Mia's Whispers

It was like running a marathon. It only got harder. It only got more painful. Yet a certain adrenaline would settle in and you couldn't stop yourself from doing more, despite the pain that rose. Instead of sore calves and labored breathing, though, it was glassy eyes and swollen cheeks; a scarred throat and sensitive teeth. It was bile that never seemed to leave her side, it was a darkness that settled nearby her. It was guilt that scorned her for eyeing the cookies her mother made, and it was the self loathing that came after she enjoyed a few. It was the arrogance that came in her mental flipping off as she enjoyed a few too many. And it was the remorse she felt when she understood that her days of restriction would be for nothing in the end. It was all horrible, all the time, with no finish line. There was no hope for a victorious end, the closest thing achievable through that being death.

An all too familiar routine was what the red head had fallen into, "dieting" for weeks at a time with her intake averaging below four hundred calories. Pounds would be shed, two or so a week in fact. Her friends admired her diligence, not understanding that she was suffering. And then one night, surrounded by temptation, she would cave. . . And she would eat, and eat, and she would never stop. Sometimes she would go days like this, scarfing down any tempting treat to cross her path. Luckily, she had a cure for this. And immediately after eating enough that would ordinarily make her gain four pounds, she would hall herself to the bathroom, telling her mother she would take a shower as she clutched her bloated belly in disgust. In the bathroom, she turned the water on, and lingered above the toilet, staring down into the porcelain thrown, a mixture of disdain and ambition filling her gaze. And then as much as her hand as possible would be shoved down her throat, and sometimes she cut the inside of her, but almost always did she get everything out.

Flush.

It was the sound of her self esteem going right down the toilet, along with the four bags of chips she had just eaten. Stripping her clothes off then, the red head would stare down at her reflection. The mirror of her bathroom was like everyone else in her house - Glamorous and large. And she hated it more than anything, because every roll of fat was amplified. From her still pudgy stomach to the extra weight on her thighs. Stretching herself in front of it, she would look at herself from different angles, wanting to see if her binge had made her gain anything. . . Or if she had, through some miracle, lost, which was what she always prayed for. But her body dysmorphia was so bad that she knew, logically, that she may never recognize when she lost weight. Her friends told her she was thin enough already, and often she wondered why she couldn't see what they saw, or why her eyes worked differently. She saw the weight on them - Massie's lithe figure, Alicia's curvy but petite one, Kristen's athletic bodice, and so on. She knew what they looked like.

Her eyes didn't lie when it came to them, so she had trouble believing that they lied when it came to herself.

Fat, fat, fat. That's all she would ever be - The fat friend.

Logically, she knew she rested at a healthy weight. But why the fuck did she have to be the biggest?

The scale in the corner of the tiled room was eyed, and she wanted to get on and see the result as she did an uncountable amount of times during the day. But a pit began to form in her stomach as she thought of what the number might be. What if she hadn't gotten everything out? She rarely did, and she was terrified. The decrease, even just the slightest one, made her feel victorious. But the increase? The increase was enough to put her in a half alive state for entire days. She became a zombie, rarely getting out of bed unless it was to piss or weigh herself. Sometimes she cried herself to sleep, sometimes she thought about killing herself. A slight shift in pounds need not to that to a person. But it did to her.

So she ignored the scale and got in the running shower, allowing her skin to make contact with the scalding hot water.

And her eyes closed, and for a moment, she enjoyed the escape.

Though only for a moment, as before she knew it there was a pounding on her bathroom door. The high school junior would blink into the water as she fumbled to turn it off, knowing full well that it wouldn't help her hear any if she left it on. "Yeah?" She called, expecting it to be her mom.

Instead it was BOCD's favorite alpha who answered her call, "Dyl? Get the fuck out, we're sleeping over tonight."

Massie was everything she hated, her number one trigger. Thin and adored by everyone, she couldn't picture the brunette weighing more than 100 perfect pounds. And High School had come and given the female dog an attitude twice as worse as before. Full of resentment and a will for revenge, it was best not to get on her bad side.

"Who's we?" She asked, knowing she wasn't in the mood for having anyone over. More like in the mood for dying. Reaching for a towel to drape around her, her gaze would once more drift to the scale, though she reminded herself that the water sticking to her skin would make her weigh more than she really did. It was a bad idea to weigh herself right then and there.

"Who do you think? Kristen, Alicia, Claire and me." The familiar voice came in response, an irritable edge to it.

Bracing herself, she would breathe for a moment before pulling the door open, plastering a smile on her face. "Hey, pretties."

To her surprise, the dark haired queen bee would push herself inside to join her in her forte. "Can I borrow your straightener?"

Dylan would sigh at her behavior though nodded and moved to retrieve it from the storage beneath the sink, only to hear a gasp from beside her.

"Shit, did you get sick?"

Instantly panic set in - She had flushed, hadn't she? She always flushed, and she remembered flushing with clarity.

But as she turned she saw something revolting. Vomit. On the toilet seat.

Mouth parting, she found herself at a loss for words, and a terrible sense of doom settling in upon her.