Notes: This is the 2nd and last part. It's Mimi's POV and yes, I know she's OOC. Be warned that this has some content that may bother some people, mainly shoujo ai and an account of an eating disorder that some might consider graphic. The lyrics are from "Ana's Song" by Silverchair.
* * * * *
Please die Ana
For as long as you're here, we're not
* * * * *
I hate food. I think I always have. My mother said that I never seemed to want my bottle when I was a baby, that I worried my doctor when I was six and declared myself a vegetarian.
Somehow he talked me out of it though, and I started eating meat again. Actually it was more like I forced myself to start eating it. I could hardly even look at a piece of chicken without feeling nauseous.
I suppose that it shouldn't be a surprise what happened next.
It started about 6 months ago. I remember it extremely well. It was a Tuesday, the day after our grades were mailed home. My mother had yelled at me the previous night, about how my matching Ds in chemistry and geometry must be brought up.
So I was actually paying attention in chemistry, for the first time in God knows how long.
The section we were discussing was about calories, what they are and how to measure them and such. Nothing worth listening to, I thought, but I did anyway.
And our teacher, being the walking, talking book of knowledge that he is, commented on how the calorie number shown on food labels aren't actual calories; they're kilocalories. According to him, if something says that it has 70 calories, it actually means 70 kilocalories or 70,000 calories.
At home that night, as I was watching television, I happened to glance at the nutrition facts on my Coca-Cola. 140 calories, it claimed, which I now knew was really 140,000 calories.
My mind started whirling. If a soda had that many calories, then what about actual meals? God, I must have been eating millions of calories a day.
I found myself running into the bathroom to look in the mirror, and I froze when I saw myself.
I was huge! How I could have not seen it before is beyond me. I must've weighed hundreds of pounds.
I tore apart the bathroom closet, looking for the scale I knew was buried among the pink towels. When I found it I saw there were no batteries, and I ran to the kitchen to retrieve some.
My hands were trembling uncontrollably as I put them into the scale. I knew that I shouldn't weigh myself, that I wouldn't like the glowing red numbers it would spit out at me.
But I had to do it. I had to know.
So I stepped on and waited for my fate to be decided.
92 pounds.
I felt lightheaded as I stepped off of the scale. Numbers were flying quickly through my mind, mainly those 140,000 calories that were floating in my body at that minute. Suddenly I realized that not only was I already fat, but that soda was making me even fatter. I was growing at that very minute. And then that 92 was getting doubled and tripled and squared until it turned into some ungodly number that made me sick.
The next thing I knew, I was hunched over the toilet with my index finger shoved down my throat.
Strange as it may sound, I felt better after I got done, sort of like a new person, which was just what I intended to become.
And I vowed, then and there, that I would never eat again.
* * * * *
You make the sound of laughter and sharpened nails seem softer
And I need you now somehow
* * * * *
The next morning I was a little more rational. I decided that I would still eat, but only dinner. And even then I wouldn't eat more than a few bites of it.
I started to lose weight. I suppose that it was quite quickly compared to the various other diets, but to me it was far too slow.
So I ate even less.
I skipped dinner, telling my parents that I wasn't hungry. The funny thing is that I really wasn't lying. I should have been starving, I know, but I wasn't.
They bought it for a while, but eventually they got suspicious. My dad tried to make me eat, and my mom tried to play a shrink, asking me why I wasn't eating. I told her that I just wanted to lose a few pounds. She yelled at me, and told me I was stupid and that starving myself wouldn't help me lose weight.
Which was obviously a lie, because I'd already lost 10 pounds and it'd only been a week. I sort of wanted to call Slim Fast and tell them that they were full of it, but I thought that might be bragging so I didn't.
But I started to eat dinner again, to appease my parents. And then when I was alone in the bathroom I threw every bit of it up. After about a month, my index finger had tiny black bruises all over it, from my teeth pushing on it I guess. So I had to stop that, so no one would ask my where they came from.
Then I turned to laxatives and Ipecac syrup. Although I couldn't use too much of the syrup because it's only sold in one store in town (well actually, every where else had it in back and you had to ask for it, but I didn't want to do that), and it's in these little bottles that I could go through daily if I wanted to. But I didn't want to look suspicious so I stayed mainly on the laxatives.
And I lost weight, quickly at first and then it slowed down, almost as though my body were telling me that I couldn't lose anymore weight. But I was determined to, so I didn't stop.
That was when Sora started to notice. I was happy at first, that someone saw that I was getting skinnier. But she started to tell me that I looked sick, and she kept asking me what was wrong with me.
Suddenly it wasn't so wonderful, what I was doing. I had this strange feeling that it would disgust her, and she'd hate me. I would rather be fat than have Sora hate me. I think I'd die if she hated me.
I stopped taking the laxatives, threw my Ipecac away, and tried to eat. And each time I found myself hunched over the toilet, unable to stop the bile from flowing out of my mouth. No fingers, no syrup, nothing. I was just automatically vomiting.
I hated it.
So I quit eating again, and not just because I was tired of spending my nights locked in a bathroom. Because I was still fat, no matter what anyone said. And because I didn't feel right when I ate, which sounds odd I know. I can't explain it.
Sora started to get persistent. Every day it was, "Mimi, please tell me what's wrong." I didn't know what to day. So that's when the fights began, because the only thing I could think to do was yell at her.
Then she came to my house that night demanded to know why. I remember crying. I remember that I couldn't stop, so she took me in her arms and just held me.
She couldn't understand. No one could possibly understand. I remember telling her that. In fact that was all I could say. Nothing else would come out.
"Help me understand then," she said, burying her face in my hair.
So I tried.
I told her about how it started, about the calories. I showed her where the bruises used to be and told her about the laxatives and Ipecac. I explained how I couldn't stop, about the vomiting.
And I remember thinking, as she nuzzled the top of my head and whispered comforting words, It'll be okay. Sora knows and it'll be all right.
She sighed loudly and pulled me to my feet.
"Come on," she said. "Let's go somewhere."
Without releasing my hand from her death grip, she looked me in the eye and asked me to trust her.
I told her that I did. I trusted Sora more than I trusted anyone before in my life. I trusted her with my life.
How stupid I can be sometimes.
She took me to the hospital.
* * * * *
Open fire on the needs designed
On my knees for you
Open fire on my knees desires
What I need from you
* * * * *
62 pounds, that's how much I weighed when I was admitted.
They gave me my own room. It was bland, lots of pale blues and greens. Not nearly enough pinks for my liking. The TV remote had no batteries, so I had no real entertainment.
Except of course the various different people who visited me, most of which were doctors. The rest were the people the doctors forced me to see.
I wasn't allowed visitors. Apparently that's a privilege that I haven't yet earned.
I can't have visitors until I'm at least 70 pounds. I tried to tell them that there is no way I'll ever weigh that much, but they don't listen.
They just send more doctors who continue to feed me meaningless figures. 2500 calories, they say. That's how much I should be eating. I try to explain that I an eating 2500 calories, but they don't understand.
They started talking to the nurses about putting me into the psychiatric ward, so I stopped bothering.
Then they send a bunch of therapists who start talking about cages and control. Half of the time I just sort of nod at them and the other half I merely glare.
They say I have anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. I try to explain that I'm just dieting, but they keep shaking their heads, almost as if to say, "What a tragedy."
But in reality, they're the tragedy. God knows how many calories they eat in a day to get as fat as most of them are.
Sure, they try to make me eat. There's always a nurse who comes to sit with me when I get my food. I always force a few bites down my throat to appease her, but she still makes a strange clucking sound and scribbles something on her clipboard.
I'm not allowed to go to the bathroom unsupervised. So they can make sure I keep the little that I eat down, I guess. I bothered me at first. Now I don't mind as much.
Despite their efforts, however, I'm pretty sure that I've lost weight, although they won't tell me how much. They just say that the moment I get below 55, I'm getting put on hyperalimentation.
In other words, I get a tube stuck down my throat.
When my mealtime nurse told me this, I briefly considered telling her to bring it on. Instead I nodded and looked away, trying to process this new information.
She said that my lack of interest disturbed her and left. I gave her retreating back the finger and resumed staring at the black TV screen.
They don't understand. That seems to be my motto these days. They don't understand.
And yet, when it really comes down to it, I don't understand either.
At first it was a diet, a way to lose some weight. And even though I say it still is now, I can't help but think that it's something much more.
Because it doesn't matter how much I weigh anymore, whether it be 2 pounds or 200.
Either way, I'm still not going to eat.
* * * * *
And you're my obsession
I love you to the bone
And Ana wrecks your life
Like an anorexia life
* * * * *
The hospital bent the rules last week and I was allowed visitors, because they thought it would help speed my recovery. I frowned at the word 'recovery' but said nothing.
My parents were the first to arrive. I thought I'd be happy to see them, but I found myself hating them and wishing they'd just leave.
My mother was full of questions. They were horrible questions, questions that I couldn't answer even if I wanted to.
"Why are you doing this?" she kept asking. "Don't you see how sick you look, how sick you're making yourself?"
My father, on the other hand, didn't so much as look at me. He was too busy making sure the doctors didn't blame him for what I was doing, trying to convince them that this wasn't his fault. Although I'm not sure why they would think he is responsible. He isn't.
Eventually my nurse came and made both of them leave. She said they were 'upsetting the patient.' I've decided that maybe she isn't so bad.
About an hour later, Matt came. He promptly sat down in a chair and spent the next 30 minutes apologizing.
"You're my best goddamn friend, and I can't even notice that you're sick," he said with his head in his hands, sounding very lost and confused and totally out of character. "I'm so sorry."
I would have put my arms around him, but he was too far away and I felt too tired and sick to move. So I tried to tell him that it was all right, but he wouldn't have any of it. He just kept on apologizing, until he left at around noon.
The rest of the Chosen came one by one throughout the afternoon. Most of their visits were uneventful and took about the same turn as Matt's. They all ended up saying the word 'sorry' about a million times in an uneasy voice and eyeing me as though I were a glass figurine. Kari sounded like she would start crying at any given second, and Miyako actually did burst into hysterical tears. I found myself hugging her, despite the fact that the room started spinning the second I sat up.
Sora was the last visitor I had that night. She came at 6:20, with a small pink teddy bear in her hand. She placed the bear on my food table, which had just been cleared about ten minutes ago, pulled the chair closer to my bed, and sat down.
"You have no idea how worried I've been," she said quietly as she entwined our fingers. "The nurses said you couldn't have visitors, so I tried to call but they wouldn't let me talk to you."
Our eyes met briefly before I had to look away. The emotions I saw were way too much for me to handle.
"I love you," she murmured, reaching up to brush a piece of hair away from my face.
"I know." Memories of the last time she told me that began to filter into my head.
"No, I don't think you do." Sora leaned back into the chair, causing her to break contact with me. Immediately I wanted her to move back. "That's why I took you here, and I know you're still probably a little bitter that I did."
"Just a little bit," I agreed a bit coldly.
"You're hurting yourself, Mimi. And when you hurt yourself, it hurts me because I can't stand to see you do it. It's killing me to see you here like this."
I turned my head to look at her, although I did it a bit too quickly because I started to feel queasy. "You don't understand. I'm fat."
She was obviously shocked. "No you're not! You've never been fat! You've never been anything but beautiful!"
I shook my head vehemently. "You're lying. I'll never be skinny."
"Skinny? Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately?"
I opened my mouth to tell her no, the doctors won't allow me to for some reason. But she's already talking again.
"You are so skinny it's not funny. Do you know how much you weigh now? 59 pounds, you weigh 59 pounds. That's like half as much as you should weigh, for God's sake! You're killing yourself!"
Her voice was raising, and I kept expecting the nurse to come in and take her away but she didn't. And for that I was grateful. I didn't want Sora to leave, no matter how much she lied.
Because she was lying, I was still fat. She just wouldn't say it.
Suddenly I was overwhelmed by the strong urge I had to cry. I managed to repress it and instead I found myself whispering, "I love you."
Exactly where they came from I may never know. I certainly wasn't thinking anything along those lines. Yet when I opened my mouth those three words just slipped out.
She kissed me then, gently and sweetly, and the warm feeling that was developing in my chest surprised me.
"I'm sorry," I said softly when she pulled away. "For everything."
Sora sighed and pulled me into her arms, reminding me once again of the night she took me to the hospital.
"So am I, Mimi," she said. "So am I."
Please die Ana.