Category : Books-Fiction

Sub Category : Drama

-0-

The soup sizzles and pops, fire that threatens my insides. I reach for the spoon. It suffers from the thousand degree embers. 

They are there. The hawks, peering at me through the bars. Isla the Mental Freak Attraction. They stare at me in wonder.

The spoon dips into the watery fire, and I'm afraid all the metal will melt. But it resurfaces. It seems so slow, but I've come to know that it only takes a few seconds for my parents to watch me burn up, then return to their conversation. 

*she screamed for me, "isla! isla!" i wanted her to stay away. i was sleeping.*

The (ordinary, not in any way dangerous soup) fire settles on my tongue, making my mouth, teeth, gums, tongue, roof hurt. My body is a house. I set it on fire--

*i finally got up. mom was already outside, with her garden hose. it was a massive wall, swallowing, heating, becoming one and all. a fire, victorious over maria's life.*

I am not cool inside anymore. My stomach rumbles in ice-hot fury. I want to die.

-1-


The Mental Freak Attraction is over. The new house snores. Mom. Dad. Mar--

*she died she died she died she died she died with the horses and the cattle and the chickens all because i promised her a night out in the barn and then left.*

Not Maria. She'll be snoring in Heaven/Hell/Limbo/?.

*you left her alone*

Shut up.

Long after the house starts snoring--breath in, breath out, soft, not obnoxious--I pull out (the scale) the master from its hiding place in my closet. Bring it to the bathroom. The number glows in the dark against my night-owl eyes. When she died, I weighed 117 pounds. It has been a year of the first round of doctors when I was 99, the second round when I was 95, the third round when I was 98, the fourth when I was 96.5. I've never gotten into the lower 90s, or even the 80s.

Until...now/or never.

It takes one step. Another. I'm on (the scale) my master.

I was 99.4 a week ago. A Monday. Tuesday=99. Wednesday=98.5. Thursday=97.8. Friday=97. Saturday, Sunday=96.5. To me, a weekend lasts a single day. Every main meal is together on the weekends. 

Second month of my fourth (anorexia) journey, a Monday, hard work

=

96.

I am close to 95. Then 90. Then 85. Then...more and more, less and less.

*we were stargazing. i was tired. i knew i couldn't sleep in a barn. as soon as maria fell asleep, i snuck away. when she woke up, her sister was replaced with flames.*

(This is for Maria) this is for me. She was nice and skinny. I was mean and (fat really fat) plump. I will carry on her legacy. But this is for me.

-2-

I have rules. 500-1000 calories a day, two hours of working out a day, walk to school, dinner is where i pack most of my calories. (But you shouldn't follow them because they will k i l l you from the inside out) Now thinking, I should weigh myself before dinner. Then after. Torture myself.

*maria's rules were to eat anything she pleased*

I will. I will when (I die and meet her wherever) I am as slim as her.

-3-

Tuesday. Somehow, the mist in my head has cleared enough to remember that you weigh less in the morning. Proof=95.5.

I don't know how I got away with it. Go me. I probably look horrendous to everyone. I am boney. Not.

*maria didn't need to be anorexic. she already had hipbones. but henri did. 5' 10". died weighing 90 pounds. viewing him in the casket was almost enough to convince me not to be this way. then maria died.*

School starts with Psychology. Or Philosophy. Both are boring. I wonder why I took it. Mr Jackson has that droney voice. Like smoke infested his lungs.

Lunch is nothing. I sit on my own. I will not inflict wounds on myself. If Maria couldn't keep clean, then I will for her. Something interesting happens, though. A girl named Cara James comes up to me and asks me if I'm anorexic.

Of course I am. I am dying. I am freezing into an ice cube that will melt in a margarita where I will finally learn to taste.

"Looks don't say everything," I tell her. She huffs. Slams down her lunch tray next to me. And holds out her apple. 

"Here's a tip. This apple burns more calories than it's worth."

I know. I'd rather not risk it (she could have injected it with mashed potatoes and scalding gravy).

But I take it, so she will just get off my back and mind her own freaking business.

-4-

Prom is coming up. I'm a junior. My school can't afford a junior prom. Henri would be a senior *he wanted to weigh 85. he wouldn't be able to survive.*

Yusef is going, though, in Henri's memory. Henri died three years ago. A freshman...Yusef is wearing Henri's tuxedo. The Indian and French friends, inseparable (until death do they part).

-5-

When I get home, Mom and Dad are already cooking dinner. It's a roast=torture. I'll eat maybe 5-10 bites. 90 calories. And maybe some milk, because my parents insist that I need this thing called protein. But protein can go kill itself. Who needs protein when you could have thin (Maria back)?

So far, I'm pretty good. No breakfast. Lunch is 82. Dinner will probably be around 150 at least, 500 at most. Even so, I'll have less than 1000... 900... 800... 700... maybe even 600 or 500.

If I'm lucky. This house is a nuthouse, not a luckhouse.

I have homework: a paper on the French Revolution, online stuff for Pre-Calc. My GPA is supposed to be 4.0. Real GPA=3.2. My parents will give me threats (if they ever bother to look at my grades rather than my weight).