Carry on Like You're Supposed to Be

As the weeks went by, I could see my stomach rapidly shrinking, and I had already gone down from a size 4 to a size 2 in pants. My shirts weren't at all tight on me, and I had never felt better about how I looked.

Kyle had been coming to Caleb's apartment nearly every day, and both he and Caleb had noticed my recent decreased appetite. And it wasn't like I hadn't bee eating at all, it was that I ate much smaller portions and mostly organic fruit and vegetables. I had become a vegetarian again, much to Caleb's displeasure.

"You're not going to be getting the right nutrition, seeming as all you eat is salad and fruit! You need to eat meat, Alexa." He had said to me when I told him I was a vegetarian again. The subject had come up after I refused to eat some of the roasted chicken I had prepared for him and Kyle at dinner. Kyle looked at me, as if to say 'I second that', but when I shot him a look of displeasure, he dropped his head to stare at his plate.

"I was fine before, wasn't I?" I spat as I speared a particularly crunchy leaf of lettuce with my fork.

Caleb mumbled a few things, but then dropped it. I then continued to eat my salad, Kyle continued to stare at his plate, and Caleb continued to eat his chicken, not speaking another word to each other until the next morning, where he brought it up again.

"Alexa, I really think you should eat more if you're not going to eat any meat. Kyle feels the same way." He looked me dead in the eye when he had said that, and I knew he had my best interest at heart. And, so, I had retrieved a bagel from the bag on the counter, and spread some cream cheese on it. I ate the whole thing to humour Caleb.

The thing was, an hour later, I had felt so horribly sick that I had thrown up the bagel while he was at a band practice. Luckily, he hadn't found out, and didn't question my eating habits any further afterwards.

I knew I had to start eating more, and soon, but I couldn't. I just couldn't force myself to eat that French-fry, or swallow that mouthful of pasta, knowing that I would inevitably put back on the weight that I had been so desperate to lose. And so I continued to eat more like a model would than an average person, and I continued to lose more and more weight.