Purge

You fall out of bed like a corpse. The sunlight stings your bloodshot eyes. You haven’t sleep because your stomach was twisted into knots.

Groggy, you gaze at the phone lying awake on your nightstand. The battery’s nearly drained. It’s only showing two bars. You dialed a number. The one your friends group told you not to. You stare at the digits on the keypad. You switch it off and throw it in your backpack.

It takes ages to pull yourself up from the cold, wooden floor. You need to get changed for school. You’re terrified to look in the mirror at the ghoul that always glares knives back at you. You look anyway. The ghastly face makes you feel sick to your stomach. You leave your oversized Fall Out Boy T-shirt half-tucked. That way, people won't have to see the blubber you're hiding underneath.

You get in what little exercise you can until that sharp, stabbing pain sets in again. A one-minute plank. Thirty crunches. Forty sit-ups. By the end, you’re still so cold that you barely break a sweat.

It’s off to the bathroom to check off your must-do’s. You chuck up Mom's tuna casserole to quell the gaping feeling in the pit of your stomach. Finding Nemo told you all toilets lead to the ocean.

You miss breakfast and the bus by the time you get out. Mom hands you a chocolate bar, stroking the hair behind your ears. You ate nothing but chocolate when you lived inside her. She purses her lips like she’s biting her tongue.

In the Honda, the two of you talk about something meaningless like normal people do—you talk about boys, movies, games. You need to see the new Dune movie. And Timothée Chalamet. You need to play the new-old Final Fantasy.

She pretends like she doesn’t see the dark circles under your eyes. The bones that poke out of your face. You get mad when she brings up lunch. She wishes you would take a sandwich with you. A granola bar. A drink. Something.

You tell her you’re fine. You’re not dying.

When she finally does drop you off at school, you’re both steaming fuming. You power walk from the car into class. You take the long route to burn a few extra calories as the Kit Kat peeks out from your front pocket.

You’re so mad you can feel a blood vessel bursting. You can’t think. You can’t eat. Your stomach screams. Feed me.

High-fiving your Facebook friends, you share your breakfast. They’re all too excited to get a piece of that Kit Kat bar to notice the grin on your face. It’s a mask that's slowly cracking.

They needle you about the ugly blotches on your face. Halloween was months ago. You pretend to laugh along. On the inside, you want to rip them clean off and stuff them in your locker.

In class, you can hardly concentrate. Your gut is churning oceans. But you can’t let your grades slip another point. You’ve disappointed your parents enough by being a whale.

While you’re standing in the lunch line, Mandy convinces you, begs you, demands you get some food. You snatch a big, fat bacon cheeseburger and a small Diet Coke. You practically ram your card through the register before tossing the cheesy, oozing mass into the garbage.

You guzzle the Coke like it’s the last on Earth. After all, it might be. The fizz lulls your stomach to sleep for one, sweet moment of bliss. It whines again before long. Feed me.

The mouth breathers gnashing their teeth on dead animals and oils make you want to hurl. You can't even look at these zombies stuffing their faces with pesticides and preservatives and God knows what else. You try to count the calories, the numbers swirling around your head like an algebra problem from hell.

Mandy pours over your bone white face, searching for words. You lie. Everything is fine. Just fine. The two of you talk about dumb shit. Lady Gaga's waistline, for one. Like ordinary friends do.

You’re back in class and you concentrate so much on Mr. Morrison that you end up paying no attention at all. He tells you about how the Irish Potato Famine brought your family to America. To a better life. The mere mention of food makes you squirm.

It’s time to go home. You stumble out of class and walk briskly to the curb. It's so cold out. You’re constantly cold now. This is well beyond a joke.

Mom pulls up in the Honda and you put on your mask. It’s slipping now. Still, she buys it. You say you’re sorry for a four-letter word you said over and over again this morning. She goes on a rant that lasts until you both get home.

You head out back and grab her kettle ball. The two of you spend hours together in the snow until the sun sets.

You watch mothers jogging with their strollers, their earbuds blasting some Top 40 trash in their brains, trying to drop that baby bulge. They don't see you.

She calls you in for dinner as the sun is setting over the cedars. You’re starving. Your stomach screams bloody murder. Feed me.

It’s like Thanksgiving dinner. Heaps of piping hot stuffing, piping hot green beans, a volcano of mashed potatoes erupting in gravy, and a glistening roast turkey fit for Marie Callender. Dessert is pumpkin pie dripping in her homemade whipped cream.

Without another thought, you’re already diving into it all. You forget what a fork is and stuff it all into you like finger food when you were two. You do it so fast you nearly choke.

You snap out of it as soon as Mom and Dad gape at you, hands folded, about to say grace. Swallowing, your eyes well up. You want to tear out your hair. You let yourself eat.

Somehow, you soldier through dinner. Whatever food you sneaked beneath the table you wrap up in a tissue and stuff it in your pocket. You slam dunk it in the bathroom waste bin as you trudge up the stairs.

You gulp down a Dixie cup of tap water, trying not to think about every disgusting thing you just wolfed down. You fail. When Mom comes knocking on your door, you tell her you’re about to take a shower.

Locking the door, you stand over the john, and release whatever your body will allow. Your fingers reach as far as they can down your throat making you gag. It isn’t enough. It never is.

You cradle your head in your hands. You should never have taken a bite. Not a single one. But you know you need to.

The shower head rains its ice-cold fury down on you, washing the sin off of your skin. You turn the valve as far toward the blue as possible. The cold should help you lose weight.

You stare at the ghoul in the mirror for the last time. You wish with every bone in your body you could look better. Why can't you just look better? But you know you can't. Not like this.

The pajama bottoms Mom bought you last Christmas are too big now. They sag in all the wrong places and move like a flowing robe twice your size.

Downstairs, Mom hears you yell goodnight. You’re tired. You’re going to go to bed.

You scrub your teeth until they bleed. Hopping into bed, you doom-scroll for an hour on WebMD and soaking in songs that will scar you.

You don a massive hoodie and bury yourself under a sea of quilts. You fight the urge to shiver. Sleep never comes. Your insides are rioting. You can’t stop thinking about the moment you let all that food grace your lips.

All those racing thoughts keep you up until the sun rises again behind the curtains. You hear the bus come and go. Your phone is lying in bits of glass and drywall where you threw it last night.

You dial that number again. You hear a cold voice. It's impossibly polite. Like Mom’s.

“You’ve reached 988.”

You hear what sounds like elevator music. Your heart beat is going up, up, and away.

“Wait while we connect you. Please hold.”