Real Girl- a short story

A Real Girl. Part one of (?).

I used to be a real girl, once.

I wore silky pink dresses and had long strawberry hair and played a lot of sports and had hundreds of friends and I had the cafeteria main course every day. I was good at everything except math. I was never cold, even in the winter, because I was bundled in jackets and given silky hot cocoa.

My sister and I would play with figurine horses, writing our own stories, making sure our dog didn't step on them. My mom made homemade cookies every Friday and I ate them happily while drinking cold 2% milk and doing my science homework. We ate dinner together, like a family, but my many friends often came over and joined us. I went to bed with my dog curled next to me, a small nightlight on. I was warm, full, alive, real.

Something inside of me broke. I snapped in half.

My millions of friends began to disappear. The math got harder. So did science and social studies. I didn't want to get out of bed, many mornings. My skin turned rough. My hands bolstered from playing my clarinet.

I began reading and learning and absorbing more. I stopped telling my parents things. I isolated myself in my room, with my ear buds at full volume. I stopped wearing dresses and shorts, I wore baggy jeans and loose shirts. I still had friends, but they were only on the surface, they didn't know the true me. I dealt with heartbreak, or at least my middle school definition.

9th grade began. During the fall, I was still a real girl. Less, but still vaguely real. And then, I began to fall apart.

Grades were good but my head was a war zone. It was cold out but I didn't drink the hot chocolate. I bundled up, wearing thick converse, millions of undershirts, hoodies, and dark jeans. Everyone around me was cute and cuddled up with their lovers by the fire on Friday nights. They went on dates, holding hands in the December air, eating warm artificial cookies.

Me, I was the one who boys and girls alike said "your friend is really hot!", and every time I heard that, more and more of me wanted to be loved. To be noticed. I was sick of living in my own skin..

I was left alone. Three people, not including my family, talked to me every day. I didn't mind much. Everything was warped. The mirror showed me an ugly, fat little girl, with flat red hair, a flat chest, and too many freckles. Boys weren't interested in me, and girls definitely weren't, either. I floated from class to class, but began skipping breakfast and lunch.

The warm girl I'd been as a child disappeared. I was cold and shaky, convincing myself that the only way I will like myself was by getting down to a certain number. I counted everything, even though I hated math. I was already ugly anyway, so if anyone thought weight loss was ugly, I wasn't concerned. It was how I dealt with stress. How I dealt with myself.

I walked every day for nearly 2 hours. I bundled myself in hundreds of coats, grabbed my dog, and blasted music to block out the chilling cold.

No one suspected anything. I was getting sick, developing ulcers on my lower stomach and the back of my thighs. 105 pounds. 100. 95. 90. 85...

I was dizzy if I stood too fast. I was already empty, void of emotion, but I wanted more. I craved more. I wanted to be as thin as a piece of computer paper. Collarbones that shone, a thin, tiny face. No one knew a thing. I "ate" my lunch alone in the band hallway, dumping food in the trash instead of actually eating it. During dinner, I often used the same excuses. "I'm not hungry right now, but I'll eat something later." "My stomach kinda hurts." "I had a big lunch."

The list went on.

My hair began coming out in clumps. If I was ever tempted to binge, I sliced little lines in the places I hated most. My lips were always dark blue or purple. My teeth, yellow. Nothing that the mainstream said was true. They said that these so-called diseases were beautiful and good. That there was no ugliness to them. But the true horrors were those deep below this surface.