From that day forth, I made it my goal to become that person nobody could ever hurt again. Especially him. Ready for a change, I got Mum to change my hair before I went back home so I wouldn’t see that broken girl in the mirror anymore. Instead of letting it be the curly mess it normally was, I now wore it in dreads. Over time, my taste for fashion changed and instead of wearing colorful outfits, I wore black. One could say I went gothic. To match the darkness of my clothing, I changed the way I acted around people. That bitch that I hated people seeing was now out 24/7 with the only exceptions being when I was alone with Fluffy or around Elizabeth. Sometimes the nicer side of me would break free around my other siblings or parents, but it was slowly becoming rarer and rarer. I associated the nice side of me with getting hurt, so out of fear of getting hurt again, she never got to come out.
Everything about me changed. The way I spoke, the way I dressed, the way I presented myself… everything. Right down to my weight. In the span of a few months, I had dropped a significant amount of weight, beginning to delve into the underweight category. I restricted myself to only a meal a day, and not a very big one at that. I did not care that hunger pangs would make me feel horribly sick throughout the day. Most days, I followed through with this routine of starving myself until the evening before allowing myself some food. However, it didn’t always work out as I planned.
Some days my willpower just wasn’t strong enough and I would break when I finally let myself eat, leading to massive binges. That’s when that line would repeat in my head over and over. I was so scared of becoming that woman he desired that almost 90% of the time, I would force myself to purge all the food from those binges. My throat would burn, my legs felt weak all the time, and every part of me ached, but I only convinced myself this was worth the pain. I would take this pain over experiencing that ever again.
* * * * *
A few weeks before Elizabeth’s birthday, Mum arranged for her and I to go out and get her birthday present. Part of the reason she insisted we do this was because she wanted to make sure I was okay, but she tried to convince me she just wanted some mother daughter bonding time. Ever since going back home, I hadn’t visited. No particular reasoning for it, really. I was just caught up in my own situation and wanted to be left alone.
That morning wasn’t one of my better ones, unfortunately. Dragging myself out of bed was a chore with how little energy I had. Feeling a bit ambitious, I was on a multiple day fasting streak. I wasn’t sure when I would end it quite yet, but I was in too deep to simply quit a few days in, even if it was killing my energy.
“F-Fluffy…?” I mumbled groggily while reaching out lazily for him. A little green snake head poked up from the side of the bed. He gave me a gentle good morning nudge before slithering up onto the bed to help me up. This morning however, I would get the pleasure of him being extra difficult about my health. When he was on the bed, he gave me a nudge and paused. He gave me a look and I immediately knew what he was going to do.
See, Fluffy quickly adapted to my deteriorating health and became a sort of service snake in a sense. Knowing what to look for when it came to how I was feeling physically, he could tell when my blood sugars or blood pressure were low or high, or if my asthma was kicking in and I needed to calm down. Stuff like that. Against my will, he insisted on warning me when these things were going on. How? With a ridiculous dance. It went something like this: wiggle, wiggle, head bob, wiggle, tap, tap, hiss. Maybe an extra wiggle here and there for good measure. It was hard to miss, and I think that may have been the point.
“Don’t.” I growled with a glare. Glaring back, he started wiggling and head bobbing. “Oh, for cripes sake…”
After finishing his dance, he gave a stern hiss telling me to stay, and then quickly slithered to the kitchen to get a snack and a drink. Not in the mood, I forced myself up. It took a few tries and my vision kept blacking out when I sat up, but I got there in the end. Right in time for Fluffy to rush back in with a biscuit and cup of juice wrapped up in his body. How he always managed to get around while carrying things was beyond me.
“I’m fine.” I groaned. “See? I’m sitting up. I don’t need that junk.”
Hiss. Hissss.
“Oh, shush you. I’ll be fine.”
Hisss hiss hiss. Hiss.
“Alright, alright! I’ll have dinner tonight! But I am not eating right now!”
Hiss.
He pushed the cup of juice towards me with a stern look. Damn snake wasn’t backing down, and I knew he could wrap around me and hold me down if he really wanted. The juice was mandatory. No arguments.
“Ugh, fine.” I grumbled. I grabbed the cup and took a sip. When I tried to put it back down, I was met with a stern hiss. “Do I have to drink all of it?”
Hiss.
“I don’t get why a sip isn’t enough, but fine.”
He didn’t take his eyes off me until I finished all of it. Imagine. Being watched by a snake because he couldn’t trust me to drink a cup of juice. Welcome to my life.
Streets were packed full of people trying to get from place to place before the sun set for the day. There were too few hours in the day to get everything done. I would’ve preferred going when it wasn’t so busy, but Mum and I already agreed to a time. Running a bit late, I fought through the crowd of people to get to our meeting spot in a nearby park. Thankfully that place was significantly emptier and once I got through the gates, I finally had my personal space bubble back.
“Beatrice!?” I heard Mum gasp in shock when she saw me from a nearby bench. Looking quite concerned, she rushed over to me, growing more concerned with every step she took towards me.
“Glad to see you too.” I tried to say without sounding annoyed as Hell. “Is there something on my face or something-”
“No, it’s the lack of you that’s scaring me!” Gently, she cupped my cheek and gave me a pained look. “Are you eating? Are you sick?”
“I’m fine. I’m eating fine.” I lied knowing full well that I was fast approaching double digits with how I was going. Fluffy made sure I knew how unimpressed he was with my lies by slithering up to my shoulder so he could glare at me. “I’m just on a diet. Trying to lose all that extra weight-”
“Well, you’ve lost too much! You look sick! There’s nothing to you!”
“There’s enough of me.” I growled, pulling away.
“We’re going out for lunch. No arguments.”
“I had lunch earlier.”
“Don’t lie to me, Beatrice.”
“I’m not-” I felt Fluffy stir a bit, wrapping my arm tighter than normal which meant he was either worried or irritated with my behavior. “Fine. Fine, I’ll have lunch. But I want to get Elizabeth’s present first.”
“Fine. Where are we headed then?”
Elizabeth was a little artist, so of course I had to fuel the talent. We visited a few art stores so I could pick up various sketchbooks and art supplies. When I had what I needed an hour later, I hoped Mum would forget about lunch. The whole time I fought to hide how weak I was feeling, and I wasn’t going to be happy if I still had to eat lunch in the end. Especially knowing I already promised Fluffy dinner later. Eating twice in a day just felt unnecessary. Sadly, Mum didn’t forget and saw through my attempts to hide my condition. Lunch was still a go. Ugh.
Turns out eating solid food after fasting for a few days wasn’t a great idea. My stomach was determined to make my life suck with the amount of pain I was in. It was so bad that Mum nearly dragged me to her place after we got Elizabeth’s gift because of how much I was hobbling around and clutching my stomach. I just barely made it out of that situation, but not without any strings attached. Very sternly, I was told that if I didn’t get my ass in gear by Elizabeth’s birthday, I would be forced to stay with my parents and they would be getting a doctor involved so I could gain the weight back. Through gritted teeth, I told her I would get it under control and she wouldn’t have to worry. Did I actually plan on it? No.
Exhausted, I collapsed onto the couch. I was really looking forward to going to bed.
Hiss.
Fluffy nudged me. With an annoyed look, I let my head fall sideways on the pillow so I was facing him. “What.”
Hiss. Hiss hisss hiss.
“Come on, I had lunch. That’s just as good as dinner.”
That response earned me another glare. His patience was running thin.
“Ugh, fine. I’m going.” I groaned, forcing myself up and over to the kitchen. Not really interested in much, I circled around trying to think of something that wouldn’t make me feel too bad. Apparently there wasn’t much. There was plenty that would make me feel like garbage, but nothing safe. Trying to help, Fluffy picked out something from the pantry and pushed it my way. Tired and defeated, I took it without any arguments. Things only went downhill from there.
My all or nothing mentality kicked in. Having lunch earlier made me feel as though I messed up the day, therefore I might as well just give up. If I treated myself like a garbage disposal now, it would be gone and I wouldn’t have to worry about eating it all the next day. Flawed logic, but at that point I wasn’t really thinking straight. All control I had was gone and I couldn’t stop myself. This was the one behavior Fluffy never understood that I wanted him to stop. Binging like this was awful for my health and waistline and if I did it too much, I would end up hurt again. So why did he always let me do it? Maybe in his tiny snake brain he thought it was good for me that I was eating. Especially after fasting and with my weight dropping. He couldn’t comprehend the mentality behind it quite yet, but he seemed to be slowly catching on with the more that it happened.
What I did after binging was a different story though. Desperately he would try to stop me from puking everything back up with little to no success. Some days he could get me to keep a bit down, but on days like this, I was hurting so bad that I couldn’t stop. It went on for hours. Back and forth, back and forth. A waste of food and a danger to my insides. By the time I stopped, it was because I physically couldn’t continue anymore. Most moments of weakness weren’t this bad. This was just an especially bad one, presumably because I didn’t eat for so long and then Mum messed up my schedule with lunch.
Shaky and weak, I dragged myself to bed. Fluffy was helping me in any way he could think of. Honestly, how he put up with me, I had no idea. As I passed by my bedroom mirror, I cringed at my body. It had thinned out majorly, and with every pound I lost, I only hated it more. Enough that it made me feel sick. Before I could barf again, I collapsed into bed. Tears streamed down my cheeks as Fluffy pulled a blanket over me and cuddled up to try and comfort me.
Sometimes I really wondered if all this was worth it. If it was worth the never ending suffering and self hatred. But then I would remember that moment and suddenly this pain would feel like nothing.
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