Short Story

I exaggerated events, here plus I know my ending is terrible.

I took a cracker out of the package and put it all in my mouth. I walked from one corner of the kitchen to another, jolly.
“Where are you going?” My mom interrupted from behind her laptop in the kitchen table. She had been all afternoon in her laptop, as usual. My mom began an obsession with Facebook after she added dozens of her friends from college and high school, even middle school. I have a Facebook account but I cannot spend more than ten minutes on it. My mom, on the other hand, she can spend hours looking at pictures and doing what we call “playing flashback,” which is basically that, getting flashbacks from looking at pictures, that usually brings along some laughter and nostalgia. Something similar happened to my dad, but his problem was with YouTube; he searches everything on YouTube, from 80’s TV shows to motivational speeches.
“I am going to finish my homework,” I said as I walked back to the crackers. I took three more crackers and headed to the door.
“That will not be your dinner, you understand?” She said strictly. Yes, I know, I told myself.
My parents had developed the idea that I had some kind of eating disorder a few weeks before. Since then, they had been watching my every move; they kept track of my lunch account and small meals.
“I know, Mom, I’m just going to go finish up my homework.”
“I want to see you eat something before you go to bed, alright?” She added.
“Okay.” I agreed. Yes, okay, mom, I thought, but I’m not hungry. To be honest, I do not believe I have any type of disorder, at all. I am not even skinny, believe me. I am simply small in size, petite. I do eat, too. What worries my parents, I think, is that I am usually not hungry. I have a glass of milk in the morning for my breakfast because I’m really not hungry in the mornings. For lunch, I usually eat whatever nasty and plastic meal they have. Well, some; I don’t eat much of the meat because, once, the meat on my plate slipped off my plate and bounced off the floor; I never ate school meat again. I also don’t like to eat the shrimp or the French toast; I find breakfast for lunch quite disgusting. My very favorite, however, is mozzarella cheese sticks. Then, I get double lunch and share a little. Then, when I get home, I eat dinner with my family, and I eat everything, always. I don’t believe I have an eating disorder. It just doesn’t look like I do. It doesn’t even feel like I do. Besides, there is nothing to support their idea but the fact that I’m not always hungry.
The next morning in school, I told my two friends how my parents still thought I had an eating disorder.
“So, last night, my mom made me eat something in front of her before I went to bed, just so she could see I ate something.” I told them.
I, honestly, didn’t imagine any reactions from them to this, but their reactions surprised me; they looked at each other for a second and then looked back at me and shrugged. I wondered if they also thought I had an eating disorder. Did they think my parents were right? That I really have some kind of eating disorder? But… how? I eat every time I am around them. I mean, they see me eat! I wonder if they were judging me by my size? I am small but so are they; I was very confused about this. If they thought I had an eating disorder, as friends, they would have already said something about it. As friends, they never said anything, so I just concluded with the idea that if they were worried, they would sure say something and because they had not said anything, nothing was wrong. We moved on to other subjects, the ones that usually have no relevance in our lives. For example, one of my friends mentioned how her jeans were tight and she liked it; we usually talk about things only we care, or “care” about. The bell rang and we went in different directions to our first hour classes.
I didn’t eat lunch that day; it was shrimp. I also didn’t talk to anyone during lunch because I got to the lunchroom late and the few people that I knew were surrounded by people that I didn’t know. So I sat down in the same table were I didn’t know anyone and pulled out my iPod; I listened to few tracks from Mew and some acoustic and violin covers. Ah, nothing makes me feel better than some good Mew, I told myself. Lunch went by slowly and when the bell rang, I ran to the pillar where I usually meet with my friends. I waited a few seconds before one of them got there; she told me about something that had happened to her during her last hour, something about a guy. My other friend got to the pillar and we started another conversation. During this conversation, I began to feel something under my ribs. I reached down to my ribs and started digging under them with my fingers as if I wanted to put my whole hand under my ribs, which I didn’t want to do. My friend saw me and said:
“What are you doing?”
“I feel something under my ribs,” I answered.
“I think she does have an eating disorder, like anorexia.” One of them said to the other.
“Yeah, I do think so,” My friend agreed.
I don’t remember my exact facial reaction to this but I do remember that my mouth dropped. I pulled my hand from my stomach and babbled a “why do you think so?”. They understood my question even though I didn’t.
“Well, you are feeling your ribs right now,” One of them said.“Yeah, and you are so much more obsessed about your collar bone than we are.” The other one replied.
They did believe I had an eating disorder. Now it wasn’t just any eating disorder, they had categorized it; anorexia. My friends said it and my parents said it, but I still did not believe I had a problem. One, I was just feeling my ribs. I wasn’t trying to see how much skin I had, and anorexia? Where did that come from? I must say, right away, I do not think I am “fat”, no. I don’t feel “fat” or look “fat”. The whole word “fat” just doesn’t go with me or in my head. I don’t even use the word “fat”. I hate it, it is so deceiving. Why anorexia? Had they said anorexia because that is the only eating disorder? Are there any other eating disorders? My head began to scramble itself but, thankfully, the bell rang and I walked away from them as fast as I could. Even when I got stuck in the mass of people, I pushed everyone in my way just to run from the situation. How brave of me.
I walked home that day and while I walked, I thought about my supposed “problem”. Maybe it was true, maybe I did have a problem, I thought. I got home after walking twenty minutes in the chilly weather. My mom was in the kitchen, doing something on Facebook. God knows what, really.
“Hi, mom.” I said to her making a pretty good attempt to hide what I was feeling.
“Hi,” she said. “How was your day?” She asked me as I reached the top cabinet to get a cup.
“Well, it was another day of school; it was okay.” I lied.
“Oh, very well. Do you have a lot of homework?” She asked me.
Everyday when I get home, we begin a conversation with the same questions; “how was your day?” and “do you have a lot of homework?”. My answers usually vary depending on my mood and my day but it is always the same.
“The usual.” I replied as I gave her a warm smile. I stood in the kitchen for a few seconds and then I decided to go to my room and maybe lay down for a while, I felt really tired, but not hungry. I plugged in my iPod on my speakers and played some music while I laid down. It was very easy to relax in that moment, my day had been, in a way, stressing and confusing.
I had a horrible dream that afternoon. In my dream, I was standing in a hall, looking at a picture of a woman at the end of the hall when I heard people coming near. The sound of the familiar voices woke me up from the trance I was in and I automatically looked around to see the people. I kept moving my head around but I couldn’t see anyone, only voices. I tried to walk away and find my family and friends but I couldn’t move from my spot. Then, I looked back to the poster of the woman at the end of the hall and there they were, my mom and my dad along with my two friends. They stood about ten feet away from me but they were slowly walking towards me. They were saying something to each other but I couldn’t hear clearly. As they came closer, I began to understand what they were saying.
“You have a problem but you are just denying it.” They repeated over and over, like robots and as they came closer, looking straight to my eyes. They got very close to me but I realized that I wasn’t looking at them anymore, I was looking at the picture at the end of the hall. My parents and friends disappeared when I focused on the picture. I was surprised to notice what the picture really was; it was an anorexic woman. Her ribs were boldly marked as well as her collar bone. Her face was long and pale with really marked cheek bones and chin. Her arms looked like straws, very bony. It was like looking at a skeleton with a thin layer on top.
“You are just denying it.” I heard once again.
I woke up grasping for air. My heart was beating out of control and I instantly began feeling my ribs. I sat up and felt my collar bone, bony. I ran to the bathroom to get a good look at myself in the mirror. I lifted my shit up to see my ribs and my hip bones. I realized I had never stopped and looked at it carefully, like I was doing that moment. I never worried about it, either. My hip bones and ribs were slightly sticking out but my stomach didn’t seem to be there. I got nervous and took a last look at everything. This is not right, I whispered. I shook my head as I moved my fingers slowly through my skin. Wait, I thought, I am doing the same thing everyone else did, I’m making conclusions by just looking at myself. The problem might not be in my body. What if the problem was in my head? I looked at myself one last time and left the bathroom. I decided to do some research on eating disorders so I headed to the computer.
I googled “eating disorder symptoms” and ended up on a site called “something-fishy” which I thought was a funny name for a website. The site listed a few symptoms of anorexia and bulimia. I read through them one by one. “Dramatic weight loss in a relatively short period of time.” No, didn’t happen. “Wearing big or baggy clothes to hide body shape or weight loss.” Again, no. I don’t like to wear anything baggy, I really don’t. “Obsession with calories and fat content of foods.” I’m not obsessed with calories, I look at calories sometimes, but I never give it any importance. “Obsession with continuous exercise.” Really, no. I am really not into sports or exercise. “Use or hiding of diet pills.” No, like I said before I don’t feel or look fat, why diet? I continued to read all the symptoms and realized I didn’t have a problem; all that made me think I did was my family and friends saying it. The only thing that I had to change was my eating habits. Maybe if I ate normal meals, even when I am not hungry, at least a little. Maybe then, this whole “problem” would end and I decided to do that because that would make me feel much better.