Memoirs of an Outstanding* Teen

Chapter 23: Out of Control | The Apple

Have you ever felt like you're not the one controlling your own emotions and actions? That's an all too familiar feeling for me even until now. It started back then, and simply persisted.

School was going fairly okay, my Afrikaans was getting better by the day, but during break time, and at home, my other master reigned.

I found myself sitting in the last class before break time, and realizing I had no money to buy my 200 calorie chips. My heart started racing. My stomach turned. I leaned my head back to keep the tears from falling. I was panicking.

"I'm already so hungry. Remember the headaches? The dizziness? The trembling? The pain? They would all come back. I can't do it. I can't deal with all that again. I can't get that hungry again! I can't!"

The bell rang. I stood up to leave the class. "Oh my God, I'm already getting light-headed." I walked out and made it to the blocks where Riana and the rest would be. I just waived at them and sat down without saying my usual, "Hi!" I couldn't risk them hearing my voice crack. One other girl, who had been caught up in a line at the tuck shop came to join us. I pretended to be looking for something in my blazer as she walked over. I couldn't risk making eye-contact with her. She would see the tears. I tried to convince myself, "It's okay, one o'clock is not so far away. You'll go home and have lunch there." But there were so many other thoughts that immediately eclipsed any comfort I could have from that one. "If you miss these 200 calories, you'll have to replace them later. And you won't be able to find anything that's exactly 200 calories at home. If you eat something with more than 200 calories, that's it, you won't be able to stop eating and you'll eat and eat and gain all the weight back. Remember how fat you used to look? And you can't miss those 200 calories. Otherwise, you'll be eating too little. Like those anorexic girls. You're not anorexic remember? You're 48 kg and that's almost normal weight. You won't lose any more weight. But you can't get fat. Oh, there comes the dizziness again..."

A few minutes before the break ended, I saw one of the girls putting an apple back into her lunch bag. 70 calories. That would have to do, "Hey, are you gonna eat that? I forgot my tuck shop money today."

"No, you can have it."

"Thank you!" My hands were already trembling as I took the apple from her hand. She looked like an angel to me at that point. I could have hugged her.