Skinny Love

What I wouldn't give to be alone sometimes in this hospital. You're never alone when they think you're crazy. There are cameras surrounding you in every hallway and every room. The only place safe from cameras are the bathrooms, but those are guarded. They put hospital staff right outside the bathroom door to make sure that nobody throws up or does anything that threatens their reputation dangerous while using the stalls.

Mrs. Lovoi is the guard for the bathroom down the hall from the cafeteria. She is the most unobservant of all the guards. Perhaps because her nose is always in a book. Everybody always uses her bathroom when they need to get rid of unwanted food. She didn't even notice as I passed by and walked into one of the stalls.

There wasn't much to throw up, considering all that I had consumed for lunch was a couple of carrot sticks and an apple. It's surprising how rarely the workers notice when their patients don't eat. Yet they try so hard to keep their girls from throwing the food back up. You can't get rid of something that you never had.

I had learned to keep quiet in the bathroom. They gave me a warning the first time I tried throwing the food back up, because it had been evident what I was trying to do. I had not been as experienced with purging, and I had gagged. But I had learned to keep the noise I made at a bare minimum. The good had started coming up easier, because my body had adapted well.

I pulled my head back from the toilet bowl and wrinkled my nose in disgust. The smell was always horrid, but not as bad as the burning in my throat. I flushed the toilet, picked myself off the ground, and walked over to the sink to rinse my mouth. The burning still remained, but it wasn't as intense.

When I looked over at the door, Mrs. Lovoi was still busy reading. I took a deep, calming breath. The old lady wouldn't notice if the hospital was burning down.

But there was something behind me that she could have noticed easily if she looked up from her page. A girl was on her knees in front of the toilet, evident because I could see the soles of her sneakers. She had to be new, because everybody in this hospital knew that the easiest way to get caught was by kneeling. You had to make an effort to hide what you were doing in the bathrooms.

I walked up to the stall door. Ignoring the strangled gags that I could hear on the other side of the door, I whispered, “You might want to at least try to hide what you're doing.”