Thin Ice

Light As A Feather

       I woke up one morning at my mom's house. My golden retriever, Sandy, was sleeping at my feet. I hadn't eaten in 3 days. I carefully got up, trying not to wake Sandy, then went into the bathroom. I weighed myself, in just a few weeks, I'd lost more weight than before. I was at my lowest point, 67 lbs. This was the lowest my weight had ever gotten, because I would soon be admitted to a hospital, only a few hours later.

On this day, I got my cast taken off and my mom and I went to Emily's cottage for the weekend. My wrist was finally free, and god, it felt amazing. The doctor noticed how loose it was on me, but he said that it wasn't unusual. My arm felt so much lighter now that my cast was gone. The weight had been lifted off my arm, but the weight on my chest was still there.

       I realized that the cuts that were under my cast were now scars that were slowly fading. Soon, they'd be ripped back open with another blade. While my mom and the doctor talked for a bit, I looked over at the door and saw a BMI chart hanging up. I searched it until my green eyes spotted my weight and height. As expected, the chart said that I'm 'severely underweight,' but I still didn't think I was. In the state that I was in, my skin hugged my bones, my cheeks had sunken in, I had become paler than I already was, I was quiet, and worst of all, my eyes that were once full of life were now dull and empty.

"Aeron." I snapped out of my thoughts and faced my mom. "Come on, we have to be on the road soon." I had completely forgotten about going to Michigan. I hopped off the table and followed my mom out the door "th...thank you" I said to the doctor as we walked out. That was another thing that had happened; stuttering. My entire life, I never had a stutter until my weight dropped below 74 pounds. I didn't stutter very often though, some days were better than others.

On the car ride home, I plugged my earbuds in and listened to some random playlist I found on Spotify. I was bored so I decided to scroll through my camera roll. I had scrolled until I hit July 11th, my 13th birthday. We celebrated it at my Dad's house, it was just me, my siblings, my dad and my grandparents, then I met Brooke outside later that night. There was one picture of me sitting at our kitchen table while everyone was singing happy birthday, there were two things that stuck out to me; my weight and my smile. I was around 83 pounds, when the picture was taken. The only thing I could think of was 'God, look how fat I was'. The second thing was my smile. I was looking off to the right half of the frame, with a big ass grin on my face. I wondered what I was looking at. Whatever it was, made me look genuinely happy. I missed being that way.

       I scrolled through a few other pictures from that day, then stopped. There was a picture of me and Brooke. We were sitting in my dad's driveway, with the sunset behind us. She was kneeling behind me, with her arms around me, pinching my cheeks. That was before they had sunken in. We were both laughing, I couldn't get over how different I looked. The next picture was the same, except she had her arms wrapped around me, and we were still laughing. The last thing on there, was a Snapchat video Brooke had sent to me. She ran up to me while I was sitting in my driveway and screamed "AERON!" I was looking at my phone while she was recording and I jumped nearly 6 feet in the air. "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" She run up to me and hugged me, I said hi to her and I was laughing. She backed away and at the end I was still laughing and said "You scared the shit out of me!"

Just then, I had felt a warm tear run down my cold face. I quickly wiped it away, so my mom wouldn't see. I missed Brooke. I missed being at my Dad's house. But I really missed being happy.