AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Outside my front door, I take a breath to settle me. I look at myself in my phone’s camera. I wonder why no one else can tell how broken I am when it’s so painfully obvious to me.
I paint on a happy smile and open the door.
I walk in to find a brunette hugging my best friend as a second girl with silver hair says, “Seriously. You’ve been amazing, Six!”
I make sure that my smile is securely in place as I walk towards them.
“Are we best friends already?”
Chapter 10
Nera
The first time I made myself throw up, I was fifteen.
I spent the day shopping with my mother in Tsim Sha Tsui, searching for the perfect evening gowns for both of us to wear to a charity benefit that weekend.
For her, it had to be sexy enough to lure my father’s business associates in by displaying how beautiful his wife is, without veering into slutty territory. Attention getting but not making her the center of attention, because a woman was not to outshine her husband.
My mother hasn’t had more than half a grapefruit for breakfast, a dressing-less salad for lunch, and lemon tea for dinner since I can remember, so every dress fit her perfectly that day. We found the one pretty quickly, a beautiful green Valentino dress, and yet still I saw the uncertainty on her face when she put it on. She relentlessly picked apart her perceived flaws in the mirror.
We needed to follow a similar set of criteria for my dress. I remember running my fingers over the dozens of dresses the stylist pulled for me, until I landed on a beautiful, red satin Marchesa dress.
I tried it on and loved the way it fit me. I came out to show Mum, excited to see her reaction to it.
I remember the way she looked up from her phone. How her eyes had widened, then turned pitying. Without her saying a word, I could tell exactly what she was thinking – that the fabric emphasized the pooch of my stomach, that my hip dips created a flawed silhouette, that the sweetheart neckline highlighted the extra skin on my arms.
She opened her mouth to say something, thinking about it and eventually settling on, “Don’t worry darling, we can make a plan so your weight gain doesn’t spiral any further out of control.”
I was in the midst of puberty and awkwardly growing into my body like any young teen.
The dress was a size six.
Nausea crawled up my throat at the way she looked at me. I never wanted her to look at me like that again, like I was ugly and deformed.
“Black,” she added. “We should find you something black.”
And so, we had.
A flowier, less form fitting, black dress.
Once we were home, I dropped the shopping bag in my bedroom and ran straight into my bathroom. I stripped off all my clothes and stood in front of the mirror where I castigated myself and my body for all its sins.
Tears streamed quietly down my face as I cursed my untoned arms, my flabby stomach, and my touching thighs. I grabbed the softest parts of me between pinching fingers, pulling and hurting myself as if I could rip them off me with sheer force of will alone.
I didn’t even try to make myself throw up. Powered by my self-loathing, it came barreling out of me on its own, forcing me to turn away from the mirror and fall to my knees, clutching the toilet bowl.
It’d been easy, and the relief immediate and shocking. I’d expelled weight off my body and felt physically and emotionally lighter, the instant impact like the rush of a drug. Looking down at that disgusting pile of half chewed food, smelling the acid residue almost threatening to make me sick again, it felt like I’d purged myself of the necrotic tissue she’d seen and wanted gone when she’d looked at me.
I got addicted to that feeling, to being able to control this in the way I controlled every other part of my life. To seeing the numbers tick down on the scale. To having clothes get looser on my hips. To feeling her eyes get softer as I got smaller.
I felt victorious, like I’d found a way to win this newfound war against my body. I was working out, eating less, relying on my teenage metabolism, and sticking my fingers down my throat when I needed to. I lost the baby fat and got toned.
On the outside, I looked happy.
But in reality, I’d traded one monster for another.
Whatever I did, it wasn’t enough. I’d lost fifteen pounds and yet still my mum managed to find imperfections to criticize. I started turning to food for comfort and purging for punishment. I got addicted to the emotional comfort food gave me and let the immediate shame I felt after overconsuming push me towards the bathroom.
