ThinandBeautiful.com Page 8

  “Long enough,” was his rather vague answer. Long enough would have been about five minutes for me.

  “Oh, are you leaving soon?” I asked, as if it was any of my business.

  “I don’t know for sure yet. They don’t want you here forever but they don’t want to let you out before you’re ready either. It’s not so bad if you have people to hang around with.” He stood up. I looked up at him, wondering what to do now. Did he want to hang around with me?

  “Well, I guess I’ll head off,” he said. It was weird actually. He didn’t seem a whole lot better at carrying on a conversation than I was. Maybe we needed Marina here to run interference and keep the talking going.

  “Actually, I wouldn’t mind hanging out some time. This place can be kind of quiet,” I said quickly before I could chicken out.

  “Cool.” He walked out the door, leaving me clutching my laptop and feeling like I had just climbed a mountain. I had actually, factually, made a real effort to socialize with someone … and I didn’t feel totally stupid about it.

  I wished I could tell the girls about it. They all would have told me congrats and “go girl” and “you’re all that” and all kinds of supportive things. But I don’t have them any more. They’re gone just as much as Annie is gone. They’re gone just like Devon and Alyssa and Ruth and everyone else I’ve ever actually thought liked me at all.

  I don’t really have anyone. Five-minute conversations with strangers don’t really cut it.

  chapter 10

  It was a couple of weeks after the party disaster when I finally realized that my mom literally understood nothing about me. I mean, I had known for a long time that she didn’t understand much, but this was the day when I knew she didn’t understand anything. It was first thing on a Saturday morning and I made the mistake of wandering into the kitchen just as she was cooking breakfast.

  “Would you like some breakfast?” Mom asked. She was cracking eggs in butter that was bubbling grossly in a pan on the stove. My stomach started to heave at the thought of letting any of those fat cell feeders anywhere near my mouth.

  “No thanks, I’m not very hungry this morning,” I said. I wasn’t lying either. I really didn’t feel hungry. I never feel hungry.

  “No, you’re never hungry, are you?” Mom said, turning down the stove and looking at me. Her eyes looked kind of wet and she seemed royally ticked off with me. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what her problem was.

  “That isn’t true,” I lied.

  “Oh, yes it is. You eat almost nothing and spend every spare minute you have exercising. You’re wasting away to nothing, Madison!”

  “Oh my God, Mother, stop being so dramatic! I’m hardly wasting away. Look at me!” I could feel my stupid tears coming again and I willed them away. I was good and pissed now. “What is your problem anyway? You sit by all of these years and don’t even tell me what a fat pig I’m turning into, then you have a big conspiracy going with Dr. Idiot to have him tell me, and then when I finally manage to lose a few pounds, you get on my case!” I only stopped yelling because I was out of breath. I couldn’t believe her!

  “A few pounds! Maddie, there is almost nothing left of you. You’ve lost an enormous amount of weight and you were never a ‘fat pig’ to begin with. I don’t know what you mean about Dr. Fitzroy. I never conspired with him.”

  “Yes you did! You sent me to that stupid checkup before high school so that he could tell me how disgusting I was!” I wiped a tear that managed to escape and turned away from her.

  “No, Madison, that’s not it at all. I never thought any such thing! You have always been beautiful and had a lovely figure. Now you’re becoming skin and bones.”

  “Nice, Mom. First I’m wasting away and now I’m skin and bones. Sounds like you’re writing a book or something. Some BS teenage help book. Look around you, Mom. The beautiful people in this world are all thin. Turn the TV on, check out the Internet or read a magazine or two. Welcome to the new millennium. Good bodies are thin bodies. Thin is beautiful. Why don’t you want me to be beautiful?”

  “Madison, you have always, always been beautiful!” Mom was crying for real now, but I was too revved up to care.

  “Yeah, well, that’s what you have to say, isn’t it? All moms lie to their kids and tell them how gorgeous they are. This is where you do the whole soap commercial thing, and tell me that everyone is beautiful in their own way, right?”

  “No, but that is what I believe. I do live in the world, Madison. I know that young girls are pressured to be slim. I do watch television and read the occasional magazine. But this isn’t television, this is real life.”

  “Yeah, well, my real life is fat and ugly and I just want to be thin and beautiful.”

  “You have never been fat or ugly – never!” Mom yelled. That got my attention. No matter how much we fought, Mom almost never actually yelled. She believed in the power of the quiet voice, which, let me tell you, can be pretty scary at times. Right then, though, the loud voice was so unnatural that it shut me up. Mom must have thought I was giving in because her voice got quiet again.

  “Honey, I just want you to be healthy and strong. You seem so tired these days. I made you an appointment with Dr. Fitzroy.”

  “No friggin’ way!” I yelled now. “You cannot make me go to him again. I have a newsflash for you. It’s my body. Mine! No one can make me eat what I don’t want to. Not you, not Annie, not the stupid doctor, not anybody! I decide how I want to look and how I’m going to get there. Understand? It’s up to me. Me!” I ran out of the room, ignoring the look on my mom’s face. She deserved it. She was being totally unreasonable and unfair and unsupportive and every other “un” word I could think of.

  I ran into my room and slammed the door as hard as I could. I went over to my mirror, breathing like I had just been in some kind of race. I looked at myself, panting and red-faced, tears pouring down my cheeks. I lifted up my shirt and looked at my stomach. Mounds of ugly white flab stared back at me.

  I grabbed some of it and pinched down hard. That wasn’t enough so I worked my way around my waist, pinching and slapping at my fat as if I was trying to scare it away.

  After a couple of minutes, I started to feel what I was doing, and stopped. I couldn’t believe it. Big red welts were forming all over my gut. I started to cry harder. Why had Mom acted that way? This was all her fault!

  I must have fallen asleep for a while, because when I looked up it was almost lunchtime. I started down the stairs so that I could sneak out the front door before Mom started the whole food-pushing deal again. I couldn’t face another fight. I made it down about two steps when I heard voices, so I stopped to eavesdrop. I knew I should just go back to my room and shut the door, but I could tell that they were talking about me so I decided it was my right to listen.

  My dad’s voice was all gentle and soft. It’s the kind of voice that makes you think everything’s OK even when it isn’t. He was asking my mother what was wrong. She sounded like she might have been crying but I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t really heard my mother cry too often so I might have been imagining it.

  Mom was telling him about the fight we had over breakfast and saying how she was all worried about me and everything. She started babbling on about me being too thin and thinking I was sick and wanting me to humiliate myself at the doctor’s again. I wished she would shut up already and not get my dad all upset too. My dad tried to calm her down and then she started yelling at him about how I have an eating disorder and I need counseling. Dad said something I couldn’t hear and then mom started talking about all the danger signs and how obvious it was to anyone who was paying attention. They stopped talking all of a sudden and then I heard my brother’s voice telling them he was going over to a friend’s house for supper. They both started talking to him about school and other boring stuff so I stopped listening and went to my room.

  Eating disorder? So that’s what my mom was getting all hot and bothered about. Crazy. All I was
doing was trying to lose some weight and have a healthy body and my mother freaks out and drags my dad into it as well.

  Obviously my mom didn’t really understand what these things were really all about. I knew about eating disorders. We talked about them at school and half the celebrities out there were hanging out at clinics looking like they were starving. As if Mom thought I was like any of them! Even so, I decided to do some research online. The more I knew about it, the quicker I could make my mother understand that she was way off base this time. I could also make sure that her buddy the doctor didn’t try to persuade her that there was something desperately wrong with me.

  Yes, I decided to go to the stupid appointment. I had a feeling my poor dad was going to offer to come and ask me to go so that he could stop Mom from freaking out again. He was going to have a tough time doing it and I was going to feel sorry for him and end up giving in anyway. So I just decided to give in right away. It was easier than fighting and besides, I didn’t have to listen to anything the so-called medical professional had to say. It was my body. No one could make me change it. Nobody but me.

  I’ve always been a pretty good student, all anal and everything when it comes to stuff like research, so I knew I was up to the challenge of getting the straight goods. I started where every good researcher starts … Google. I can’t remember when Google turned into a verb. People say stuff like “I’m going to Google that.” People amaze me. They all jump on some word bandwagon and decide that something that used to be a brand name has become an everyday word. The only word stupider than “Google” is “Googling.” Like “I was Googling the other day and I found something awesome.” Googling sounds like something you do just before you choke to death.

  Anyway, I typed the words “eating disorder” into the search bar. I got mountains of hits, but the very first one was the ever-faithful Wikipedia. I brought it up and started scrolling through. I read lots of the same old boring information that I remembered vaguely from health class. There’s all sorts of confusion about what causes these disorders, which made it seem to me that no one could really agree on what to do about it or how to figure out who needed help and who didn’t. There was one section that focused on the physiological nature of eating disorders and what brain chemicals might be out of whack. Another section talked about socioeconomic factors and another about psychological issues. Another part looked at things like perfectionist personalities and body image issues, social pressures and cultural issues. There were all sorts of scary warnings about what could happen to someone with an eating disorder, including actually dying.

  It was information overload and seemed to be all over the map in terms of helping anyone figure out whether they had something to worry about or not. I couldn’t really see what any of it had to do with me.

  It also talked about the Pro Ana sites we had learned about in health class. I remembered the teacher telling us that these were considered a really negative influence on young girls with eating problems. They supposedly said that anorexia and bulimia were a life choice, not a sickness. The message we got was that these sites made sick people sicker. I didn’t think much about it at the time. It was just one more piece of information I had to remember for the next health test.

  I spent about an hour scrolling around trying to find some information that made sense to me. I was surprised to find that most of the so-called Pro Ana sites had the same kinds of information that Wikipedia had. Lots of medical stuff about the supposed causes and dangers of eating disorders and big disclaimers that the site isn’t there to encourage eating disorders. Which actually made sense. Why would anyone encourage an eating disorder? Then again, maybe it was kind of like the warning labels on cigarette packages. I mean, anyone who has a cigarette package in her hands probably already knows that they cause cancer and the ugly pictures on the front of the package aren’t going to really be much of a turn off. I was pretty sure that people who went to sites labeled “Pro Ana” probably already had an eating problem.

  I noticed some links at the bottom of one of the sites that led to a whole other set of sites. They were called things like Thinspiration and Thinspo. I clicked on a couple. These ones had all sorts of different things and most didn’t have any disclaimers or heavy information about disorders. They seemed more designed for ordinary people who wanted to lose weight. Like me.

  I opened up about a dozen sites before I found one that really interested me. It was called thinandbeautiful.com. Thin and beautiful. That was exactly what I wanted to be, so I opened it up to see what it was all about. The home page had all kinds of links on it and I didn’t know where to start. There seemed to be a bunch of little chat rooms you could go into. It was almost like there were different clubs you could join, each with its own name. I looked them over and was kind of intrigued by one called girlswithoutshadows, so I opened it up. It had this little blurb on the home page that said:

  “We have been in the shadows of our oversized bodies for too long and it is time to come out into the sunlight. It is time to find our true, thinner self and to dispel the shadows of self-doubt, self-loathing, and self-consciousness. It is time to create a body that will no longer cast a shadow on the ground.”

  It sounded pretty dramatic but at the same time kind of true. I did feel like no one could really see me anymore, like I was still sitting in the shadowy corners at Suzanne’s house watching everyone else have fun. The site had one of those forums where you can read other people’s posts without participating so that you can decide if you want to be in it or not. I decided to take a look and see what people outside of my little narrow minded world were thinking.

  It’s kind of weird reading other people’s conversations, like peeking through a window at someone’s private life. I guess the difference is that these people have left their windows open on purpose so that people can look in.

  bodaciousbod says:

  my boyfriend is taking me out tonight for supper. i haven’t eaten all day so i can save up some calories for alcohol. man, i can’t wait!

  nevertoothin says:

  i am staying in tonite. i feel disgustingly fat today. mom baked chocolate chip cookies and looked like she was going to cry so i ate one. tried to get rid of it but it wouldn’t go so now it’s stuck in there. i feel like cutting it out with a knife.

  bodaciousbod says:

  did anyone find out the actual calorie count of movie theater popcorn? my date starts in an hour and i know he’s going to buy some and try to get me to eat it!! i haven’t eaten since yesterday but I’m still not sure if it’s safe and eat too.

  lookingforlight says:

  just take one piece at a time and chew real slow, and spit it out when he isn’t looking. hey, did everyone see SR? i posted some pics so that we can all see real beauty. i can’t believe everyone’s freaking and thinking she needs help. i wish i had her kind of help. i heard she weighs like 87 pounds. she’s awesome.

  nevertoothin says:

  I am so much bigger than that! i have to stop eating … now! i am so disgusting today I’ll have to change my name to alwaystoofat. no one understands it at all … well, except all of you guys!

  I clicked on the link they were talking about. The pictures came up. I had seen some of them before in the magazine rack at the grocery store. She was definitely thin and beautiful. Her cheekbones stood out sharply and her blue eyes looked absolutely huge. Her hair was perfect and straight and blond … the opposite of mine. She didn’t look unhappy with herself at all. I wondered about the eighty-seven pounds part. Could she be that little? I didn’t think that eighty-seven pounds looked like that. I weighed a lot more than that. Maybe that’s why I felt so fat. Maybe those pictures would inspire me after all.

  I couldn’t add any comments to the gallery because I wasn’t a member. I read them all though. Some of the comments seemed a little weird and over the top. Some of the girls really had a hate on for themselves! I guess they still had some of their shadows. They seemed to speak to me though.
I had had lots of the same kind of thoughts and it felt good to know that other people felt the same way. I mean, even though Suzanne and people like her seemed to think I was kind of cool for doing my diet stuff, they still didn’t really understand me. I couldn’t actually talk to any of them about it.

  Then again, I wasn’t sure if I was ready to talk to any of the online girls either.

  Did I really want to be a member of a chat group? It seemed like such a good way to get to know other girls who felt like me. Maybe they could tell me what to do with my mom to get her off my case. Who knows, maybe I would even learn something.

  But what if I didn’t fit in?

  April 18

  I had a dream last night. I dreamed about chocolate. I know. It’s lame. I have always dreamed about food. It’s almost like my subconscious mind wants to eat more than my conscious one does. This actually works out in my favor because dream food is nonfattening. Anyway, my chocolate dream was smooth and tasty and full of flavor. I was savoring it melting in my mouth when all of a sudden the chocolate turned into Wolf. No, that’s not right. It wasn’t like there was a chocolate guy melting in my mouth. It’s just that the tastes and flavors turned into a real life-sized chocolate version of Wolf. That sounds just as stupid. That’s one dream I would never tell anyone about. Especially not Marina who came walking into my room about five minutes after I woke up.

  “So?”

  “So what?” I asked, yawning widely and not bothering to cover my mouth. My mom wasn’t around so I didn’t need manners.

  “I know he came here to talk to you yesterday. D’you like him?” She plopped herself down on the bed like she was right at home. She sat cross-legged in the middle of my blankets, making me shift over. I rubbed my eyes, trying to wake up and trying not to think about embarrassing chocolate dreams in front of someone who would most likely laugh hysterically if she found out about them.