January 21

I am crying again. I can hear myself, I can hear the loud and wrecking sobs erupting from deep down inside me, but I can’t feel them. It’s almost like I just floated out of my body and I could see myself but I couldn’t feel it. I watched my corpse, my body go to the sink, stark naked and tears streaming down my face. I think I almost tried to stop her, me from picking up the knife. But I didn’t. I didn’t want to. I watched me, the other me, put the blade to skin. I watched her slice the skin where every one of her ribs were, I saw the sharp blade tear the skin apart and ooze blood and I, she didn’t cry. I guess that’s what it’s like. You don’t even feel the pain anymore. And then I was back in my own body, in the body with blood dripping down my stomach. I felt myself losing it and I yelled. My voice was sore and hoarse but I yelled and as I drifted out I heard the footsteps. I see figures in blurs, like one of my mother’s old cameras that forgot how to focus. All I could feel was pain and as I faded out, I thought I was dying. I might have hoped I was dying. But I was gone before I could question it.

February 21
PLEASE EAT. Honey, eat food. You need nutrition. You can’t keep doing this! PLEASE EAT. They repeat and repeat it all. I’ve heard every string of words you could come with. I’m not as skinny as before. The hospital is injecting fat into my arm and the cuts on my ribs are becoming scars. The doctors say I’m getting stronger because I’m healthier but I felt stronger before. I was beautiful and skinny and now I’m a corpse in a hospital bed. A fat corpse. My family comes in and out and they pity me. They hug me and say things like you’ll get better and we love you no matter and they get sad and frustrated and they break. I am breaking people. The therapist sits down and asks me things. About my family, about my friends, about my weight and about my insecurities. I don’t answer her. They say I’m unresponsive and not cooperating and I hear my parents crying. I forgot how to cry.
March 21
You’re getting better. You’ve made a lot of progress. Keep going! We’re so proud. I’m on a new floor now. It’s the psychiatric ward in the hospital. It’s blue and white and everyone is wearing grey sweatpants. My room is bigger and my mom brings me sweaters. They keep it cold so I wear sweaters and cardigans and baggy sweatpants. My old clothes fit me now, a bit. I don’t like it. I eat the food they give me, I cut it in pieces and try my hardest to swallow it. Sometimes I throw it up and pretend I didn’t. They think I just eat but they don’t know at night I do all my crunches and pushups and I can’t stop. I can never stop. I get phone calls from Val, my friend, the skinny and perfect friend who doesn’t have to try. She’s fragile with me, she’s scared I’ll die if she says the wrong word. I hate my body. It’s getting flabby and I don’t feel skinny anymore. I won’t lose what I worked so hard to do. The therapists make me talk about my childhood. About my brothers and sisters and the family Christmases and late nights and they try to piece together how my past has affected my “self hatred”, like my life is a puzzle that leads to how I cut my body apart and decided I didn’t to want love myself anymore. They think that’s all I am. I don’t want to be fat. I tried and I don’t like it.

April 21
Hi. Hello. Tell me more. It’s good you’re opening up. You’re making progress. I met a boy. He’s pretty and he makes me feel things. He has blue eyes and they shine when they look at me. He goes to college. I was in the lounge room and he walked in and his class was volunteering and he talked to me about my book. He visited more and more and it was getting warmer. My mother bought me sundresses and I lost some weight. The doctors worried about it but they decided it was just this week. They made sure I ate more but I felt skinnier and I was happy again. The boy read to me and he laughed at the things I said and he asked me about my past life. I forget about it a lot. I forget about my mom and my daddy, who met when they were sixteen and she got pregnant with my oldest sister at eighteen. Her name is Elle and she lives far away. She called when I got “sick.” I was skinny at her wedding. Then they had Ricky, and then Anthony and then Heather and then Penny and George and then me and then Ben and then Lana. Ricky is married and Anthony is in Iraq and Heather is dead. She’s been dead for a long time; she died in a car accident on her seventeenth birthday. I don’t remember her, not even her voice. People just leave your brain sometimes when they’re gone. Penny and George share an apartment in a big city and they live busy people lives. They call and they cry for me but that’s it. Ben is scared of me and Lana visits every Thursday and she cries and prays for me. Lana is beautiful and young and she’s a little chubby but it’s gorgeous on her and everyone loves Lana. She’s Lana. The therapist say I’m getting better and it’ll be only a few months now. He holds my hands for the first time. His are warm and mine are cold.

May 21
Is this okay? You’re beautiful. Please, stop. DON’T DO THIS TO YOURSELF. What happened? I had sex. It was awkward and warm and we giggled and it was so different. It was late in a dirty dorm room only a bit away from the hospital because I’ve been doing so well they give me a one night pass. The therapist tells me she’s proud and my mom cries and everyone calls. That night, he tells me I’m beautiful and I almost believe him but when he’s asleep I do 400 crunches and I feel better. I go out to run in the morning because I can and I forget to eat. I left at 3 and I’m back at 9. He’s angry. He says I’m using him to starve myself and to exercise. He tells me it’s time to stop and I’m beautiful and I’m crazy and he cries and I cry and we have sex again. He drives me back and wraps a sweater of his around me, kisses my cheek and tells me it was one of the best nights of his life and I almost believe him. I go back up in the elevator and I go to bed for a long time. When I wake up, I’m alone and I miss him so much it hurts. He doesn’t call anymore. I cry a little bit and I do crunches and the doctors are worried again. I stop reading. I just sleep and work out and sometimes I throw up and I keep it all a secret.

June 21
It’s so hot out. We miss you. Your progress seems to have been stunted. And what happened with that boy? Please let us help. It’s warmer now. The piles of sweaters have been replaced by thin baggy tee shirts and sweat shorts. Elle is in Georgia and she sends me dresses with ugly flowers on them that are too many sizes too big. I pretend to like them. I don’t go on walks anymore and I hear my mother crying as I sleep. I am barely skinny now, I have been accumulating layer after layer of fat. At night, when it’s too quiet, I do so many crunches that it hurts to breathe. I dream a lot now. I dream of being thin and I dream of the night I spent with the college boy with blue eyes. He didn’t call and he didn’t visit and I’m glad I didn’t believe him. He’s gone and I’m not sure he was ever really here. Val, my skinny friend, comes to visit with ice cream and movies. I don’t eat it and I ignore her and she yells and cries but then she leaves. She has given up too. I get postcards from Penny and George as they backpack across Europe. They keep saying they wish I was there and I pretend I do too. I don’t really wish that at all. I don’t want to be here but I don’t want to be there. I want to in between, skinny and alone. I want to be skinny.

July 21
Welcome! You can get better. Good luck. You’ll meet new friends. You’ll be home before you know it. I am somewhere new. Not where I wanted to be but no longer in that ugly hospital. I am at “New Hope: A Rehabilitation Center for Teenage Girls.” It is different here; the colors are orange and red. The couches are comfortable and the people here smile more. My roommate is named Meredith and she’s from Rhode Island. She’s much fatter than me with cuts all down her wrists and burns on her face. She doesn’t talk. There is a girl here I like. Her name is Fiona and she has beautiful brown hair that she wears in a messy bun with bright red lipstick. She has perfect unmarked skin and dimples. Underneath her cardigans and long skirts you can see her tiny shape. She is beautiful, so beautiful. She smiled at me and now we sit together. We talk about how to lose weight and boys and clothing and I have a new friend. She eats here but at night she works out and throws up. They think she’s doing well and that she just has a small body type. She tells me about all the girls who have died. We agree that they’re stupid and they don’t know what they’re doing. We do. I do my crunches late at night and Meredith pretends not to hear me and then I sleep. The therapist says that I look better because I smiled at her and she sees me with Fiona and her friends. They think I’m better.

August 21
Oh My God! Fake it. Are you okay? Learn from her. Keep crying. You’ll be okay. My roommate kills herself. Late one night, she gets up and slits her throat. One of the nurses finds her in the commons and screams. The therapists come in to tell me and right after Fiona comes in. She hugs me and brushes my hair and tells the doctors she’ll take care of me. When they leave, she pulls away and looks at me. She tells that I have to grieve and take it as a turning point and I nod and then we go to an emergency group. Fiona offers to move in and she takes Meredith’s bed. She doesn’t seem to mind it. I wonder if it hurt. Was it like all those months ago, on the bathroom floor when things just got hazy? I wonder if she still can think. Fiona and I fake cry and do crunches and pretend we are healthy and happy. We’re not.
September 21
We wear big sweaters and drink gingerbread lattes now and we’re normal girls, even if we throw them up later. The hospital allows us out most days and Fiona drives her VW bug to the mall. We shop and drink coffee and meet boys. We are normal teenage girls. When we get back we do our crunches and go to bed. I think about it and I realize I never was a normal teenage girl before. I was always different, since I was eleven. I looked in the mirror and made a face because I didn’t like what I saw there. Everyday, I remembered to eat a little less because I didn’t want the boys to make jokes. I never went to the mall and met boys, I stayed home while Val did all that stuff for me. I had kissed many boys now, I had sex, I was beautiful and I had a beautiful friend. This was who I should’ve been before.

October 21
Finally! Will you be okay? It’s almost over. You’re getting healthy again. We’re so proud. Fiona is supposed to leave two days before Halloween. The decorations are already up in the halls and the kitchen makes Halloween treats that we don’t eat. Fiona packs and I watch her. They told her two weeks ago that she would be leaving at the end of the month. She’d been here for 14 months and they believed she was better. They didn’t know her. But she’s let her hair down and instead of cardigans and long skirts she wears skinny jeans and tight tops. I watch quietly and pretend I never loved her anyways. Neither of us believes it. My mother calls and she tells me she’s proud. I talk and joke with her. It’s my act, the one that will keep me thin. Fiona keeps reminding me to fake it, to smile and laugh with other girls. The longer I do that, the quicker I leave. I work out more than before and they monitor what I eat less. I’m going down in pounds and I fainted once. Fiona smiled at me and I could tell she was proud. I was proud. I could be skinny forever and we would be friends once we left here, both of us. It would be okay. I wouldn’t eat. We would be happy.
November 21
You’re so close. You’ve changed so much. I miss you. You’ll be home soon. Can’t wait to see you. Come hang out. It’s been a while since Fiona left and she doesn’t call as much. My new roommate is a girl named Rebecca and she a long scar down her face but other than that, she’s pretty. I spend time with her and her friends and I put on a fake smile and laugh and wish for Fiona and I wish to get out of here. When the therapists meet with me, I make jokes and smile and I say I’m doing better. I’m happy for the first time. They glance at me and say that in two weeks, I too, can go. I call Fiona right away but she doesn’t pick up. She never does after that. I pack and play loud music and do crunches. Clumps of hair are falling out and my ribs are showing a little. I’m overjoyed at the sight. Everyone in my family calls and cries because I’m coming home and I’m healthy. They want me to be fat. I won’t and they will never know. I like the way my ribs stick out; it makes me feel beautiful. I rub them through my shirt when I can’t sleep. I’m ready to leave this place and go back home. To being skinny and not trying that hard.
December 21
Goodbye. Take care. We’ll miss you. Welcome home! Happy Holidays. Having you back is our Christmas gift. We’re so happy you’re healthy. We missed you. I’m back home now. The house smells like pine and cookies. I eat more than I should but late at night, I go for runs. I throw up, quietly. Val comes by and she hugs me and I pretend to hug her and we exchange gifts and say goodbyes. I miss Fiona but she hasn’t called and I almost get why. That life, the one of forced eating and weakness seems like a lifetime ago, an embarrassing background to a better story. I don’t call her anymore, instead I teach Lana to play guitar and I play hockey with Ben and I watch my bones move as I breathe in mirror. I ignore the fat and I see the bones. There’s still so much fat to get rid of. Ricky and his wife, Joanna, Penny and George come home. They hug me and tell me they’re so proud and I layer up so they can’t feel like the knobs and nooks that make up my body. At night, I can’t sleep and I just do crunches all night. I need to be skinny or else I won’t be strong. I say it over and over again.
January 21
I am crying now, all over again. I don’t know why this time. I don’t hate it anymore and I’ve controlled it and I’m so close to skinny I can feel it but I still sob. I cover my sobs because my family is downstairs and they can’t cry for me again. I haven’t really cried in a year. This time, when I stand up and go to the bathroom, I don’t leave my body. I feel everything and I guide my broken and skinny body to the sink. I pull out the sharp knife and I breathe. This time, I know exactly what I am doing as I press it to the scars. I push it as deep as it can go and I do it on every rib. The pain is excruciating and I fall to the ground but I don’t scream. I don’t want to be saved this time. I know what I am doing this time. This time, I know I won’t make it until tomorrow morning. I won’t see the sun come up and I don’t want to. It’s different this time, everything is clear and sharp and I see it all, only my eyes are getting tired. I don’t think of life and death or anything important. I think of the first time I threw up my food, and the time I fainted and all that led to what happened a year ago. I thought about Val and our early days at daycares and preschools. I thought about my mommy and daddy. I thought about Elle, Anthony, Ricky, Penny, George, Ben and Lana. Mostly Lana. I thought about Heather, about my sister who I never really knew. I thought about every doctor and nurse and all the therapists at the hospital. Even the ones at New Hope. I thought of the boy with the pretty blue eyes who never did call and of Meredith, who never spoke a word and took a knife to her neck. I thought of Fiona, a skinny girl who would stay skinny and who would go to malls and meet boys and drink gingerbread lattes with different girls. Fiona who would never stop starving. Things were starting to fade now. The once cool tile floor now felt sticky with blood. I shut my eyes.
January 22
I open them. I am still bleeding and things are all blurry. I look up and I see the sun rising. The day will go on, this day will go on without me. I do not think of who will find my body, cold and blue, and I do not think about who it will change forever. I am too tired and hurt and hungry to even think about bad things. I dream instead. As I dream this life away, I think one final thing. I am hungry. I have ignored this deep hunger in the pit of my stomach and replaced it with the need to not be hungry. I want to eat and sleep and be healthy but I don’t. Instead, I dream away all the hunger and I don’t feel it anymore. I feel my bones rise as I take my final breath. It is the end of me.