The Bikini Syndrome | WATTYS2019

» thirty-seven: befores and afters ⚠️

When Holly woke up, she had a massive sense of deja vu.

The ceiling above her was a speckled white, and the harsh fluorescent lighting was casting a halo above her mom's head.

"Hey," she murmured sleepily at her mom's bobbing head.

Her mom sat back into a chair, and Holly sat up. She was in the nurse's office, and the curtain was drawn around her little berth to give them a semblance of privacy. She still knew that whatever she said was probably going to be heard by the school's busybody nurses.

"Holly, I just got a phone call from the nurse that you fainted!" her mom was exclaiming. She looked disheveled and flushed, and Holly glanced at the clock on the far wall. Her mom had probably just dropped Ava off at school not long ago, so that made sense.

"I'm fine," Holly said airily. She tried to laugh, but it just came out sounding false, like some kind of pre-recorded, practiced laugh track. "It's probably because I didn't eat breakfast this morning."

Her mom frowned, gave her a stern look, then sighed. "I keep telling you, sweetie, to wake up earlier! You can't be skipping breakfast - you're as skinny as stick!"

Holly rolled her eyes and huffed. "It was just one time, Mom. Stop making a big deal out of it."

After reassuring her mom that she was fine, her mom finally left, and Holly lay back down. She didn't really want to go back to class and hear what other people were saying.

Seriously, you couldn't faint elsewhere? her inner voice taunted her nastily.

Holly sighed.

She'd gotten scary good at pretending these last few months, sometimes she even convinced herself that everything was normal.

But after her mom had discovered that Holly wasn't taking her pills, she realized that she couldn't keep going the way she was. The way she had been acting was slowly isolating her from her friends and family, and she could tell that everyone was getting worried.

She didn't want to be the reason they were worried.

She didn't want to be a burden.

Because she knew that it wasn't that her family and her friends didn't care. It was that caring grew tiring for a person who didn't seem to be getting better.

So Holly had slowly gathered the resolve to shove everything underneath the surface.

It had been surprisingly easy. She couldn't exactly will everything back to normal, but when she acted normal, she could pretend everything was normal.

It had gotten even easier after Sadie had left. It was like some kind of invisible weight had been lifted off her. Holly felt awful at first for feeling relief. But she couldn't deny the silent, and steady pressure she'd felt every time she spoke to Sadie, every time Sadie came and sat down for dinner. Like somehow Holly was responsible for what had happened and what would happen regarding Rohan.

After half an hour later, Holly swung her legs over the side of the futon. She felt a light-headed, which would definitely make Calculus fifth period a lot of fun. But she was determined not to let this happen a second time.

She'd just have to be more careful.

---

It wasn't like Holly was really starving herself.

At least, that's what she told herself later that night, when she was having some quality face time with the toilet.

It became a sort of routine action now for her, like brushing her teeth or taking off her makeup. Holly still made sure she ate, but sometimes...sometimes she quite seem to hold everything down.