Fatal Impact

Party Platter

"Oh my god! That dress looks amazing on you!" My best friend shouted when I pulled the curtain of the fitting room apart and stepped out.

She was the only one who agreed to come shopping with me when I asked the few girlfriends that I have left. I have no one but myself to blame for that, but I'm glad that she came. It was a relief to still have my best friend. Plus her compliment gave me the push I needed to buy the dress.

"You are way too thin, girl. We need to get some cheeseburgers in your stomach pronto!"

"I um, I ate before I left home. Not enough money to buy that junk." I quickly closed the curtains again and changed out of the dress. I could hear her sigh coming from the outside, and I knew it was because I denied her offer for food.

All of my time and energy, starving, and planning was for this dress. I wasn't going to waste it on a cheeseburger.

"Let's go find some shoes to match that gorgeous dress," she said when I came back out. She linked her arm through mine and laughed, practically jumping up and down. "I'm so excited for Saturday night!"

"So am I," I grinned. For once I actually meant it.

                                                               ~ * ~

On the night of my sixteenth birthday party, my self esteem was destroyed forever. I had come down from my bedroom in a red dress that I absolutely adored. It was a smooth and flowy babydoll dress that came to the spot just above my knees.

I did my best to make sure that my hair and make-up looked perfect, and I thought I looked amazing in the dress. It was the first time in a very long time that I had felt that way.

All the sports and years of near starvation had made me look extra thin, which made my grin larger than should be possible.

For once I thought that I was in the same league as my friends. I was finally able to stand beside them and exude the same confidence that I had seen in them for years. That night, I felt like their equal.

That confidence disappeared when my mother saw me. "Are you sure that's the dress you want to wear?" She had asked. When I just looked at her in astonished confusion, all she said was, "well, I mean, it's not exactly flattering for your body type. I think a floor length dress would suit you better."

I tried my absolute hardest to ignore her comment and enjoy my night. Maybe she hadn't meant it in the way that I took it. It still hurt, though. It was hard to forget that she had said it.

All of my friends complimented me, saying that I looked amazing, but the words my mother had spoken outweighed theirs by a mile. Her words were the ones that had me pulling my dress down with false hopes that it would stretch and be longer.

When the dinner was ready and I was serving myself my second plate of food, my father came up to me with a smile on his face. "How many plates is that now, sweetie? You'd wanna be careful. What is it that you girls say? It'll go straight to your things? Besides, all your friends are finished eating, so why don't you go dance or something?"

That second plate of food ended up in the bin, and I didn't eat anything else for a week.

A birthday dinner might not seem all that significant, but when you starve yourself planning every single bit of food that you eat, weeks and months ahead, a small plate of food becomes a promise that you make to yourself.

It's an accomplishment, and sometimes it's even a step towards recovery. It's something to be proud of. That birthday dinner was my planned meal. It was supposed to be my accomplishment.

It was the one night that I promised myself that I would eat more than a piece of cheese, and my father had shut that idea down. He made me break the promise I had made to myself, and for the rest of the night, all I could think was, "You're getting chubby there, missy."

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V o t e | C o m m e n t | Fo l l o w

Hi there everyone! Thanks so much for reading this far! There's only a few more short chapters to go. This story is very personal to me and close to my heart. I have entered it into the Wattpad Prize under the Best Inspirational category, so your support would mean the absolute world to me!

~Alyssa