Hunger

s i x

I lay in bed, scrolling through my phone. Searching for ways to lose weight quickly has become my new hobby this past week. Turns out there are thousands of websites that talk about starving yourself. I haven't reached that level of commitment yet, eating food helps sometimes when I'm depressed. Lately I have been eating less, a meal a day max, but I'm not seeing any big changes.

If I don't eat breakfast, I eat dinner at night with the family, but I can't reach a day without any food yet. I hope soon I will be able.

"How are you feeling?" Says Christopher coming through my door.

"Have you heard of knocking?" I ask taking my eyes off my phone. He was holding a snack on his hand.

"Eat." He says throwing the chips on top of my bed.

"I'm not hungry." I say standing up from my bed and going to my walk-in closet.

I have gymnastics in an hour and he was taking me soon. I miss training, and hopefully I make it to regionals next month.

"You almost fainted, and you have training in less than an hour." He says putting the bag in front of me. "And dinner is not until six."

"Well I can wait until six." I say taking my pants off, trying to make him realize it's time to leave my room. "And I didn't faint, I was fine. You're overreacting." I murmur annoyed, looking for my black leotard.

"Why are you so stubborn?" He asks, leaving the closet and taking a seat on my bed.

I look at him from the corner of the closet door and frown. Why is he still here? I quickly get undress and put my leotard on, with some sweatpants on top.

I grab the bag and look at the nutrition facts, 120 calories per package.

"I'm not eating that." I say grabbing my gym bag and going out the door.

I run down the stair avoiding him following me and went inside the kitchen. He stares at me from the other side of the big island inside the room. Mariana and some other maids were cooking and walking side to side, so I quickly grab my water bottle and an apple.

I look at Chris and he has that smile he always does when he gets what he wants, and I roll my eyes in annoyance.

"Shut up." I say walking past him and getting out of the house.

-

I enter the building, happy to be back here. Practicing helps me get my mind off everyone's comments. After leaving the locker room, I went with the other girls that were in a line.

"What's going on?" I ask Mel, one of my gymnast friend.

"Weight day." She whispers looking at coach Harvey.

"Since when?!" I whisper back, feeling the anxiety kick in.

"Since regionals are next month and he is obsessing over it." She says shrugging. "I heard only five girls are competing." She whispers looking at the fifteen other girls in the line. "That's going to be hard."

I stare at her in shock. Five girls? That's not even half of us. My chances of going are becoming slimmer by the second.

"Ladies." He shouts with a clipboard in his hand. "As you all know, in four weeks regionals begin. And as much as I would love for all of you to participate, only eight of you have the privilege of being a part of it."

Everyone began whispering to each other and my hands began sweating. That's half of us, how on earth is he choosing between us.

"The chances of you participating in them are up to you." He says loudly, crossing his arm. "It all depends in your training, diet, exercise, weight, and more importantly; motivation." He looks at us one by one; when he gets to me, I feel goosebumps in my skin. "I will choose only the best of the best, so be on your best behavior if you want a chance at this."

"Now," He says going next to a scale. "Meet your new best friend." He says sarcastically with a smile. "I'm going to weight each one of you every week. It's your job to maintain your weight, or lose some, if necessary." He says seriously.

My heart skips a beat by his words and I pray to God that I don't weight more than supposed to. I was planning on weighting myself today, but I didn't, so I have no idea how much I do weigh.

"I will call you one by one, by alphabetical order so come here when you hear your name. The rest go and start warming up." He looks at the clipboard and turns to me. "Katherine Allard." He says signaling at me to come over.

All the girls went away and began stretching, while I went to the coach. Nervous to know the truth. He first measured my height, 5'3, I knew that, and I told him, but he wanted to be sure. I took a step on the scale after and prayed to be thinner.

"143 pounds." He says, writing it down on the paper.

I smiled to myself, I lost three pounds this week. It's not much, but it's better than nothing.

"You're overweight." He says staring at me.

"What?" I ask, feeling my heart sinking to the floor. "Overweight?" I whisper, holding the tears.

"For your height, you should be around 140 pounds or less." He looks at me, and he saw my face. "Your body mass is 25.3" he says showing me a chart in his papers. "It should be between 18.6 to 24.9 to be considered normal weight."

I look at him, confused because I only understand half of the things he said, but I smiled to pretend I wasn't hurt.

"You have enough time to lose that weight, so don't worry." He says patting my shoulder. "For now, focus in your training, and watch your calorie intake. If you want to make it to regionals."

I smiled and walked away, feeling ashamed for myself. Overweight, I kept repeating to myself. Four weeks, I have for weeks to lose this weight and become perfect for regionals, and you bet my ass I will lose the weight.