crash&burn.

   "Please take off your bra, shirt, skirt, and shoes. Here's your gown."

   I take the pale blue piece of fabric the nurse hands me. It's limp, like the skinned hide of some sad, blue thing. I put on the skin and take off my own, so I am disguised when I step on the scale.

  "Oh, you weigh ---." The nurse says, jotting down the number and a note next to it.

   Still in triple digits.

   I smile and step off. I want to cry [i seem to do a lot of that lately]. I remember a few months ago being jealous, so fucking jealous, of girls at my current weight. But I still feel huge. I feel alien. The smaller I get, the bigger I feel.

   After my weigh-in, they do tests to check my health. They tell me that yeah, I seem fine, and I can start running again. I never stopped.

  Later, on the drive home: "Mom, why did you tell the new doctor I was sent to the hospital for four days of bulimia? I was sent to the hospital because I didn't eat for a week." I also didn't have an eating disorder for four stupid days. I'd had one for two years.

   "That's what happened. You were throwing up what you ate for four days."

  "Mom, I was in the hospital because I didn't eat for a week and wasn't drinking."

   She throws her arms in the air, gives me a dirty look, and rolls her eyes. "Whatever, Ari. I'm not going to argue the fine print with you."

   "I think he should know what ACTUALLY happened, though," I said, getting annoyed.

   "Stop arguing."

   She didn't even whine about the weight the scale said. Less than last time, way less. If I drop about five more pounds, she'll start talking about how I'm too thin for my height and that I'm unhealthy.
    But if a doctor can't figure out something's not right, everything must be okay. If my blood pressure isn't too low to notice and my heart rate isn't too slowed, I'm fine. If my weight is in triple digits, it doesn't matter about what happens behind the scenes.