The sweet scent spirals up from the cup in the form of hot, white steam. She cups her hands over the mouth of the mug and lets the silvery wisps collect in her palms, and feels them warm up her frozen fingers.
She won’t do anything more than that.
She will not let herself take a sip of the hot chocolate, of the 193.4-calorie drink. 193.4.
She can’t get any fatter. She can’t drink it. Maybe she can have it now and throw up later. But she hates the bitter taste of bile that lingers in her mouth whenever she does so. She’s jealous of her friends who can do it, who can just have everything they want and get rid of it after spending a minute retching into the toilet bowl.
Yet being jealous doesn’t do anything.
If she can’t throw up, she shouldn’t eat. It’s as simple as that.
Next to her, her younger siblings chug the hot chocolate, as if they haven’t had anything for a week. Her brother is the one who finishes first. He slams the glass mug on the table, lets out a satisfied sigh, and turns to look at her. His eyes shrink into two crescent moons behind his steamed glasses.
“Aren’t you going to have yours?” he asks.
His smile is bright and big and cheerful, and his teeth are perfectly square and white like polished tiles. His smile is almost perfect. Almost.
She stares at the soft flab of his double chin, watching how it jiggles. She tells herself it looks hideous.
It is hideous.
She once used to look like that, and she looked hideous. And she would never let that happen again.
Still, after hesitating for a split second, she looks down at the warm drink.
Small, half-melted marshmallows drift on the surface, clumped together into one, squishy island. Fluffy cream is swirling its way through the drink, and the chocolate sprinkles are gently sinking into the brown foam that had collected at the rim.
‘Drink all of it,’ her mother had told her before leaving the kitchen. ‘When I come back, I want to see that cup empty.’
She frowns as she replays her mother’s words in her mind, feeling her growing irritation claw at her insides. She decides to pour the drink down the sink and leave the dark stains there, so her mother would know that she would never be able to change her daughter’s mind. But then, at the same time, she thinks that the drink seems so rich, so sweet, so warm. Unconsciously, she cups the mug in her hands and takes it to her lips. Only when the drink burns her lips does she notice what she is doing.
She lets the cup fall from her hands and to the table. The loud clatter makes both her siblings jump. A spray of brown stains the wooden surface, but she doesn’t even bother to wipe it away.
Her stomach is growling so terribly that it hurts.
Quickly, she imagines that there are bugs swimming in the mixture. Spiders, tiny, tiny spiders, with their tiny, tiny legs flailing about as they squirm from the heat. If she drinks the hot chocolate, she’ll feel the spiders’ legs wriggling in her throat, tickling and scratching all the way down. Some might manage to cling onto the walls of the throat, climb up to her head, and come out of her mouth and nostrils and eyes. Some might burrow in the lungs and lay eggs there, and when the eggs hatch, the tiny spiders will run all around her body, making soft pitter-patters as they run from organ to organ, limb to limb.
She can’t let that happen.
“Sorry,” she finally mumbles, rubbing her skin to get rid of the gooseflesh. “I’m not hungry. I don’t want it.”
Her brother’s hazel eyes instantly brighten up. “Can I have it then?”
She pushes the mug into his hands.
The boy laughs happily, unnecessarily wipes the dry milk moustache on his upper lip, and takes a long sip of hot chocolate. Of spiders.
She tries to convince herself that it is disgusting.
It works in the beginning, but as the boy’s gulps become longer and louder, as the sickeningly sweet scent permeates through the air, she finds her eyes glued onto her brother. Sticky saliva fills up her empty mouth.
Spotting her out of the corner of his eye, her brother stops drinking. He tilts his head, examining her for a second before he breaks into a smile again. He swirls the leftover cocoa in the mug.
“Want some?”
She shakes her head violently and walks out of the kitchen.
When she reaches her bedroom, she shuts the door behind her and goes up to the mirror. Slowly, she peels the lower portion of her fabric shirt up to her shoulders. She stares at her reflection, and she marvels at how wonderful she looks like this, with her ribcage pressing sharply against her stomach, her elbows and knees jutting out at deadly angles, her stomach caving in right at the center, as if someone had carved a lump of fat out just there, and her collarbones dug so deep that one could fit a handful of pebbles in each of them.
She looks beautiful. Skinny. And she can’t let this slip away from her.
All of a sudden, tears start making their way down her face, leaving wet splotches in her perfect arms and legs, as thick as a normal person’s wrist. A soft sob climbs up her throat, and she collapses to the ground, clasping her hands around her lips to muffle the cries. She believes that she is crying because she is so happy, so happy with how she looks, of what she achieved.
But then, deep down, she knows that she is also terribly frightened.
Both for and of, herself.
She won’t do anything more than that.
She will not let herself take a sip of the hot chocolate, of the 193.4-calorie drink. 193.4.
She can’t get any fatter. She can’t drink it. Maybe she can have it now and throw up later. But she hates the bitter taste of bile that lingers in her mouth whenever she does so. She’s jealous of her friends who can do it, who can just have everything they want and get rid of it after spending a minute retching into the toilet bowl.
Yet being jealous doesn’t do anything.
If she can’t throw up, she shouldn’t eat. It’s as simple as that.
Next to her, her younger siblings chug the hot chocolate, as if they haven’t had anything for a week. Her brother is the one who finishes first. He slams the glass mug on the table, lets out a satisfied sigh, and turns to look at her. His eyes shrink into two crescent moons behind his steamed glasses.
“Aren’t you going to have yours?” he asks.
His smile is bright and big and cheerful, and his teeth are perfectly square and white like polished tiles. His smile is almost perfect. Almost.
She stares at the soft flab of his double chin, watching how it jiggles. She tells herself it looks hideous.
It is hideous.
She once used to look like that, and she looked hideous. And she would never let that happen again.
Still, after hesitating for a split second, she looks down at the warm drink.
Small, half-melted marshmallows drift on the surface, clumped together into one, squishy island. Fluffy cream is swirling its way through the drink, and the chocolate sprinkles are gently sinking into the brown foam that had collected at the rim.
‘Drink all of it,’ her mother had told her before leaving the kitchen. ‘When I come back, I want to see that cup empty.’
She frowns as she replays her mother’s words in her mind, feeling her growing irritation claw at her insides. She decides to pour the drink down the sink and leave the dark stains there, so her mother would know that she would never be able to change her daughter’s mind. But then, at the same time, she thinks that the drink seems so rich, so sweet, so warm. Unconsciously, she cups the mug in her hands and takes it to her lips. Only when the drink burns her lips does she notice what she is doing.
She lets the cup fall from her hands and to the table. The loud clatter makes both her siblings jump. A spray of brown stains the wooden surface, but she doesn’t even bother to wipe it away.
Her stomach is growling so terribly that it hurts.
Quickly, she imagines that there are bugs swimming in the mixture. Spiders, tiny, tiny spiders, with their tiny, tiny legs flailing about as they squirm from the heat. If she drinks the hot chocolate, she’ll feel the spiders’ legs wriggling in her throat, tickling and scratching all the way down. Some might manage to cling onto the walls of the throat, climb up to her head, and come out of her mouth and nostrils and eyes. Some might burrow in the lungs and lay eggs there, and when the eggs hatch, the tiny spiders will run all around her body, making soft pitter-patters as they run from organ to organ, limb to limb.
She can’t let that happen.
“Sorry,” she finally mumbles, rubbing her skin to get rid of the gooseflesh. “I’m not hungry. I don’t want it.”
Her brother’s hazel eyes instantly brighten up. “Can I have it then?”
She pushes the mug into his hands.
The boy laughs happily, unnecessarily wipes the dry milk moustache on his upper lip, and takes a long sip of hot chocolate. Of spiders.
She tries to convince herself that it is disgusting.
It works in the beginning, but as the boy’s gulps become longer and louder, as the sickeningly sweet scent permeates through the air, she finds her eyes glued onto her brother. Sticky saliva fills up her empty mouth.
Spotting her out of the corner of his eye, her brother stops drinking. He tilts his head, examining her for a second before he breaks into a smile again. He swirls the leftover cocoa in the mug.
“Want some?”
She shakes her head violently and walks out of the kitchen.
When she reaches her bedroom, she shuts the door behind her and goes up to the mirror. Slowly, she peels the lower portion of her fabric shirt up to her shoulders. She stares at her reflection, and she marvels at how wonderful she looks like this, with her ribcage pressing sharply against her stomach, her elbows and knees jutting out at deadly angles, her stomach caving in right at the center, as if someone had carved a lump of fat out just there, and her collarbones dug so deep that one could fit a handful of pebbles in each of them.
She looks beautiful. Skinny. And she can’t let this slip away from her.
All of a sudden, tears start making their way down her face, leaving wet splotches in her perfect arms and legs, as thick as a normal person’s wrist. A soft sob climbs up her throat, and she collapses to the ground, clasping her hands around her lips to muffle the cries. She believes that she is crying because she is so happy, so happy with how she looks, of what she achieved.
But then, deep down, she knows that she is also terribly frightened.
Both for and of, herself.
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