Originally published in The Flintlock Issue 2022. Link to their website here: https://www.nwuflintlock.com/
I only knew it was an issue when my dad refused to hug me. I was about to go back to my apartment after our weekly Sunday night family dinner. I had done this reliably ever since I had moved out when I started college. He waited for me with his arms wide open like he always did when I left, and I walked into him and smiled, like I always did when I left. Yet, this time was different, as when his arms pulled on each other around my waist, he suddenly pushed me away. I stared at him with an expression I couldn’t see but I knew he knew I was stricken. He looked at me sternly, his hands gripping my biceps to lock me in place, and said:
“You are too thin.”
Like a literal slap to the face, his words hit me with breathtaking force. My dad never spoke a drop of ill will about me ever, much less about my body. He would only ever tell me how beautiful I was to cement in my mind a sense of self-worth that every girl deserves, but few actually get. Now, he was telling me my body was too thin. I was too thin.
I knew the reason behind my thinning physique, yet I refused to tell him. One, because he would never forgive me for treating my body that way, for any reason. And two, because I only knew it was an issue when my dad refused to hug me. I had no idea it had become noticeable.
It started with cutting meals. But in an innocent way, I promise. I wasn’t hungry, so I didn’t eat. It went from eating two sizable meals a day, then one and a half, then only one full meal in one full day. But it was still innocent to me. I wasn’t hungry, so I didn’t eat.
People began to comment on my appearance after a week or so, on how I was losing weight. My friends told me I looked “skinny” with smiles on their faces; my manager asked me if I had lost weight, and she did so with a smile. This should’ve been my first sign, but their voices were always tinged with admiration, their faces always highlighted with smiles like what I was doing to myself was a good thing. So I kept going, unabashed, shedding my skin as I went. The mirror began to warp, so I warped with it. I kept punching holes in my belts as they began to feel more and more loose, never questioning it once.
It was only with my dad’s punishing refusal to hug me, to feel how thin I was against his frame, did I realize how far I had pushed myself. I was far over the brink, now leaning over the crevasse and peering down, thinking to myself, It doesn’t look too bad down there.
I went to see my parents again shortly after that incident to ask them for help. I had lost the will to eat anything at all. At this point my stomach was nearing the point of shutting down. My desire to eat had all but disappeared. Waffles and syrup, cheese and bread and oil, it was making me sick to even think of it in my head. There was not a single point I could name in the two days before seeing my parents where I wanted to eat anything, and even worse, I could not remember the last time I actually did eat something. My stomach was shriveled up and about to die, and I knew I had to do something.
I told my parents I hadn’t been eating. They told me they could tell. My mom offered me a slice of toast. I refused, saying I wasn’t hungry. I told them that was the problem. I just wasn’t ever hungry anymore. My mom kept suggesting different foods, all light and barely any calories at all, food anyone could eat. But they all disgusted me. My mom looked at me with that look only parents can give you. Such profound misery was in her eyes that her child was slowly killing her body. Her eyes started to make me feel guilty, and just as I was about to give in, my dad suggested the protein powder berry infused smoothies my mom would make for herself that I would always ask for a sip of. The protein powder was ridiculously expensive, so I was never able to have a full one. So when my dad suggested it, I was barely able to say yes before my mom started clamoring around the kitchen to make it.
She gently handed me the plastic thermos filled with the thick purple liquid with all of the berry seeds starkly standing out among the mix. I eyed it. The thermos seemed so much larger than before. I wondered how anyone, anyone could ever drink that much, ingest that much of anything. I began to feel nervous, as pathetic as that sounds. I looked back up to see both of my parents eyeing me, waiting. They wanted to watch me, finally, eat.
Suddenly, the vastness of the thermos overtook me. I stared into the purple as I lifted it closer and closer to my lips. My hand was shaking and I pretended not to notice. It had its familiar fruity sweet smell, yet it morphed into something more saccharine the closer it got. As the smoothie penetrated my lips, I noticed it tasted good. That was the exact sensation. I noticed it tasted good. I couldn’t actually taste it, not really, for as soon as it made contact with my throat, it seemed to curdle into concrete. It abruptly felt like a rock was stuck in my esophagus, and as hard as I tried to swallow the smoothie, it just would not go down. My stomach had pulled the plug; it had shut down. The liquid wouldn’t move further down, and I just couldn’t swallow. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t.
I ended up regurgitating the drink unceremoniously back into the thermos, small bits spilling onto the floor as I sputtered and coughed. I sat on the couch, coughing for what seemed like an eternity before finally glancing up at my parents. They were both just looking at me with that look only parents can give you. I sheepishly set the thermos down on the tray on the ottoman. My parents were out of things to say and I didn’t dare say anything, either. They were thinking of solutions they could do for me, that they could make happen, and there were none. I simply sat there, staring at anything but them, at the completely full thermos of expensive protein powder berry infused smoothie, and hugged myself, my arms wrapping around myself once, twice, three times over.
