I don't know what time it is. Honestly, I don't care as long as I can make it 2nd Period and then I can leave and go back to sleep. I finally look as the clock. I have about an hour and a half before it starts.
"Ana," I close my eyes and let my head sink back onto my pillow, "What's my Calorie limit for today?"
She strokes my tired, feverish forehead gently, the coldness of her fingers bringing relief to my head though the rest of my body is freezing under 7 blankets. "400, darling." She smiles at me and then adds, "Get up. I thought you didn't want to miss P.E."
"Yeah, that's right." I mutter, "Too bad we aren't going to be getting much exercise. But if I miss a day of P.E. I can't get certified for CPR. "
"At least you'll be walking to class," She pulls the covers off me as a gesture for me to stand, "And climbing all those stairs."
I walk downstairs and begin planning out my meals for today in my head. Ana follows me as we make our way to the scale in my mom's bathroom. Once again, I have lost only 1 pound.
"I don't get it!" I am practically in tears. "I drank so much green tea I could have thrown up, exploded, or both!" I sink on to my heels and hold my head in my hands.
"Its okay, sweetie." She pats my back, clearly frustrated with my lack of significant progress as well. "It must be that you're spending so much time in bead because you're sick. Once you've gotten better, I'm sure you'll lose plenty."
"I hope so," I sniff, "Because this is ridiculous. . . at least I'm not unbearably hungry."
I go to school for an hour and then I am home once more. I walk to the freezer in the garage where a lot of my diet food is stored. I remember what I said to Ana yesterday, and I pull out a pumpkin Vitamin muffin. It is far to cold outside so we don't stand around for long, just long enough for me to check the labels on all of my Lean Cuisine, Weight Watchers, and Healthy Choice meals. We make our way to the kitchen and put the muffin in the microwave for 25 seconds. I remain silent as I eat the first 100 calories of my day. I am already thinking of what I will eat for lunch.
"Well?" Ana looks at me expectantly.
"I like the pumpkin a lot!" I grin at her, popping the last bite of muffin with the most seeds on top into my mouth. "I think that the people who make the Vitamuffins are brilliant to be able to cook diet desserts that actually taste good."
"Good to know," She rolls her eyes at me, smiling. "But I was talking about what you're going to eat for lunch. Have you decided yet?"
"Well, I'm going to want a Fiber One yogurt later, and my orange gummy vitamin c's are 25 Calories, so I have to factor in ... I will only have 225 Calories left." I am licking the pumpkin crumbs off my fingers as I continue. "The closest I could find to 225 was a Weight Watchers ham and scrambled egg breakfast meal. I guess I could finish it off with a pickle. That would leave me at exactly 400 Calories."
Ana claps her hands and hugs me close to her. "I am glad to see that you came back with extra willpower and resolve!" She kisses my cheek and then reminisces. "You tried to do the ABC twice last summer and both of them failed after day 2 or 3. The longest you ever made it was day 10 your freshman year."
"Ugh." I sigh unhappily, "This time its different. This time I will finish it. I deserve it. You deserve it. and Jonney deserves it."
"Hmm..." Ana raises an eyebrow as her arms slip off of my shoulders. "There's a name you've been avoiding for a while." She notices the obvious pain on my face at the words and quickly adds, "Talk to me, Kerry."
"I'm not sure if he still loves me." I whisper. "He takes so much longer to reply to my messages, he didn't call at all last night, and he doesn't smile around me as much."
"Well love," She sends me a piteous half-smile, "Jonney is very touchy-feeley. I'm not saying that's a bad thing,"She laughs softly to herself, "But you've been gone, so he hasn't gotten to see you, in several days. Plus, Don't you think he'd rather have a thin girlfriend?"
"I KNOW he does. He'd never admit it to me though." I sigh audibly. "I just keep having weird feelings for an old friend of mine who I treated extremely badly right before he stopped talking to me. Now he won't even give me the time of day. I want to starve myself partially to punish myself for crushing his heart into a million pieces like that. I KNEW he liked me. I KNEW he cared about me, and I still messed around with his head. Ana, why am I such a bitch sometimes?"
"It'll be okay, Kerbear." She pulls my head towards herself and let me cry in her tiny, delicate, beautiful arms. "Jonney acts like he doesn't want you losing weight." She snorts in an annoyed fashion. Obviously, she disagrees. "If he decides that he doesn't like the thin you, then its obvious that he wasn't right for you. maybe then this old friend of yours would take you back. He liked you when you were your thinnest. He'd probably like you again. For now, why don't you take some pain-killers for that migraine and go to sleep."
I hadn't noticed how much worse my headache had gotten until she mentioned it. I go to sleep for an hour or so until I wake up so thirsty I could drink an entire bathtub full of tea. I walk downstairs and put some water in the microwave to boil. Once I have shut the door I turn to where Ana is sitting on the kitchen counter reading my horoscope.
"It says you feel strongly attracted to people who are... lets see both their birthdays are in early May so that fits." She looks up at me proud of her little discovery. "Its your celestial destiny to be torn between the two of them babygirl. Good thing I love you more than either of them ever will, because I want to help you become the prettiest you can be, and the two of them only ever quarrel and brake your heart."
I know she is right, and so we lay that issue to rest. The microwave beeps and as I am taking the boiling water out, My migraine returns with a pang, messing up my balance and I sway a bit, catching myself, but spilling the burning liquid on my arm and hand. I scream and drop the glass on the floor. This startles Ana and she looks around frantically for my phone. She dials my mother's number and shoves the phone into my good hand. We run to the bathroom and start running cold water over my arm and hand as the phone rings for what seems like an eternity. Finally my mom answers her cell, and the sobs I finally cough up the sobs have been holding back to join the tears which are streaming down my face.
"Kerry?" My mom says, "What's wrong? Are you okay? Have your chest pains gotten worse?"
I try to tell her that I have burned myself but she cannot understand me. I get myself enough under control to tell her what is wrong, and soon she has left work, grabbed burn pads, and it rushing in the door. We bandage up my hand, and all that is left in me are dry sobs because I have run out of tears to cry.
"I guess I'll have to reschedule your driving practice for Driver's Ed." I know she is trying to be funny, and as much as I don't want to laugh, I knew she would say something like that, and so a laugh bubbles up to replace the sobs from moments before. She smiles, relieved that I am finally in a bit of a better mood, even though my hand is bandaged like Jack Sparrow's in POTC2... only with medicated gel burn pads underneath. She walks to the kitchen and returns with a bottle of painkillers left over from my wisdom teeth extraction a few months ago.
"You have to take those on an empty stomach." Ana whispers to me, "Good thing you're stomach is empty by now. Those things also knock you out and suppress your appetite."
Yeah, I remember. I think at her, Guess I'll be out for the rest of the day and I won't be getting any exercise.
We both sigh, but know I'm right. I just wish I didn't have to be. At least now I'll have several excuses not to eat, and excuses to give people for why I am losing weight so quickly again.
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