Rest in Piece

She eats when she’s sad; she eats when she’s stressed. Sometimes she doesn’t eat at all. Fragile and frail, the young girl stuffed her face at the dinner table, not even aware of the food she was consuming or better yet…what was consuming her, an never- ending illness of self- doubt and low self- esteem. Surrounded by the smiling, naive faces of her relatives, who of course couldn't detect what was wrong, the girl shoved the food down her throat without tasting it. She could taste faint traces of her dinner, steak and potatoes, and for a second she almost enjoyed it, but she had a purpose. 

 Self- control.

 Obsession.

 Skinny. 

 SOS.

***

As she finished loading the dishwasher, the girl took punctilious note of her surroundings. The obnoxious laughter of her family upstairs reassured her of her mission. They were so absorbed with family night that they neglected to include the entire family, but this made no difference to her. She couldn't care less about monotonous Scrabble matches and watching PG movies “as a family” because she knew the truth. They weren’t a family; families don’t hurt each other on purpose. As the girl walked by the trashcan, something caught her attention out of the corner of her eye and made her freeze in her tracks. It was unused cookie mix. Cookie dough, the label read. “Perfect,” she thought. Out of curiosity, she pulled it out and smelled it, tempted to have just one, little taste. She grew enraptured by the tempting smell of the mixture. “No, I’m doing so well today. I can’t jeopardize that.” The girl placed the box carefully and precisely back in its original spot and made her way to her safe haven, the bathroom. She let the snap of the bolt comfort her and make her feel at home, surrounded by her…

Self- destruction

Illness

Catastrophe

Killing

Neurotic

Eagerness

Self- induced

Sickness

SICKNESS.

***

Noises of dry- heaving and gagging could be heard just outside the bathroom door. The door shielded her in her self- induced haze as she propped herself on the toilet, her fingers down her throat. Her brunette hair shielded her face as she wretched the contents of her stomach into the toilet, traces of this and that taunting her, evidence of her demise. Flushing away the evidence, she wiped her mouth and brushed her teeth, covering all the bases. She was a pro, and she embraced this with pride, the trait of dedication. The girl flicked off the lights, sealing the room in darkness. Darkness didn’t just take over the bathroom; it tortured her as well, leaving her trapped in the room, trapped with her reflection. She felt like she was at a carnival, surrounded by the Hall of Mirrors, highlighting her every flaw and displaying them for the world to see. She looked fixedly at her reflection in the mirror, touching her anemic face, but to her...this was beauty. The pallor of her face was just one sign of her obsession, her obsession to become…

 Pretty

 Elegant

 Regal

 Fabricated

 Ectomorphic

 Calm

 Thin

 PERFECT.

“Who is this girl?” she pondered as she grabbed the skin of her thighs, tormented by the fat. The girl took off her shirt and shorts and stood in the mirror, counting the flaws, counting the calories. Before she could even think of what she was about to do, the girl extracted a pair of rusty scissors from the mirror’s cabinet and with a flick of the blades, she was cutting her skin open as if the weight and calories would just spill out of her body. The girl carved words like fat and ugly. Tears cascaded down her face as she felt the words, felt the failure. The crimson blood that erupted from the fresh cuts existed as a mockery of the fat on her skin; it was her punishment for her selfish indulgence. Her cuts became her own scarlet letter, but instead of it pinning her “letter” to her breast, for the world to cackle at her shame, her cuts existed under the surface of her clothes, forming a wine red ‘A,’ reproving not her but the others, the ones who left her…

 Apart

 Lonely

 One

 None

 Exiled

 ALONE

The infected blades fell from her hands and clattered in the sink, staining it with her blood, her hopelessness. The girl took one last glance at the shiny reflective surface, committing all of her flaws to memory, forming new goals in her mind. Instead of “reflecting” on who she was, she was trapped on the other side of the mirror, reflecting on who she wished she could be. Before she left, the girl turned the light off making sure the door was closed behind her, sealing her demons inside the bathroom.

***

After she laid down in her bed, the young girl stared at the ceiling, cluttered with faded glow-in- the- dark stars from her childhood. They were evidence of a happier time, a happier girl, a skinnier girl. Over time, the glow of the stars faded and one by one they fell from the ceiling, pieces of the girl's confidence collapsing right before her eyes. Finally, after hours of staying up, her eyelids fluttered before finally closing. As exhaustion claimed her, she drifted asleep but instead of sheep…she counted calories.

***

RING! The obnoxious beeping of her alarm clock echoed in her ears, and the girl immediately shut it off. 3:30, the clock read. “No one is up,” she whispered. Slowly and quietly, she tip- toed to the kitchen, past the living room where the family portraits stared back at her, burning holes into her back. As she reached her destination, she opened the stainless silver door, the fluorescent refrigerator lights flashed forcing her bloodshot eyes to open as she filled her starved stomach with the fridge's contents, a mass acculturation of fats and sugars. She forced herself to swallow the food, mentally calculating the calories in her head, numbers clouding her judgment. Satisfied and overfed, she stopped and closed the door, instinctively making her way to the bathroom, a place where she could be herself or rather…become someone else. 

***

She lightly touched the bruises under her eyes and began creating the mask that would cover her face, constructed from blushes, foundations, and mascaras. As the time passed, the fake glow she craved, after she saw the Victoria Secret models parading around on TV, appeared on her face, faint traces of pinks and golds. Her face became someone else’s face, and she let out a Cheshire cat smile because she felt beautiful knowing that no one could see, no one cared to see. In fact, they told her all the time how small she is, the words like music to her ears. The problems were there though, brewing and brewing. She didn’t panic because the pounds erupted into the toilet, the girl immediately feeling better. She felt like if she could just throw up all of the bad stuff, all of the carbs, sugar and fats, the hurt would just escape too. The bad feelings would go away. The voices would go away. They didn’t. “Do it,” they thundered, “you know what you have to do.” 

***

Suddenly, unexpected knocking and a voice interrupted her and woke her up. She had collapsed from exhaustion on the porcelain toilet, her mother’s voice forcing her eyelids to flutter open.

"Hey! What are you doing in there?" The mother’s voice asked, her voice shaky and borderline hysterical. But the girl didn’t hear her. She could only hear one voice…the small, vitriolic one inside of her, convincing her she wasn’t pretty just yet, and there was only way to get there. Distressed and overwrought, the mother banged on the door, jiggling the doorknob. Her terrified shouts begged for her daughter to open the door, to answer back. Dizziness struck the girl, and she quivered. All of the voices around her became one massive blur full of her mother’s pleas and her demon’s encouragement. All she could focus on was her progress. One pound gone was a victory; the decreasing numbers on the scale gave her no greater joy.

Her hands slipped from their place on the toilet and she banged her head on the porcelain, collapsing to the floor like a feather. Before she could slip into oblivion, her memory flashed to the scale she stepped onto earlier and the number it gave back to her, promoting her illness. 85 lbs, it read, and with that, she drifted into a stupor of haunting calories from which she would never wake up from. Evidence of her misfortune lay just inches away, so it wouldn’t be hard to put the pieces together. The girl didn’t care though because her secret was out, and with that...she could happy knowing that she did it. She had reached her goal. Finally, she could…

Rest

In

Peace

RIP

***

Logan 

I heard the crying before I reached her bedroom. My mother was crying, but not for my sister. She cried because she didn’t know. She cried because she couldn’t stop it. She cried because she didn’t see what was going on. I held my breath as I inched the door open to find my mother hunched over on my sister’s bed. She was surrounded by papers, paper I didn’t have to see because I knew what was on them. I read them. I knew, and I didn’t say anything. 

No longer able to watch, I silently closed the door, and before I knew it, I was in the bathroom. 

***

When my parents bought our house, they told me and my sister we’d have to share the bathroom, and for the longest time we fought terribly over it. We would wake up early just to call dibs on the bathroom and laugh at the person who overslept and missed their golden opportunity. Over time though, the bathroom became the place where we bonded, where we depended on each other. I know that sounds strange, but it’s true.

Our parents fought all the time. I don’t remember much about what they fought about, but I’ll never forget the time my sister woke me up from a deep sleep. I remember rubbing my eyes and looking at my bedside clock and seeing the time, 3:30. I was so tired my sister picked me up and carried me into the bathroom. She climbed into the bathtub and rocked us back and forth, my arms linked around her neck. She sang songs, her velvet voice attempting to lull me back to sleep, to distract me, but I couldn’t focus on her voice. All I could focus on was the loud, hard smacks and the crying of my mother. That night I buried myself into the crook of my sister’s neck and stared for what seemed like hours at the pattern of the shower curtain, counting the squares over and over. 

***

“So Logan, can you tell me about what you found in your sister’s room?” 

The voice of my therapist shook me from my reverie, and I looked up at her, drawn to her giant glasses, ya know, the Harry Potter ones with the big round lenses. She reminded me of an insect, scrutinizing my every movement only to scribble them in her intimidating notebook. She no doubt filled the page with words like…

Pained

Terrified

Scared

Depressed

“It all started with a secret. I never meant to find what I did.” I shut my eyes, images of my sister flashing in my mind, reminding me of what I did or didn’t do. 

“What did you find Logan? Tell me about it.” The therapist, like a spider, surveyed me with its eight eyes, staring into my soul, looking for any sign of a defect, something she could prescribe medicine for, something she could attempt to cure. 

“It all started when Drake came over.” I bit my nails to nubs, and hid my hands under my thighs, a habit my therapist caught onto quickly as her pen wrote it all down. She looked up; her piercing blue eyes struck me with guilt.

“Is Drake your best friend?” She asked, and I let out a dark chuckle. Right away she went to scribbling in her book my reaction to his name and paused for my answer. I glanced out the window, staring at the beautiful landscape and fountain outside. I stared at the enchanting scenery that distracted those on the outside from the crazies screaming from the inside.

“He was.” I replied, my voice almost a whisper. I stretched out my legs, the orange jumpsuit coming into view as I prepared to tell her the story, the story of how my sister ended up the way she did, the story of how I made sure she ended up there.

All 

My 

Fault

***

Author's Note

Here's chapter 1! Please let me know what you think! Thanks guys!

Reviews

[jjwilbourne]

I love how deep you dive into your characters. You have a strong grasp on human character.
The girl sounds obsessed and its really interesting to read about. I'm curious if you jump back to her viewpoint often. I want to see more of her world and the decisions she makes through the filter of that obsessive lens.
Excellent work.

[Nessie_AJ]

Thank you so much for your reviews! & yes you have captured the point perfectly! I decided to title it Secrets because every one is going to be dealing with an obsession & they all start with a secret which I feel is really prevalent now

[jjwilbourne]

That's really cool. I'll have to revisit this soon!

[Rivaxorus]

Very interesting story, spine chilling with every word that I read. I look forward to reading more of it.

[Nessie_AJ]

Thank you so much!

[Bonaventure Onuabuchi]

The use of abreviation and making it concord with every point you want to emphasize is something unique! You did employ that to make this work outstanding, and really it draws my interest... Good job.

[Nessie_AJ]

thank you so much!