Girl.

Present Day

She is acutely aware of every sensation in her body; the way her stomach folds as she sits down, the touch of her chin on her chest as she bends her neck, the fat parcels in between her knuckles that make her hands look puffy. She struggles to concentrate on her surroundings so withdraws further within herself, focusing internally. Her friend notices her tense expression and asks her if she is ok. She isn’t. She is consumed in negativity but as she opens her lips, the words “I’m fine thanks” spill out like a leak in a hose pipe.

She looks around, everyone else looks so content. They share stories and laughter fills the room, someone tells a joke and the laughter continues. She wants to join in but she is too preoccupied. Sitting across from the food table, her thoughts continue to drift. This time last year she would have just avoided the food entirely and it would have been no effort to do so. She would have made some excuse about  how she had already eaten or simply just assumed that people knew she didn’t eat at such occasions. But now she is enthralled by it. She cannot pretend that it’s not there, that it’s not a big deal. She cannot laugh at the stories or fool for the silly jokes. She can’t go to another room to distract herself; she is gripped and she knows it.

* * *

Guilt begins to sink in. She should have just walked away, she knew if she sat staring at it she was bound to eat it, so why didn’t she just do as she knew best? That last mouthful is beginning to sink in now, she can feel it enter her stomach and immediately turn into thick unwanted fat deposits. She puts her hand on her belly to feel the expansion – yep, there it is already. Just like that.

The rest of the day is spoilt – she couldn’t concentrate before but now it’s just hopeless! Her mind is constantly fixated on what she ate and what other people didn’t. Jealousy gets mixed up in rage and rage turns into disappointment and disgust. I wish I was skinny again.

8 years previous

It’s a bright blue sky and the sun is beaming through the cloudless atmosphere. The girl saddles up and mounts her bike. She loves cycling to school and, although her siblings get driven every morning, she would rather be outside making her heart beat faster and faster with each stretch of pavement she travels.

She cycles past the corner where she fell off a few weeks ago and looks down at her knee. She can just about see the thick congealing scab through her tights. She will not let that embarrassment happen again.

Upon arriving at school she thinks of what the day will bring: French, double maths, art and P.E. Exams are coming up and she must learn her script for french and do that maths booklet and complete that sketch that she hasn’t yet started. In P.E her class is preparing for the summer athletics season to commence. She has been told she is good at long jump and the 800m so she will continue to perfect those.

At the end of the day, and feeling quite overwhelmed with the daunting prospect of hours of revision to come, she heads over to the changing rooms for last lesson. She likes sport. She likes the freedom she gets from it and she likes knowing that she can do things others can’t. She likes knowing that her body can achieve success, not just her brain.

After a good practice and another personal best she heads back towards the changing room. When she opens the door music is blaring from inside and the popular girls with big boobs and flat stomachs are blasting the top charts from their phones. They are so beautiful and powerful and don’t seem to care what anyone else thinks of them. This makes her feel small and unimportant again. The girl refocuses her glance on the rest of her peers crammed up against each other as they try to pull up their tights and redo their ties. She looks through the corner of her eye as she fastens the last button of her shirt. It seems there are all manor of body shapes and sizes. But what is normal? What are girls this age supposed to look like? Some have really large boobs while others are still wearing crop tops. Some have flat tummies and others have rolls of puppy fat. Some smell really bad of B.O and use copious amounts of body spray to cover up the odour, while others have no need for it and perhaps don’t even know what deodorant is.

The girl looks down at her own body with disappointment.

If she can’t have boobs or long legs or a flat belly can’t she at least be really toned and muscley? Can’t she have a body that actually makes her look like she rightly holds the 800m school record and not this boring one? Maybe then people would notice her more, would want to get to know her and hey, maybe even let her be the one to blare music from her phone from time to time!

She decides that if her body won’t give that attention to her naturally, she’ll just have to do it herself.

To be continued …