Chapter One: Perfect Body

TRIGGER WARNING: GRAPHIC DETAILS OF EATING DISORDERS

I woke up at 7am, like usual. I checked my phone, and replied to some messages. None of them were overly important, because I'm not a particularly important person. I walked downstairs, greeted my dog, and put the kettle on to make a cup of tea.

The next task was always to make it seem like I packed lunch. Bread came out of the breadbin, butter came out of the fridge, a knife came out of the drawer. I buttered the bread and placed it in a lunchbox, ready to chuck out on my way home. No matter how much I hated wasting food, I hated eating it more.

Morning routines were always a chore - hell, life was always a chore. I never wanted to live, but I didn't want to die either. Eating disorders sort of automatically make you half dead and half alive anyway.

Pro ana sites were always seen as a bad thing, and I dreaded the day someone in real life would find my profile - and although the guilt of going on these sites was imminent, when I needed help, they gave it. It wasn't all about losing weight, it was about looking out for each other. The only thing that sucked, was that sometimes a friend you'd made on there would just disappear, and never log in again. You'd hope that they chose to recover, and try to ignore the fact that they could be dead.

I'd only told one person in real life explicitly about my eating disorder - my ex boyfriend. Everyone else probably knew - my family and friends made jokes, sometimes with each other. It was funny that I barely ate, it was funny that I was so thin.

Maybe humour was a coping mechanism, because there was no way in hell they were that dense.

That morning was the same as every other, so after getting ready, I went outside to find Hayley standing outside my house. We greeted each other, and made our way to the bus stop.

"How are your toes?" she asked.

"Eh, still purple," I replied.

Many things that were wrong with me were exacerbated by my low calorie intake. Bad circulation, low blood pressure, migraines. Depression. Schizophrenia.

Even the bus was cold, and I always hated winter. Hayley was from up north, which is why she always claimed she could handle it and I couldn't. Everywhere was cold, though. Last August, during a heatwave, it was 30 degrees Celsius outside; I was wearing a hoodie.

After getting off the bus, Hayley always split off from me to find her own friends - she hated mine. Well, she really only hated John.

Shivering, I greeted my squad - mainly Sam. She was my girlfriend. She hugged me, and I wanted to stay there forever, so I could be warm - but registration rolled around, and we had to part ways. I did, however, have the company of John and Stan. When they weren't fighting each other, they were alright to hang out with.

Jane was always in tutor first - see, routines. She was pretty much my real life thinspo, and John reckoned she was a fellow 'rexie'. He also said that although I thought she was the definition of a perfect body, we probably had the same BMI. I never believed him.

She flaunted her body in a way I would never dare. A natural beauty, she let other people know her skirt was too big by showing off the shiny safety pin on her waist. Her thigh gap was to die for - literally, and although she was not by any means a popular girl, she was more popular than me: which meant I could never talk to her; whereas my school uniform hung off me, in a baggy medium size, she must have been wearing an XXS for her whole school career.

I had previously attempted to stalk her online, maybe to see if there were any hints of an eating disorder. But she looked like she'd always been thin - so maybe she was like me, or maybe she was just naturally thin. She had long blonde hair that never seemed to fall out, and although she skipped class and had been known to run away from home, her grades were pretty average. But then, I was a mental health anomaly - consistently good grades, and equally good aspirations for the future.

"Did you have breakfast?" John asked.

"Yes." I said. It wasn't really a lie. I had tea with milk.

"I don't believe you," he said.

"Well, that's not my problem."

Assemblies were another routine, and going to a religious high school sucked whether you were religious or not. I hated having to sit through their bullshit Christian theories - always completely disregarding the fact that they stole holidays from the Pagans. I could almost 100% guarantee that the vast majority of the teachers weren't religious at all.

Biology was extraordinarily unfair. Every single one of my friends got to sit on a table together, whereas I had to sit next to an uber popular boy who asked me: "Is it true you want to be a transgender?" Apparently that was the most recent rumour going around about me. Anyway, our teacher took pity on me - apparently Sam told her that it was unfair, so I was then able to sit with my mates. Except, that only worked for one lesson, because other people in the classroom started to move too - so when I walked into that biology lesson after assembly, I was immediately told to move, and sit next to Jane instead.

"But Miss," I said, on the verge of a panic attack, "you said I could move."

"Well now I'm changing my mind. John, you can move to the back of the classroom."

"Miss!" John exclaimed, "I can't even see the board from there."

"I don't care."

"F*****g HELL!" Don yelled. Uber popular boy. He'd been told to move too. And Jane had been told to sit next to me.

That was when our whole class decided to riot against the b***h teacher we all hated.

"If you have a problem just go next door. With Set One. Riley! Move!"

"No," I said. Everyone looked at me. I was the quiet one. "F**k that!" I kicked a stool across the room, grabbed my bag, and went next door, mortified at my outburst.

Luckily for me, I heard more shouting and inability for Miss White to control the classroom, so although I had all of top set science (including Hayley) staring at me, soon Jane turned up. And Don. And John. And eventually, the whole of my science class.

Due to the fact that I was a goody-two-shoes (i.e. a suck up to the teachers but not in an extremely obvious way), I was let off from my behaviour - actually, so was the rest of the class. There was no doubt about it - Miss White was an incompetent teacher. I did manage to stomach sitting next to Jane, but it seemed like the universe was against me when we had to do a quiz in pairs. The way the classroom was laid out, meant that there was one huge table that could fit about 10 people, there was a desk in the corner (where John was) and the rest of the classroom was just two people desks - so there was no escaping my partner.

To my dismay, the questions on the board were all about energy, pretty much. Writing on our mini white-boards, it took no effort to think of the answers to the first two questions.

"How many calories does an average male/female need in one day?"

"2000 for women, 2500 for men," Jane and I both said, simultaneously.

"We both know we can live on way less," Jane said.

Shocked, I responded with: "What do you mean?"

She sniggered.

"Is 17 an underweight, normal, overweight or obese BMI to have?"

"Underweight," we both said, except she added "supposedly".

"The next one is photosynthesis," I said, flustered.

"Goddamn. I heard about this anorexic woman who thought she could photosynthesise," Jane laughed. But a bitter laugh.

"I'm naturally thin," I tried.

"F**k off are you. I use you as thinspo."