The Citrus Syndrome

14 ; fat

Fat

Natalie

My cat, Nettle, is sauntering around next to his litter box, watching me. He's suspicious, and he should be. I am curled into a little ball on the floor, rocking myself back and forth and giving loud shrieks every few minutes.

The world is so dark. I can't see what's around the next corner, and somehow I know it's not just the bathroom. There's something sinister, something lurking, and I can't see it. I can't move.

I cry hysterically. Where is Zay? Isn't he coming for me?

But what if his motives aren't what I think? What if he's coming to off me, and throw my dead body out the window? I cry harder.

I wish Nettle would come to me, settle down in my lap like he usually does while I'm studying. I need something warm and soft to hold onto. But what if I can't trust Nettle, either? What if my brother was right, and Cats really are agents from hell? What if he scratches out my eyes and swipes off my nose and leaves me to bleed out on my living room floor?

I'm crying so hard that I don't make a sound. Short screeches punctuate my wails, but aside from this, I am silent.

I hear something. It sounds like knocking.

Consumed by fear, I try to push myself away from the door. All I accomplish is knocking myself over, leaving my body in an even more pathetic position than before. I lay on the floor in front of the couch, right beside a puddle of vomit from hours ago.

But the door isn't strong enough. He knocks it down.

I hear his voice before I see him.

"Nattie?" He says. "Nattie, I'm here."

But I'm still scared. I still need to get away, still feel that seed of panic growing in my chest.

"Natalie?" He steps out from behind the door.

I can't breathe. I don't know if it's him, or if my body is just crumbling, but I'm choking and the world spins and I can't fall any farther, so I stay where I am. But the panic is replaced by desire. I need him. It doesn't matter if he kills me, if he hurts me. I need him to be with me.

I hear the door close, hear his footsteps coming toward me. Isaiah hits the floor beside me, warmth emanating from his body. I want to thrust myself into his arms, but my body refuses to move.

"Oh, honey," he says. He reaches out, touches me. I watch him, overcome with emotion. The moment his palm makes contact with my forehead, I burst into unhindered sobs.

Crying hurts like all hell, but I can't control it. Zay's face softens, his lips turning down at the corners. He looks tired and is sweating buckets. I, however, feel freezing cold.

He gathers me up off the floor, piling my aching limbs into his arms. He's warm, he's so warm. I want to use him like a blanket, wrap him around me and wait for this biting chill to leave me.

He whispers my name again. "Natalie, baby, I'm so sorry." He gets choked up, and pulls me to his chest rather than continuing. The ice that is my body begins to melt as I lay over him.

Isaiah leans back. He looks at me, mapping my face with his thumb. I look at his brown eyes, his wrinkled forehead and his weak frown. I want to see him smile.

So I summon the last of my strength, pulling it out from deep down inside of me, and I kiss him. I send him my love, my hurt, my relief, receiving them back in return.

He pulls away. He's smiling. "I love you," he says.

I'm sure that I smell of blood, and my mouth tastes like vomit and I look like hell, but he still loves me. He loves me. He does. I sigh, looking deep into his eyes. He has to know I love him too. I can't say it. I can't speak.

I try to manage a smile of my own, but all I can do is lift my eyebrow half a centimeter. It's enough for Zay, though. He kisses me again, laying me across the couch. I hope he'll keep kissing me, but he lets go.

"I'm gonna get you some water," he tells me. "Be right back."

I reach out, grab a fistfull of his shirt. No, I want to say, don't leave me.

He pries my fingers away. "I'll come right back, Nattie," he assures me. "You need anything else?"

I desperately wish for a blanket, but I can't say that. Fortunately, Isaiah sees me shivering. He grabs the flannel throw blanket on the chair opposite the couch and drapes it over me. It isn't enough, but it's better. He drops a kiss on my forehead and leaves.

And when he leaves, everything leaves. I'm not on the couch anymore.

I'm in a room. No, a box. A metal box made of cold, unforgiving steel that bites my naked body. It reflects me into oblivion, images bouncing off each other. Natalie after Natalie, lining the walls.

My body is pale and scrawny, tinted gray with illness. I want to look away, but no matter where I cast my eyes, there's a me. There's me in the ceiling, there's me in the wall. Theren't me in the floor, there's me in the other wall and the other and the other. There's no door, no window.

But something's happening to my reflection.

I don't feel it -- I just see it. She, I, I am expanding. It happens in imperceptible increments, then moves forward in a sudden lurch. An arm bloats. My stomach paunches out. Each of my fingers becomes a shiny, fat cylinder, pop, pop, pop.

Only, there is no sound but my own screaming. I stare at the infinite me's, watching my face grow round, watching my thighs crash into each other. Oh no, oh no, no, no.

It's disgusting. I don't want to look, but what else can I do? If I close my eyes, I can only feel it, and that's worse. I feel like a car crash, I feel like roadkill. I want to look away, but I need to see. I need to see this thing that horrifies me, that lurks around the dark corners of my brain, and I need to scream. I need to release it.

It doesn't stop. My neck becomes a thick tree stump, folding down into my layers of chins. They pop out one after the other, a cold, gelatinous beard appearing out of my once thin, pointed face.

My hair is suddenly too short for my body. My nails seem to disappear in the torrent of flesh. My eyes are too small, so are my ears. My lips grow, and my nose does. They broaden, expanding with my head.

My stomach grows a stomach. My breasts hang down, flopping over my mountain of a belly. My crotch grows into a puffy pouch, my thighs becoming meaty stalks of flesh. My knees are dimpled and doughy, buckling under their new burden.

But I can't look away, I can't look away.

I'm an overinflated balloon, I'm stretching my skin too thin. I can't breathe. My tears are lost in folds of fat, my lower half invisible through my torso. My knees give out, sending me down onto the cold steel floor, which reflects my flesh-drowned features back up at me.

I feel like the fat is smothering me. My nose can't keep up -- it gets buried. My breathing is labored, my lungs struggling to inflate.

Then I pop.