Secrets

twelve

"Shit" Zosia utters under her breath. She sits up and swings her legs over the edge of her bed. 
She looks around her bedroom before picking up her phone. There's a text from Carmen.

'Hey babe, I forgot to say I have an appointment this morning and didn't want to wake you up to tell you. See you at work ;) love you xxxx'

Zosia smiles, and then five seconds later, she frowns. Only 'love you' , not 'I love you', that's important. Maybe she doesn't love her after all, not really. And the four kisses, four. She despises that number. Is it a sign?
Zosia continues to over think the message.
It's because she's fat, she bets it is. Carmen doesn't love her because she has no self control and is fat and disgusting and a horrible person who is shit at everything she does. Why can't she be the best? The very best. That's what she wants to be, she has to be, it's what she needs to be. 
She runs her hands through her messy hair and presses both hands hard into her head, in some attempt to stop the racing thoughts in her mind.

Clenching her jaw, Zosia stands up and slowly walks into the bathroom.
She washes her face, goes to the toilet, turns on the shower and takes off her clothes. 
She moves the scales into the middle of the room and turns them on.

130.4lbs. 59.1kg. 9.3 stone.
She's 5'8, making her BMI 19.8... 'Normal'.
Her mind just screams fat, fat, fat.
It's been years that she's longed to be thin, with a goal of being a tiny 5 stone. Emaciated, fragile, delicate... Tears form in her eyes as she pictures it. They run down her face as she kicks the scales back to their usual place.
She takes a deep breath and gets in the shower, planning what she's going to binge on afterwards.

~

The noise of the hairdryer stops, filling the entire flat with silence. The kind of silence that deafens you because it's so loud.
Zosia clears her throat and brushes the knots out of her hair.
She doesn't bother to put anything else on apart from her underwear and her black silky robe.

In the kitchen, she opens her secret cupboard and pulls out a 200g bar of chocolate and a 190g tube of her favourite pringles before locking the cupboard again. 
She starts with the crisps, standing in front of the worktop and shoving them into her mouth, starting with just two at a time, working her way up to six at a time, then just grabbing a handful and cramming them into her mouth again and again until there's none left.
Now to the chocolate, her hands shakily rip the packet open then she bites into it carelessly, half of it gone within 45 seconds. The second half takes even less time.
She suddenly opens the fridge and takes out the half eaten millionaires shortbread cheesecake. She stares at it for a second before pulling open the drawer she's stood in front of, taking out a spoon and hitting the drawer shut with the palm of her hand. She's slow at eating it first, the nausea kicking in; she soon gets over it and manages to finish the whole cheesecake. That's enough for right now.

Grabbing a glass, she speed walks to the bathroom and fills the glass with tap water, gulping about a third of the glass straight away.
Zosia kicks up the toilet lid with her foot and stands up in front of it. With her left hand she holds back her hair and with her right hand she shoves two fingers down her throat and bends over the toilet as she gags. She tries again, coughing violently. And again, her eyes bulging and watering. She keeps going, the same things happening but she knows she's getting closer when she tastes something acidic. She quickly downs more water and tries with three fingers, then two again, not stopping when she gags. She clenches her stomach muscles and carries on, not noticing the vomit falling into the toilet until she hears the familiar splash.
She knows that's not everything yet. 
Once again, Zosia pushes two fingers into her mouth, her teeth pressing against them and as she gags, her stop row of teeth dig right into her fingers and her knuckles, right until the vomit rushes past them.
Zosia drinks the rest of the water and purges until all that's coming up is bile. 
She shakily stands up straight and flushes the toilet before washing her hands and splashing her face with cold water.
She grabs some body spray from the windowsill and uses it to disguise the smell of vomit, like she always does.

Ten minutes and lots of rinsing her mouth out with water later, she decides to clean her teeth. Finally, she takes her glass back into the kitchen and washes it so there is completely no evidence... Apart from the packing of her binge food, but she'll hide that in her room later.

The loud silence returns. Zosia stands in the kitchen sipping a new glass of water, just staring into space as her stomach ties itself in a million knots. She is anxious. She tries to think positive thoughts, but there aren't any left, she's used them all up before. All she can think about is food, eating, the number on the scale.

Don't eat. Do not eat. You must not eat. Don't eat. Don't eat. Don't eat. Control. Control yourself, you fat greedy bitch. Fat, fat, fat, fat, fat, fat, fat, fat, fat, fat, fat fat fat fat fat. 

"Ugh!" Zosia roars, rage taking over her. Her fist soon hits the wall, again and again, until she simply can't anymore since the pain is too much. She throws herself backwards against the wall and slides down it so she's sitting on the floor, hugging her knees, sobbing.

Fat.