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At first, my father tried the posh private institutions on the West Coast that promised holistic treatments to cure all of my bad thoughts about myself. When those places didn't work and then the three after them also failed, he started putting me in other places that remind me of Chryseum. This one might take the shit cake before it's all said and done, though, given that the nicest thing so far is the building, a tall castle on top of a lonely mountain, beautiful, gothic, and downright sinister. From what I've seen in here already, the food sucks, the living quarters suck, and the company most definitely sucks. No one gives a shit about the students in here, me included. They're basically taking my father's money just to make sure I can't break out of this shitbox, not that I haven't thought about it.
I broke out of the last one, but then again, it wasn't in the middle of fucking nowhere surrounded by acres upon acres of forest and all the creepy crawly things that live there. So, I'll wait it out until my father gets fed up that this place hasn't cured me, and maybe I'll end up in the hospital again or six feet under this time, either one would probably be a relief to him at this point. Hell, maybe they'll even go full-blown ward of the state and institutionalize me.
I squeeze between a group of girls hurriedly talking about something and spot a placard on a tall wooden door to my left that designates the girl's bathroom. I swing the door open and step inside, the hideous shoes of my new uniform clacking on the ugly white tile. Three stalls line the wall to my right across from three porcelain sinks to my left, and the place smells like cleaning solution and lemons.
I beeline for the mirror against the exterior wall—well I guess I can call it a mirror, but it barely earns that designation. It's one of those unbreakable ones that sort of looks like a sheet of metal and makes your face resemble a disturbing funhouse version of yourself. It's bolted to the wall, but I managed to remove one from the last place my father sent me to, though it took three weeks and a lot of broken pencils. This one shouldn't be too hard if I need to come back to it later.
I examine myself in the shitty mirror and check my eyeliner, not that I can touch it up. All of my stuff, makeup included, is still with Headmistress Graves being searched for all things bad and banned. I spot a little smudge in the corner of my eye and turn on the sink to wet a finger and fix it as best I can.
When I'm done, I take a moment, step back, and look at myself. My mother used to call me Big Red when she was pissed off, but that was before she found the insult that cut deep and stuck beneath my skin.
Oink, oink, piggy!
A girl stares back at me with strawberry blonde hair and big blue eyes that the shitty mirror makes look gigantic, even more so with the puffy bags beneath them. She looks how I feel, miserable and pissed off.
A toilet flushes behind me, and a girl exits a stall a second later.
She's all things my mother would love.
Blonde, thin, and a teeny, tiny waist.
She walks up to the sink next to me and turns on the water to wash her hands. She finishes quickly and shakes them dry into the basin. Then she makes the duckiest of duck faces in the mirror. It takes everything in me to not chortle, but I've learned over the years to control my emotions, lest I end up getting shanked by a bitch.
Deep in my belly, my stomach pinches as I suppress my laugh. It's a feeling I know all too well. I've already consumed ninety calories today, half of an overly ripe banana and a black coffee with two packets of sugar. Caffeine with a shot of glucose helps to keep the hunger at bay. My mother would be proud of me and say it's a good way to boost myslow metabolismas well.
Today, I'll skip lunch like I always do. Sometimes, I skip dinner too, but it gets hard to sleep when my stomach is rumbling loud enough to wake my neighbors. When I sleep, though, I don't often dream, and it's a deep slumber that carries me through the worst of the stomach pains. If I dream, I dream about the numbers, and I fucking hate dreaming about the damned numbers.
I know all the calorie counts.
Fifty calories for a single mandarin orange.
Zero for a black coffee.
Fifteen for a packet of sugar.
Five hundred for a baked potato with butter and cheese, but that depends on the type of cheese. I better make it seven hundred if it's the American-processed crap.
One hundred sixty-five per 100 grams of chicken.
Eighty in a teaspoon of buttercream frosting.
Up to six hundred for a slice of pepperoni pizza, but it's only ten if I eat just one pepperoni.
As I said, I know all of the numbers.
It's a fine line between death and living, and I've gotten really good at toeing the line. Hell, my old psychiatrist would freak if he knew I could still recite the calorie counts of most foods, and if I can't, I just estimate on the high end. That doctor thought he had fixed me up and set me on the path to being cured. Little did he know that while he believed what he wanted to believe, I googled how many calories are in toothpaste—none if you don't swallow—and mouthwash—also zero if you don't swallow. If I chew gum and spit it out, that doesn't count, but if I accidentally swallow the piece, that's another twenty consumed for the day.
My stomach pinches again as the girl at the sink beside me leaves, and I stare at myself in the mirror. Like always, my mother's voice is the one I hear.
Oink, oink. Do you want another serving, piggy?
I bite the inside of my cheek to ensure my silence. It's second nature at this point, a habit from my rare visits back home. I learned it from dealing with my mother. If you fight her, it makes everything worse until she's screaming at you, spittle flying with her words and making everyone stare.
I was six years old and at a pageant competition when she pointed at the mirror, the kind with lightbulbs around the edges like I was a movie star, and said, "You're getting fat, piggy. Nobody likes the big girls in beauty pageants."
"But I'm hungry," I had whined before I could stop myself.
"What a pig!" my mother laughed, throwing her head back and cackling like a witch. "Should I get you a trough? Would you like some slop?"
