The rest of the school day passes in a blur. I don’t listen in my lessons, I ignore everyone around me, I isolate myself. But most importantly I don’t eat.
By the time I get home I’ve completely forgotten about any hunger pains I was feeling. After a while the hunger just fades, you become used to it. I pretend to have a lot of homework and go straight to my bedroom. In reality I do have a lot of homework, but I’m too tired to do it. I have too many thoughts swirling round in my head. I pull on some sweatpants and a vest top. This used to be more than enough clothing for me but now I find that I’m shivering. And it’s June. I pull on an oversized hoodie. I had my hair tied up for school today so I pull it out of it’s my ponytail. I look at my hand. Wrapped around my fingers are a couple of brown curls. I shrug it off, pretend it’s nothing and curl up on my bed with my laptop.
I log straight onto a pro-ana website. Here are some girls that understand me, that understand what I’m going through. I read post after post. Posts about tiny celebrities that we would all kill to look like, posts about parents forcing us to eat, posts about jealous friends/teachers/family members. One post stands out to me. “food porn”. The title glares at me. I click on it out of curiosity and instantly my eyes are met with picture after picture of gooey, chocolaty heaven. I scroll through page after page of ice cream, cookies, chips, pizza. High calorie food that I would never ever let past my lips. Yet as my eyes scan the page I feel a strange feeling of satisfaction and yearning flow through me. It’s almost as if I’m eating the food with my eyes, i’m torturing myself, making myself want something I can’t have yet as my eyes scan each picture I find that after I’ve looked at it, I no longer want it. I spend hours on this one post about food. I spend so long that I feel my eyes closing, I curl up on my bed and switch my laptop of in my half consciousness.
Sleep can only engulf you for so long, however when you’ve spent most evenings for the past few weeks exercising into the early hours your body will grasp all the sleep it can get.
I don’t wake up until 7 o clock the next morning, way too late for me to go for my early morning run, or even do some sit-ups. I groan and curl into my warm bed. Reluctant to leave it. This is unusual for me, I’m the girl who is always up early every single day, who never sleeps in so of course my mum comes in to my room to check on me.
“Morning tori, Christ you look awful” thanks mum I think but just sort of make a muffled noise in response. “Are you feeling okay?” I seize the opportunity.
“not really, I feel really sick.” It’s partially true. She takes in my appearance, and nods,
“I’ll phone the school, you really don’t look very well at all.” I feel better than I have in days to be honest, but I don’t want to get up, I don’t have the energy and I can’t face school. In the space of a few days I’ve managed to lose my only friend I had left, allow my dance teacher to discover my secret through said ex-friend, and have a breakdown in front of my French teacher.
It’s easier just to stay in bed.
Forever.
But that’s not possible, not for me anyway. As soon as mum leaves for work, she considers me old enough to stay at home even when I’m ill; I’ve always been the sensible one, I pull on a pair of trainers. I would get changed but I’m so cold and my hoodie and sweatpants are comfortable. I take the house key and they go for a run. I run my usual route, when I get to the 40 minute mark I slow down a bit and stop running at full pelt just so I can catch my breath a bit. As I start to jog I notice that one of the houses on this road is having a garage sale. I start to walk, it can’t harm to look. I smile at the woman running the sale and have a look at the books she’s selling. I pick a battered copy of “the best little girl in the world” up.
“is this good?” I say to the woman as I flick through the pages and read through the blurb.
“ I don’t know, my daughter bought it second hand for a project she did on eating disorders”
“how much do you want for it?”
“eeer, £1?” I feel around in my pockets for some spare change, I pull out the money and hand it to her.
“thanks” I smile and walk off, still flicking through the book. Truth be told it wasn’t the story that made me buy it, even though it did interest me as it was about a young ballerina who develops anorexia, it was how the novel had a loved feel about it and how sentences were highlighted throughout the novel.
“The thinner is the winner”
“bones are beautiful”
“drink water, water and more water”
“I must be perfect”
Someone who is going through a similar experience had obviously owned this before, and I felt a link to them through the book. I tucked the book into my hoody and began the run home.
When I reached home I had beads of sweat dripping down my face. That run was harder than others. I haven’t eaten in days, I was burning of fat, as I opened the house door I felt my eyesight go blurry and dizziness swept over me. I force myself to blink a few times and it soon passes.
Once in my room I strip of the sticky sweaty clothes and pull on a pair of pyjama shorts and t-shirt. Even though these were tight just last month I know have to tie the cord on the shorts tight just to get them to stay on. I shiver from cold and edge my way back into my bed.
I start to read my new book, and instantly I’m intrigued. I have a whole hoard of books about eating disorders, wintergirls, letting ana go, monkey taming, second star the right, perfect, thin, insatiable just to name a few. But this one is instantly near the top of my list of favourites. I kill a few hours making me way through it, even occasionally highlighting a few sentences myself. Something I’ve never done before but seems to make the book more personal to me.
When I’m halfway through I go downstairs to make a cup of tea, I need some energy. Just as I’m adding in my 0 calorie sweetener my mum comes home.
“tori, you’re up?” she exclaims,
“yeah, I felt a bit better so I made some tea” she looks over my whole appearance,
“you’re so thin Tori,”
“blame dance” I say with a shrug,
“no tori, you’re too skinny.” I turn back to my tea, “how much do you weigh?”
“I have absolutely no idea, I haven’t weighed myself in ages.”
“I’d noticed you’d lost some weight, but not this much. You’ve lost too much Tori.”
“just drop it mum, I don’t feel well, I eat so stop worrying.”
