I can't remember a time that I didn't feel insecure about my body. Was it the summer I was twelve, when I got my first period and only had a vague idea of what to do and so I locked myself in the bathroom for an hour until Emily knocked on the door and asked if something was wrong? Was it the spring when I was ten and started wearing a bra before most of the other girls had and I wore baggy sweatshirts or too-big-for-me jackets to hide it? Or was it before then? Sucking in my stomach even as a little kid? When I was hospitalized I weighed 105 lbs. Maybe I thought if I was small, smaller, smallest I could disappear altogether. Or maybe I thought once I was small enough then people would finally start caring. So yeah, maybe it was partly for attention. Is it so bad to want people to worry about you? I don't know. Now I weigh around 125, and I miss being small. I told Eleanor that I tried to stop caring. And it's true. I did try. I am trying. But it's hard to break a habit, especially when it feels like it's controlling your whole life. Especially when you're not even sure you actually want to stop. The last thing I want is for Eleanor to be worried about me. That's what I have a therapist for. I didn't eat yesterday. I can feel winter coming, much faster than I want it to. If it were up to me, winter would never come. The cold seeps into me, biting at anywhere it can get. It's inside me and it's spreading fast. Soon my bones will be frozen solid. Soon I won't be able to move. My jaw will freeze shut and I won't be able to talk. The doctors and the therapists will come, trying their best to thaw me, warm me up, make me a real girl again. Maybe they'll run all their tests on me, they'll try to fix me. But after I'm frozen solid, I'm very easy to break. I'll fall apart faster than they can put me together. Or maybe I'll fade away, and no one will know, no one will see it until it's too late.
