I Will Always

By L. M. Boulevardes

Prologue: Reality Check

Reality check: you can never, ever, use weight loss to solve problems that are not related to your weight. At your goal weight or not, you still have to live with yourself and deal with your problems. You will still have the same husband, the same job, the same kids, and the same life. Losing weight is not a cure for life.

~Phillip C. McGraw, The Ultimate Weight Solution: The 7 Keys to Weight Loss Freedom, 2003

22 September 2010 Wednesday

"I'm Carly."

"And I'm Sam."

"And this . . . is our – "

"Ohmygod!"

One, two, three – she hits the ground with a symphony around her, everything singing in perfect time. The floor hurts her, hurts her like the world hurts God. She chokes on her breath and stares vacantly at the ceiling, feeling the waves convulse over her like the storm Juno sent on Aeneas. Her ribs hurt her stomach, trying to thrust through her viscera, her paper-thin and paper-pale skin. Her dark hair pools around her face and she stares at the ceiling, cheeks burning red with humiliation.

"Carly. . . Carly, can you hear me? What's wrong?" Sam asks, and Carly can barely see her through the blurriness. She's a haloed angel, just this fuzzy gold thing. her hair falls down and it looks like sunbeams reaching out to her, reaching down to take her away, pull her into some place warm and beautiful.

"Ahhhhhh. . ." It hurts. It hurts a lot, actually. She's really having a difficult time breathing and all she wants to do is grab the air, stuff it into her throat but she can't-can't-can't . . "Ahhhh-ahhhhh!" Her shrieking isn't seeming to do anything.

"Freddie, call nine-one-one!" Sam shouts. "It's going to be ok Carls, you'll see. It'll all be okay. Hang on, Carly. Hang in there." Sam's hot hands are grasping one of hers, and she wishes she would just let go and leave her well enough alone. She's drifting and floating now, and she's wondering if she's about to have an out of body experience. That would be pretty cool, actually. . .

Freddie has dropped the camera, and she can see it lying there. It's reading her dead dark eyes, her pale pale pale skin and her skinny skinny skinny body. She suspects she dying, and she's hardly even sure she cares. That can't be a good thing. . . no, no, no.

When Spencer comes in he cradles her head in his lap, and his tears fall on her face. Even when the pains are lesser she can't find her voice, can't find the energy to tell them everything is going to be okay and they're all overreacting. It's just too hard to breathe, to focus on that one little crucial task at hand. But she wishes they would all stop crowding her and touching her; she's sweaty and disgusting and she can't believe she's being watched on the fucking internet like this. What a legacy; what a legacy!

By the time the medics arrive she's shutting her eyes, and she's drifting, floating, going somewhere far away where nothing-no one will ever touch her – ever hurt her, pure as a sunbeam.