Skinny



I turned on the hot water in the shower. This house always got so cold, even in the summer. Steamy showers were the only way I could keep warm. Stupid drafty house. I stepped in the shower and let the warm water wash over me. It felt so good, I can’t even describe it. I ran a hand through my blonde hair, and shook off the strands that came out with it. That always happened when I showered. It was pretty natural.

I had my coffee this morning, I ran two miles before work, and I skipped lunch. I had hoped this would count, but then I got on the scale after I got home. I gained five pounds. I’m not sure how that even happened. It must have been from the slices I ate at Pizza Hut last night with my friends. I like Pizza Hut. They provide me with dark-colored glasses with open tops, and no one questions why there are chunks of pizza floating in my water. I was sure I had spit them all out instead of swallowing them, but I must have missed one. Stupid. Bad Sarah. Bad Sarah forgot to spit out her pizza instead of swallowing it, and now she’s turning into Fat Sarah.

I go through the entire meal in my head. Nobody saw me spit out my food, and they all saw me eat. They all said I ate a lot, and they didn't eat very much. Carly is the prettiest. She ate two pieces of pizza. I wish I could be pretty like Carly. She was skinnier than I am. I have no idea how. She never exercises, and she eats all the time. I exercise constantly and I never eat, and she still weights seven pounds less than I do. It isn't fair.

I scrape my pointer finger against my uvula and gag, but nothing comes out. After a while, my gag reflex got used to the feeling of my finger, and nothing would come out. It took more scraping, deeper pushing, to get a result now. I pushed my finger further in, and I could feel the familiar spasms start to overtake my body. My stomach heaved, and I vomited into the shower drain. The shower is the best place to do it. The water covers up the noise, and it washes all the evidence away. It covers up the sound of my crying too. That way, I don’t have to hear how weak I am, and I get skinnier at the same time.

I began to retch again, trying to keep my eyes open to see if I could identify the food that made me gain five pounds. I couldn't see any chunks. It was mostly just stomach acids. My throat began to burn, my stomach began to cramp, and my eyes began to water. I turned off my brain as much as I could so I wouldn't be able to think about what a bad person I was for crying while making myself skinnier. I kept telling myself it would be okay. As long as I could get rid of at least five pounds, it would all be okay. I retched a third time, filling the bathtub with brown and red vomit. Red? Why was it red? As it washed down the drain, I was aware of a coppery taste in my mouth. Blood tastes coppery. Oh god, now I was vomiting blood. Bad Sarah. Stupid Sarah.

I remember now. I remember what I ate that caused me to gain weight. I woke up in the middle of the night and binged on my roommate’s leftover spaghetti. I pulled it out of the fridge and ate it cold. I couldn't wait the two minutes it would have taken to microwave it. I was so hungry. It wasn't mine though. I shouldn't have eaten it. I shouldn't have eaten it because it was my roommate’s and because it put me well over my calorie count for yesterday. Great, so not only am I a bad person for eating without a thought to the calories, but I managed to take advantage of my roommate too. Bad Sarah. Doubly bad Sarah. Stupid Sarah.

I felt another spasm run through my body as I vomited again. My vision began to get fuzzy. All of a sudden I found myself lying in my tub, my head throbbing in pain. I put my hand where the throbbing was most painful, and it came away bloody. Great, now I would have to explain that too. My stomach began to spasm again as I continued to vomit. My forehead smacked against the porcelain of the tub and made my bruise sting once again. The pain from my head and my stomach was so intense that I threw up again.

The water had begun to run cold. My throat and nose both stung and burned from all the stomach bile I had thrown up, and I was cold. I was freezing cold. I began to shiver and wrapped my arms around my waist. I reached up to turn off the water, and the air hit me, making me even colder. I stood up and hobbled out of the shower and onto the bathmat. Supporting myself with the vanity, I stared at myself in the mirror. A little blood still trickled out of the wound on my forehead. I wiped it away. The skin on my face stretched over the bones, making me look fat and unhappy. I pulled on them a little, trying to get my cheeks to become skinny like Carly’s, but it just didn't work.

My arms felt heavy as I tried to lift them up to the mirror to wipe the thin film of steam away. Maybe I just couldn't help being ugly. Maybe I couldn't help being fat. Maybe it was just time to accept that I couldn't do anything to fix myself, and live life like the blob I was. Maybe. Maybe if I just lost a little more weight...