At lunchtime, her mom still wasn’t back from the memorial, so Lucy Craine took her sandwich up to her bedroom. Rosa was supposed to watch her eat all of her food, but Rosa had been fighting with her boyfriend lately, and spending a lot of time on the phone crying to her sister in Ocala; Lucy’s eating had been good recently, so after she’d taken a couple of bites, Rosa let her finish it in her room.
Lucy hooked her iPod into the speaker system and put on Miley Cyrus, turning the music up loud enough that Rosa wouldn’t hear her. Then she went into her bathroom and tore up her sandwich, and tossed the pieces into the toilet. Then she made herself bring up the half sandwich she’d eaten, and flushed.
It felt good. It hurt, and sometimes when she was sick, she’d wipe her mouth and see a little blood, but the ache of her empty stomach grinding away on nothing felt good.
In her closet, she found her old Blue’s Clues sleeping bag, and slipped the scale out of it.
She placed it carefully on the wooden floor so that it was even, and climbed on. She watched the red needle bounce and sway, then dip below 95. Yes!
She put the scale away, opened her MacBook, and read her affirmations in her husky whisper:
every time you say no thanks to food you say yes please to thin
hunger hurts but starving works
i want to be thin more than anything, even food
this is forever
i will do whatever it takes