Chapter Two: Laxatives and Exercise

TRIGGER WARNING: GRAPHIC DETAILS OF EATING DISORDERS

I wanted to scream from the rooftops, to my friends, that I finally found someone who understands! But my head hurt, and I was exhausted, and they wouldn't get it anyway. How do you make people understand something you don't even understand yourself? I never, ever figured out what went on in my mind to believe that this was the answer.

Living off 300 calories a day is not enough. A human being was not designed to live off tea, coffee, diet coke and gum. Laxatives will rip apart your insides (at least, that's what it feels like), and exercise is a good thing - in moderation. All these things together will kill you. Maybe within a few months, maybe in many years. But it will.

After biology that day, we had PE. Despite my (not so secret to my family but) secret love of working out, PE was not something I liked to participate in. Last sports day, I was playing badminton, and I almost fainted in the middle of the game. Needless to say, we lost.

As an ex-cutter, changing rooms have always been traumatising. Now more so, because Jane, I realised, as usual, was getting changed opposite me. I couldn't face her, so I turned my back to get changed, which wouldn't be much better either, as I constantly had bruises running along my spine from prolonged sitting on extraordinarily uncomfortable chairs.

I always changed quicker than my friends, so told them I was going to the bathroom. Jane, who was eating an apple, followed me. I went to wash my hands (OCD) but she snuck into a stall.

"Cough if someone comes," she told me. I knew she was going to purge.

"What is that?" I asked. Kinda vague, but I meant what she was purging.

"An apple."

"Just an apple?"

Not sounds of retching, but of vomit hitting the water.

"Ouch," I said.

"Yeah. Apples hurt."

"I don't make myself sick," I admitted.

"Do you purge?"

"Yes. Laxatives and exercise."

She came out the stall. "Damn. Well, I don't do that, but you do you." She splashed her face with water, and I handed her some gum.

Exiting the room, I wiped my (still slightly wet) hands on my clothes.

"Riley, anyone else in the bathroom?" Miss Waters, the PE teacher asked me.

"Uh yeah, Jane," I said.

Volleyball was the current sport being played. After that, it would be cross country. Personal hatred of mine.

Jane and I could not be seen associating. Despite her not being overly popular, she was the type of girl that all the guys wanted to f**k, whereas I was the girl who had rumours going around about being transgender, and while I felt severe gender dysphoria from time to time, I refused being labelled as transgender, for no other reason than that was just something else to come out as.

PE was consistently tedious, and the only lesson I truly loathed (and refused to do).

There wasn't much I enjoyed about the school day, and unlike most, I hated break and lunch just as much, if not more than I hated lessons. You weren't supposed to eat during class but you sure as hell were during break and lunch.

When I was dating John, a girl used to hang out with us that was a wannabe emo, anorexic and cutter. She listened to s**t music, she was curvy but considered herself "ana", and she "slit her wrists" with a broken ruler in front of everyone, then wore short sleeves in freezing (literally, below zero degrees) weather. She for some reason believed that I was cheating on John with her boyfriend - turned out, John was cheating on me with five other girls, and Willow the Wannabe, was one of those people. She dumped her on-off boyfriend for good, and began lusting after an in the closet gay boy.

I did get counselling, courtesy of the school, but I was relatively uncomfortable with the woman, and she only wanted to talk about my anxiety (which was under control because I was taking meds) and completely disregarded everything else. She told me I was looking happier, when the night before I had a relapse in my self harm.

Break-time came and went, where I chugged water, rather than scoffed biscuits, and I looked forward to my German lesson, where there were people that never failed to make me laugh. My "stalker", Ed, my "crush" (a fellow gay), Jake, and of course, John. Jake had a "crush" on me, and I had a "crush" on Jake. We definitely had feelings for each other - but of friendship, taking into account the fact that we're both homosexuals.

Despite us doing some important coursework, our class always managed to succeed in having decent banter. Except they decided that they wanted to talk about weight loss. Before high school, Jake was "chubby" - his words, not mine.

"If you want to lose weight, stick your fingers down your throat every time you eat!" Jake laughed. Disgusted, I got on with my work.

Later, when I talked to John about it, he said that Jake was probably telling a joke so no-one got suspicious of him being bulimic. This struck me as insane, until I realised that John and I used to make jokes about slitting our wrists all the time.

After January, people mainly stopped talking (and forgot about) their New Year's Resolutions. I just had to put up with it for a few more weeks. Notoriously, I joked and made my friends guess what mine was going to be back in December, in the changing rooms. One of the girls, Nina, said: "to consume 0 calories!"

I told her that that was physically impossible, and I felt Jane staring at me for the millionth time. I played a game with myself, to see if I could ever provoke her enough to tell me to shut up, and she never did.

My 2012 resolution, so when I was 11, was to lose weight. My best friend at the time said: "No, you need to gain weight!" I didn't understand why a person would want to gain weight.

Lunchtime antics greeted me with a smile, and in return, I plastered one on my face. Sam handed me an off-brand cereal bar, with no nutritional information on it.

"John," I whispered subtley, "Google this." He took the bar off me by pretending to steal it, while Sam went off to buy a curry. Our friends chucked it about for a while, when John said: "I can't find this anywhere."

"I can't eat this," I bluntly stated.

"It's probably barely anything, and you'll make her happy-" her meaning Sam.

"But then I can't eat dinner,"I protested, not fully realising that he didn't quite understand what I meant: I allowed myself one meal a day, and a meal was when I consumed anything that wasn't a drink.

I fully prepared to pretend to eat it, but Sam showed up, and it was so difficult to lie to her, so I dealt with it, and realised I'd have to fake dinner tonight.

Taking the bar out from the wrapper, I stood up and began walking to put the wrapper in the bin. In a split second, I seemed to collide with Jane, who came out of nowhere. She was holding a sausage roll, and we both dropped our food items. Her entourage glared at me. They were probably convincing her to eat too.

"Sorry," I said.

"Don't worry Riley. My bad," she said. As we picked up our soiled food to put it in the bin, she winked at me: I wondered if she walked into me on purpose - it was definitely convenient.

My friends saw the whole incident, but didn't ridicule me for it, at least.

Sapphire appeared. "Hey guys, I had detention. Dr Billington is a c**t." She immediately started taking food from her bag and began eating. She never worked out, and didn't have an eating disorder, but she had a good body with a flat stomach, and I was jealous.

"Jesus, Sapph, you must have an amazing metabolism," I said.

"Ha, says you, Riley. You must have the metabolism of a Ferrari!"

Stan chipped in: "Sapphire, are you really that thick? She just never eats anything."

"Hey, I eat!" I retorted.

"When? I don't think I've ever seen you eat!"

"I'd rather be a skinny b***h than a fat f**k," I said. With my mind so fuzzy, it took me a few seconds to realise what just came out of my mouth.

"Well f**k you too," Stan said.

I didn't bother to say sorry, because it didn't matter anyway - I wasn't lying. Stan had the kind of obese body that if I had, I would kill myself.

Upon leaving to go to our last lesson before home time, Sam kissed me more passionately than usual, and for some reason unbeknownst to me, in that moment, I became terrified of death.