oh ana.
After the little show I put on at lunch, I felt guilty, transparent even. I felt MJ's and Ned’s eyes on me, even after I had left the room. It panicked me to think that they had even the slightest idea what was going on with me.
As I raced in the direction of the library, I noticed the half-eaten apple still in my hand, my fingers slightly sticky. It sickened me that I had eaten so much, I could feel the few bites I had eaten start to clump in my stomach like a heavy rock. A heavy boulder. 50 calories that would stick to my thighs. I tossed the half apple the first chance I got, taking a detour to the bathroom to wash my hands.
After my last “experience” in the bathroom this morning, I didn’t want to spend too long there. I quickly splashed my face with cold water, avoiding the mirror, and dried my face with cheap paper towels. At lunchtime, the bathroom's the worst place to be, even worse than awkwardly sitting at the lunch table with Peter. At lunch, the bathroom was a hotspot for all the pretty girls to convene and do their makeup together. The air was filled with gossip and the stench of cheap foundation and matte lipstick.
I want so badly to fit in with them, I also feel shallow for thinking that way. I want their legs, their clear skin, their smiles that are brighter than the sun. To avoid staring for too long, I sharply turned around in the other direction to leave, accidentally bumping into Liz.
“Oh! Sorry!”
“Don’t worry about it!” Liz gave me a smile brighter than the rest of them, before moving on to join her friends, who were waving her over excitedly.
Pretty, smart, perfect, flawless, pretty, smart, perfect, flawless, pretty, smart, perfect, flawless Liz. That’s who Peter should be with. Not this glob of fat.
Liz was the definition of perfect, somehow accomplishing every extracurricular our school has to offer. She spends a lot of time with Peter while studying for the academic decathlon, and even though she's two years older than us, I still wonder if he wishes he were with her instead. I'm so tired of being a charity case.
Thankfully, the bell wouldn’t ring for another ten minutes, so after getting out of the bathroom, I got out of the building, finally escaping the harsh lighting and breathing in fresh air. It would do me some good to take a quick walk, even if it was just laps around the school campus. The brisk air attacked me head-on, making its way underneath my several layers of sweaters. Quickly shoving my hands into my pockets, I braced myself for the unsettling chills running down my spine. I was always cold, even when indoors, which made walking outside especially brutal. As I made my way around the building, I allowed my mind to wander, no longer holding back my thoughts. My brain is constantly foggy, so I kept jumping from topic to topic, from new outfit combinations to try out, to calculating different foods I can have to stay in my deficit, to what homework I had to do afterschool. Before I knew it, the bell was ringing, and I ran for the rest of my fourth lap to make it inside for class. By now, my nose was cold and red, running slightly, making me feel like a pig. My hands, luckily, had been saved by my pockets, but my ears were mini icicles.
My next class was statistics, which was just fancy graphs. Taking my seat, I was hyper-aware of my legs, which I had been continually overworking these past few days. They weren't fragile though. They weren't stick skinny, or even regular skinny. My thighs were the size of tree trunks, massive and unappealing, and no amount of over-exercising could ever come close to causing me actual harm. The calories burned made it worth it, a huge burden lifted off of both my mind and my body.
The strangest thing about me is that when I was in middle school, I loved food. I would sit in front of the tv for hours just binge-watching my favorite shows, and at the same time, eating my favorite foods. I didn't even have to think about what I was putting in my mouth, it just came naturally, and I never gained any weight. I was a different person back then, and I wish I knew what happened to me. All of a sudden when high school first started, I would get really stressed about my grades, but I found that stress-eating actually helped. Now, it was the opposite. Instead of eating bringing me relaxation, even a single bite of food is enough to throw me off for the rest of the day, the numbers swirling in my mind. The quick walk changed that, making me a bit more relaxed than I was leaving the bathroom. The pain in my legs, despite the searing agony when I walked, was actually another thing that relaxed me, it was a constant reminder that I had burned the calories. In a way, I kind of deserve the pain, just like I deserved the hunger. It was punishment for how I let it get this bad.
As long as I could remember, my mom always told me one thing:
"Pain is weakness leaving the body"
And for the past few months, I had been in pain. Maybe one day I won’t be so weak.
------------------------------------------
After finishing all my classes for the day, I'm exhausted. My eyelids are threatening to shut and my body is lurching forward, like half-fainting once per second. I waited outside my classroom for Peter and I's daily little afterschool routine, which was just our way of spending more time together.
Everyday, I'm supposed to wait outside my last class of the day until he comes by and we walk to my place together. Once he drops me off, he goes into the alley near my house, changes into his Spider-man outfit, and goes on little adventures as a superhero in Queens. After a few hours, he swings by my bedroom window, I sneak him in, and we spend more time together before he swings back to the Compound.
Usually while he's off being a hero, I spend my time napping or doing homework. I hate that I don’t have a life outside of him. I also love it, it makes me feel more deeply connected to him, like we share the same life. But once he kicks me out of that life, I'll have nothing left, and it scares me that I'm going to fall into this dark place once he leaves me.
"Heyyyyyyyy, y/n"
"Heyyy" I leaned into his shoulder, and there was a mutual understanding between us. We both understood that we weren't going to talk about what happened at lunch. We both agreed to move on. We both missed each other.
Walking home, I felt like a phone after being charged, Peter usually had that effect on me. It must have relieved him to see me so happy, and that could be useful to convince him that there's nothing wrong with me. I don’t know what I'd do if he found out, and I definitely wasn't going to tell him. Honestly, how would that conversation go? Would I introduce it over coffee? Or maybe one day when he comes over after patrol? It feels selfish to involve him in this, especially since there's nothing he can do about it. Hopefully, after I've reached my goal weight, he'll just think it was natural, or maybe he can just look the other way without questioning it. There's no need to involve him in my issues. Not when he has enough issues of his own.
"So, I have a DVD of this new movie that came out, if you wanna maybe watch it together? I could come over later, maybe bring some snacks?"
I had been sinking deep into thought and hadn't noticed the 20 minutes of silence between us, and now Peter seemed just as scared as he was during lunch, doing anything to break the ice.
"Yeah, of course! What's it about?"
"Ok, so there's this crazy villain, right, and he has these super cool purple powers which turn him into… well basically it's like Back to the Future but instead of time…"
I started to drown him out again, channeling my limited attention to his face. The light shone on him, making the rest of the world blur out. I stared at his smile, the way his hair curled, the way he moved his hands in enthusiasm, like he was speaking through his hand movements. His eyebrows danced up and down, his ocean blue eyes beneath them were sparkling.
I felt a light hand on my shoulder, and I was suddenly snapped back to reality. I had to blink a few times to bring my eyes into focus, despite having stared at him for the entire walk. My legs must have been walking on autopilot, because we were in front of my house now, and Peter was giving me a pensive look.
"Hey. Your house. We're here. Are you sure you're okay?" His hand was still on my shoulder, and he was leaning in to get a better, more concerned look at me.
"Oh, yeah, I'm fine, I guess I'm drained from school. Movie sounds good."
"You sure you don’t want me to come in?"
"No, no, I'm probably just going to sleep anyways. You should carry on, do your spider thing, come knock on my window later and we'll spend the night together."
I started to walk back to the front door, my posture lop-sided from the overwhelming dizziness.
"Hey. I love you." Peter yelled across the front lawn.
Turning around too fast for my own liking, I mustered up a smile. "I love you too!"
-------------------------------------------------
As I entered through the door, my shoes tracked dirt and pines into the living room, making a mess for me to clean up later.
The house was quiet, save for the clacking of my dad's computer. There was only one car in the driveway, meaning my mom had taken the other one to work and my dad was working from home. We usually didn't talk much, just barely acknowledging each other's existence.
I took off my shoes and headed upstairs, unpacking my bag as usual. My face felt caked in dirt, and it took numerous splashes of ice cold water to finally feel less disgusting.
My bed was calling for me, and I wanted to curl up and never wake up again.
So I did. I laid my cheek on the cold pillow and shuddered under the weight of my blanket. It took no effort to drift away, and the weight of my eyelids made me hyperaware of the fluttering of my eyelashes.
30 minutes. Just half an hour until I wake up and get my work done. It'll be fine-
"Y/n, wake up for dinner." It was my mom's voice now, sounding pissed off as always.
But she's not supposed to be home for another three hours. I came home five minutes ago. It's not dinner time.
I lifted my head ever so lightly to extend my arm, reaching for my phone. 7:32 pm.
NO. I screwed up again. But I guess I've slept this late. What's five more minutes before dinner?
My eyes start opening again, and it’s pitch black outside my window.
"God, she's so useless, I've called her ten times, she can’t even be bothered to come downstairs, let alone actually help out with dinner, just lazily sleeping all the time, I mean, there's a limit to how much we should tolerate from her-"
"Just ignore her, what's the point anyways. She'll eat something later. I'm tired of wasting my energy on her."
Just as I'm about to get up, my limbs go limp again, and my eyes don't open for another few hours. I extend my arm again to reach my phone, and the light makes my eyes squint.
4:23 AM
Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. Peter. His movie. First I zoned out when he was talking about it, and now I skip it altogether? What kind of shit person-
My eyes wander to a sticky note left next to my phone, and I turn on my phone's flashlight to read it.
"I swung by, but it looks like you're asleep. You should get as much rest as you can, love you tons. p.s. I hope you don't mind I came in while you were sleeping, I made sure your mom didn't see me"
Before I can even think about Peter, my stomach rumbles, and I can feel a pit in the back of my throat. I feel empty, and I need food. Like a ghost, I put one foot in front of the other, going downstairs and into the kitchen. I don't care about my calorie deficit anymore. It's no use anyways. No amount of fixing the outside can fix the inside.
I'm selfish, I'm a waste, I'm disgusting. All this mess on my body, all this fat on my thighs. I try so hard to fix it, but I can't. It's a good thing Peter sees your personality instead, but after last night, he sees your REAL personality. You aren't girlfriend material. You’re always sleeping, and even when you’re awake, you can't be bothered to be there.
As my thoughts attacked me on rapid fire, my hands moved quickly. First they opened a bag of chips, and shoveled its contents into my mouth. Then they grabbed the ice cream and spooned pounds of chocolate flavored bites. My sleeves got dirty as I went deeper and deeper into the box. Before finishing it, I put it away and moved on to the cereal in the pantry. A whole bowl full of cereal and milk was dumped down my throat, and by the time my hands stopped moving, my sleeves were covered in chocolate, my lips were drenched in milk, and I had grainy bits of cereal and chips all over my teeth. I looked to my hands and I looked down to the shelf, which was covered in wrappers and crumbs. I had probably eaten thousands of calories, and my stomach stuck out under my shirt.
What's the point in stopping now?
As I had done a hundred times before, I grabbed three frozen burritos and shoved them into the microwave. I impatiently stopped the microwave halfway, grabbing out the burritos and aggressively took one bite after another. They were still cold in the middle, but the hole inside kept screaming at me to eat, and so I ate frozen chunks of chicken and cheese.
The emptiness finally went quiet, replaced by pangs of pain in my stomach. In that moment, surrounded by wrappers, covered with food, and wanting to throw up, only one idea came to mind. I went upstairs, leaving the mess as it was, and picked up my phone.
"Peter? I need you. I can't stay here."