Break of Day

3) The Ghost of Hell

A heavy chain tightened in my stomach as I stepped on the scale. I watched my sister's face rather than Maria's as she looked at the numbers. No matter how long it had been, I could never get over my dread towards the little scale. It had haunted my dreams since childhood, flashing three numbers when Maria told me it should only show two.

Fire ignited as the chain chafed, pulled so tight they striked against each other at every breath. Maria had torn my body of its strength and beauty long ago. My mind shattered, as it found itself unable to cope with the years of being forced to throw everything up. I hated this scale and the coolness of porcelain against my arms with a furious passion. For most of my childhood my diet normally consisted of the bitter taste as I knelt before a toilet and my life was standing on this scale as Maria decided my worth. It was Candy that taught me this fury that burned through me, the blood in my veins nothing but gasoline. It was the only thing that kept me sane. Without this hatred I would have faded away years ago, there isn't a part of me that can feel anything else. Without out it I would be nothing, feel nothing, have faded into nothing. So why eat? Why sleep? Why continue to breathe? But I have this burning hatred, my saviour in this hell my mother drilled into me my entire life as she tried to cut me into pieces that fit what she wanted. It is the fuel that keeps my heart pumping and my brain ticking as I am forced onto this scale, as I have to watch tears form into my little sister's eyes as our mother scolds her for weighing 'too much'.

I could only survive this because I was taught to fill myself with so much hatred for this scale and the way it makes my sister feel that I could not possibly think about my own weight. Our worth was always tied to our weight and Mare had not yet learned precisely how wrong that was.

I have had years of my friends teaching me that there is nothing to be done about this, just stay calm, do healthy things and then everything will be okay again. I had my best friends to bring me to the gym to replace throwing up and careful eating to switch out the mint gum that used to be the majority of my diet. I had Lexi's mother to cradle me as I sobbed over the toilet after a relapse. I had a million people there for me since I was ten while I forgot about my sister who only had me.

I left her alone to fade away in our teen years. After... him, I forgot about my sister and allowed her to fall into the trap our mother fell into and knows nothing else but how to teach us its ways. Only recently has she gotten the support she needed that I had failed to give her. I would forever love Amelia for that.

When I failed my sister, she saved her.

"One hundred sixty-three!" Maria's exclamation interrupted my distraction. My muscles tightened, forcing my back straight as I hid the painful disappointment from my sister. That disappointment loved to rip away my oxygen, forcing my fury to dwindle. It never disappeared no matter how old I got or how hard I tried. "You haven't been sticking to your diet, have you?"

Diet? My diet was more of a question. Did I Eat Today? If the answer was no, then I would be praised. If the answer was yes, I would find myself with fingers down my throat kneeling in front of a toilet. I wanted to spit back. Of course, I haven't been following it. Then, almost involuntarily, the need to defend my choice, to apologise for my failings took over and a thought appeared: My friends won't let me...

"You should really try and lose sixty pounds while you are at Aaron's," Maria suggested as she moved me from the scale, her words causing a shameful heat to wash over my body. "If you really want to look good, try and lose eighty."

My gaze slipped from my sister as my brain failed me and she moved onto the scale, finding my black socks with little bunnies that Russ helped Dad pick out for me last Christmas.

The heavy chains turn jagged with vicious spikes as they crush me becoming this inescapable cage that tore at my insides, shattered my voice, ripped away my breath and clawed at my skull with such a furious intensity that I could not meet my sister's searching gaze. Shame was the worst hell of them all.