The next few days were a fight. All I wanted to do was sleep all day. I barely got off the couch, not even to eat. Nobody was allowed to touch me, and I got very cranky if they even tried to talk to me. Elizabeth was the only one who I could tolerate. Around her, I did my best to be the same big sister I normally was around her, but I couldn’t seem to do it. Mentally, I was just too drained.
“Beatrice?” Mum came over to me with a plate of food. Quietly, she sat down next to me. “I brought you lunch. You haven’t eaten in a while, and you really should.”
“Not hungry,” I mumbled, pulling the blanket over my head.
“C’mon.” Mum sighed, pulling the blanket off of me carefully. “I know you don’t want to, but you need to. Even if it’s just a little bit.”
I groaned and finally sat up. Probably the most I had done in the past few days. Reluctantly, I took the plate and placed it on my lap. She made my favorite meal of breakfast sausages and eggs, which I did think was quite sweet. Not wanting to disregard her attempts to make me feel better, I quietly picked at it and started eating.
“How are you feeling today?” Mum asked quietly.
I shrugged.
“Not much better, huh?”
Once again, I shrugged.
“How about we try to go and do something?” Mum tried. “Elizabeth has been wanting to spend time with you. Maybe we could all go for a small walk?”
For the third time, I shrugged.
Mum sighed. “Once you’re done eating, we’ll all go for a walk, okay?”
I nodded and kept eating my meal.
Sure enough, later Mum dragged me off the couch and brought me for a walk with her and my younger siblings. I wasn’t at all interested, but she was right. It was time I got off the couch. While Mum and Angel talked, I watched Elizabeth race Fluffy back and forth as she normally did.
“Big sister?” Elizabeth came up to me. Lately, she was a lot more careful with touching me, and only did it if I let her. “Do you want to race Fluffy and me?”
“Not really,” I mumbled. Her smile dropped and she turned around with her head hung low. The soft spot in my heart for her hurt greatly seeing that and I couldn’t let myself upset her like that.
“Alright, alright.” I sighed. “I’ll race.”
“Yay!!” She cheered, grabbing me by the hand and pulling me over to the “starting line”. Fluffy looked up at me, looking excited but also worried. I did my best to smile at him to let him know I was ok, but I was too drained to manage much of a smile.
“Ready?” My little sister got all prepared like this would be the race of a lifetime. “Three! Two! One! GO!”
We all took off. At first, I was a bit slow. Energy to run wasn’t something I had. But after a few seconds of feeling the wind in my hair, I picked up speed. It was almost freeing. I didn’t want to stop.
“I win!!” Elizabeth cheered as she got to the supposed finish line. “Yes!!”
“Good job.” I laughed for the first time in days. I stopped and caught my breath. Even though I was out of breath, I wanted to keep running. So I did. I turned around and took off. “Bet you can’t beat me to the starting line!”
“Hey!! That’s not fair!” Elizabeth immediately took off after me, trying to catch up. Fluffy was utterly shocked by my burst of energy and quickly slithered after me. With my head start, I was the clear winner. When I got there, Mum and Angel gave me a pretty surprised look. After a few days of not getting off the couch, they hardly expected me to be smiling like I was. Nor did they expect me to keep running around with Elizabeth. Perhaps the fresh air was what I needed. Life is full of surprises, isn’t it?
* * * * *
When we got back inside, I was starving after all that running. Without much thinking, I headed to the kitchen and made myself a pretty big meal. After barely eating for a few days, I felt I deserved whatever I wanted, so I didn’t hold back. Mum was happy to see me finally eating without her having to force me to and wasn’t at all bothered by my behemoth of a meal. Physical and emotional hunger got to me and somehow, I managed to stomach eating all of it in one sitting, plus going for more after.
Regret hit me not too long after. Eating so much like that definitely was not one of my better choices. I later found myself in the washroom, feeling quite sick. The chances of me actually puking were quite slim, but just in case, I hung out near the toilet. The last thing I wanted to do was puke on Mum’s nice furniture. I paced the bathroom floor a bit before catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror. There was a pretty large mirror, so it wasn’t hard to miss.
For most of my life, I had been okay with my body. Yeah, I did wish I had more curves like my sisters did, but other than that, I was content. Even when I had gained a significant amount of weight in my early teens. Weight never bothered me.
I much prefer a woman with some meat on her.
But today, it did. That comment repeated in my head over and over. Looking at my body made me feel utterly sick. This was the body that monster felt he had the right to put his grimy hands all over. Knowing he was attracted to the fact I was chubby only made me feel worse about it. The last thing I wanted was for that monster to even be attracted to me. Feeling my stomach turn just by thinking of it, I had the immediate need to puke. The desire to do it was too much and I rushed over to the toilet, shoved my fingers down my throat, and purged everything I possibly could. There would be no way in hell he would ever be thinking of me as attractive if he ever saw me again. This ‘meat’ he loved was getting burned off and I didn’t care how it happened. Nobody was ever going to hurt me like that again.
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