starving, my ribs aching as my skin tightened around my small frame. Always hoping that one of these days I would be light enough for the wind to carry me across the sky.

But all of my hard work had not paid off. Well, at least it wasn’t until I figured out ways to defy this prison’s rules. I remember when they could rule me. They stuffed food down my throat until I was the size of a whale. My mom would have said that I deserved it, which she pretty much did when she came to visit a week in.

“You need to be pushed hard to gain back the weight that you were before, because the life that you were living was not a healthy one. We only want what’s best for you.”

Somehow her words became distorted in my mind. I am no longer her daughter. I am the enemy. I am the girl who tore apart her family because of her selfish desires. She does not want to listen to my reasons behind it, because the only conclusion that she can come to is that it was to hurt her. But I really don’t have a reason.

I came back to reality when I felt a hand on my shoulder. The fingers were cold against my bare skin, but they were gentle. Mrs. Morris pulled me down from the scale and looked me straight in the eyes. Normally I would find it awkward standing there with only a towel around me. But I trusted this woman, because she had spent so much time just listening to me and not judging me like everybody else.

But the warmth that her eyes usually held was clouded by disappointment. And her voice was softer than usual and filled with sadness. “Evelyn, you were doing so well. I thought that you were truly getting better.” Her words yanked at my heart, and I hung my head in shame.

“I thought I was, too, Mrs. Morris. I’m sorry.” It was all a lie, and my heart sunk to the pit of my stomach. I’m probably going to rot in Hell for lying to somebody as sweet as my counselor. But it’s the only choice that I had. I couldn’t seem to forget the horrible first couple months in the hospital, and I would much rather not repeat that time. There’s still a chance that I would have to start from scratch. But I reasoned that I might stand a chance if I truly sounded regretful.

“It’s okay, sweetie. We’ll just have to find some way to fix the damage done, won’t we?” She squeezed my shoulder, and then let go. I could finally bring myself to look up again, and I nodded my head.. She was standing back and assessing me. She was taking in my protruding collarbones, the gap between my legs that was growing steadily larger, and the fact that I was trembling in a room that was at least eighty degrees Fahrenheit. She pursed her lips before she turned on her heel and walked out the door of the weighing room and back to her office.

“Such a shame. I thought you were one of the stronger ones.”

I turned to look at the woman who weighed me. And I felt like spitting in her face. I had become sick of people sharing their opinions about my eating disorder. I didn’t want to hear what they have to say, because their words would only make me try harder.

And I will succeed.