How To Lose Weight And Survive The Apocalypse

Chapter 13

"I am so sick of crapping over holes," I grumbled to Bailey as we walked into the bush together.

"You should poop at the rest stops," said Bailey, referencing the roadside toilet blocks that featured drop toilets.

"I can't crap on cue."

"Then stop bitching."

"Thanks for the understanding."

I walked away from Bailey, looking for somewhere bullant-free to squat. Bailey followed me. "Karla, are you okay?"

I wasn't. I was wobbly and irritable and empty. I hadn't pooped at the rest stops because I hadn't had anything to process. Even the complaining about toilets was just for show – I'd used disordered eating in the past to lose weight, so I knew that I had to keep up the pretence of eating or people would tell me, 'Oh, but you have to eat!'

If I eat, I don't lose weight. It wasn't fair, but that was the truth. 'Eating moderately' had never worked for me. I might not have gained weight, but I didn't lose any either. The only way to shed fat was to punish my body, to starve and purge, to hate myself enough to deny myself everything.

Oh, the irony. People saw a fat girl eating and they disapproved. Saw a fat girl starving herself, they objected. So the solution was to pretend I was eating healthily and in a way that society deemed appropriate, while secretly starving myself.

"I'm fine," was all I said to Bailey. I waved a roll of toilet paper at them. "Do you want to watch?"

"No, I just wanted to check in. I know I've been... absorbed lately."

Watching Bailey blush sent a warm blast through my cold heart. "How are things with Nev going?"

"They're amazing. I know the world has changed forever, and people have died, and I shouldn't feel good about it, but I do." They smiled, pure and smitten. "I've never been this happy before. I love her."

"Slow down, Bailes," I cautioned. "Get to know her."

"I do know her. I've spent years getting to know her – and now I know her in a different way."

"Biblically?" I asked, injecting innocence into my voice.

"Don't be uncouth," said Bailey, rolling their grey eyes to the swiftly darkening sky. "Yes, I'm getting to know her body, but we're talking, really talking. About our feelings and our fears and our hopes. And everything I find out, I want to know more."

Bailey plucked a flower growing from a vine entangled around a eucalyptus trunk, the bloom an almost-erotic purple. "And even crazier – she accepts me. She doesn't care about who I am or who I'm not – she just holds me. I trust her, like I've never trusted anyone before."

"Even me?" I didn't mean to be so needy, but Bailey and I had been close friends for so long, the idea they didn't trust me was awful.

Bailey replied, "It's not the same and you know it. I trust you as my friend – I trust her with my heart."

Trust. There was that word again. My vision started to cloud over, hunger and fatigue working hard to put me on my arse, so I quickly said, "I'm happy if you are, Bailey. Now, get out of here, because I don't trust that you'll ever be able to look me in the eyes again if you witness what I'm about to do." I lifted the toilet paper as a reminder of my supposedly imminent defecation.

Bailey slapped their long fingers over their eyes. "Okay, I'll see you back there. Have fun."

I waited until they were out of sight among the thick trees, then slumped to the ground, weak and shaky. The sky grew darker as I vagued out, and when I finally felt strong enough to push to my feet and make my way back to the campsite, it was night.