Freak

Chapter One

My heavy, heavy eyes struggle to open.

As they lift slowly, the room comes into focus. I'm on my bed, tangled in a mess of blankets. There are tear stains on my pillow. The white dresser is tiny, and the mirror is huge, taking up the whole room, as if saying to me, come and look at how fat you are.  I slowly stand, closing my eyes when my feet first hit the floor because I am so dizzy. My toes dig into the light blue carpet in nervousness. I take slow steps to the mirror and then take a deep breath and look into it.

I gasp when I see the reflection.  My face is large, my neck barely visible, my stomach bulging in the most disgusting way.  My thighs are the worst part, touching each other even when my feet aren’t together. I pull up my tank top to examine my stomach. Where are my hipbones? Why is there fat covering them? And my legs. What happened to the thigh gap that I worked so hard to get?

Running my fingers against my upper stomach, I can feel my ribs. I can count them. But why can’t I see them in the mirror?

I back away from the mirror and fall backwards onto the bed.  I am vaguely aware that I am having trouble breathing.  Then I see the candy wrappers on the floor and remember last night.  Last night, when I finally gave in to my parents’ attempts to coax dinner into me. "One bite," I promised myself. One bite turned into two, then into a whole meal. After the meal, I felt horrible. It was the first time I'd eaten in days. I grabbed a bag of candy from the pantry and ran up into my room. Piece by piece, I shoved it all into my mouth. Afterwards, I felt horrible. I considered going to the bathroom to puke it all up, but I just stayed on my bed and bawled my eyes out. Why am I such a pig? My eyes close again, and I find my only relief…

I am in a large plain white room, and on the table there is a bottle that says DRINK ME and a cake that says EAT ME.  Of course, this is my wonderland.

I walk towards the table, but then stop.

No, no, Alice, you mustn’t eat that.

But how else will I get into wonderland?

One sip.  One sip only.

I drink the liquid that shrinks me so I am skinny enough to go through the dark, wooden door to wonderland, where only perfect girls are allowed.

Now on the path, I begin walking. The cobbled road is dark, as usual. The grass surrounding it is barely visible; it's always nighttime in wonderland. Trees line the path as well, along with random bushes and shrubs. Occasionally, small, mysterious animals hopping around in the grass are visible. Further down the path, there are the other girls.  The ones that can fit one hand around both of their wrists, who can count their ribs.  I walk up to them.

“Alice, you’re back!” the dark haired one says.

I feel myself smile for the first time in forever.  I missed my wonderland.

I scoff, “My parents are making me go to therapy.  And my therapist tells me I have to try my hardest to stay out of wonderland.”

“No!” says the blond one.

The redhead replies, “You can’t listen to them, of course.”

“No!” I say. “I will never stay out of wonderland. They think they can control what I can do and where I can go, but they can't.”

The dark haired one says, “What’s been keeping you, then?”

“I…I’ve been…” I stutter shamefully.

“Don’t tell us you’ve eaten.”

My stomach drops.

“I couldn’t help it…my parents made me eat and I just missed food so much…my therapist says it's good for me...”

See what eating does to you? says a voice in my head, mocking me.

The red haired one laughed.  “Is that what you want, then? You’d rather eat then be skinny, perfect, beautiful? I see. You can leave now.”

“No! No, I won’t do it again, I promise I’ll throw it all up!” I say desperately.  Wonderland is the only place where the world makes sense; I can’t leave.  Wonderland is my everything.

Her expression softens.  “Promise?”

“Yes,” I say. “I really do.”

“Well,” says the dark haired one, “you’re still going to retain some of the calories, so make sure you don’t make a habit out of this…besides, food is disgusting.”

“I know. I’ll never eat again.”

The blond one smiles and gives me her arm. I link my arm with hers and the girl next to me. We walk down the path, all of us, skinny and perfect.

This is my wonderland. This is the one place where I am happy. In reality, nothing make sense, no one cares about me. In reality, I am imperfect.

"Look how skinny your legs are! God, your thighs are perfect," says one of the girls to another.

The other girl replies, "I know, but yours are too. Are those new jeans? They're adorable, but they would totally look gross on someone fat."

"Everything looks gross on someone fat," I say.

"Good thing none of us are fat, then..." says another girl, smiling at me and bumping my hip.

Yes, I missed wonderland dearly.  And no food is ever worth this.