She lets her hands wander over her waist. She pokes the skin, watches the fingertip disappear. She grabs a handful of skin and subcutaneous fat, pulls it, lets it go. She breathes in, tries to make her belly as flat as possible. She looks at it in the mirror from the side. She releases the air in her lungs, watches as her stomach grows. She stares at it for a while. Then she goes back to touching it. Tears fill her eyes. She blinks them away. She puts her t-shirt back on. She leaves the dressing room, and gives all of the items she carefully collected in the store to the staff member waiting outside the dressing room, without looking her in the eye. With her head down, she walks out.

 

She meets up a friend for lunch. She has a cup of green tea, no sugar, with the explanation that she's already eaten. She hasn't. For dinner, she has two pieces of crisp bread. She can't sleep. Her stomach keeps telling her to eat. She refuses. "A girl who goes to sleep hungry wakes up skinnier" she thinks. It becomes a mantra, the sentence getting hold of her, until there's no space left in her brain for anything else.

 

Everything becomes a competition against her own body. How many calories can I avoid eating today? Can I eat 10 less than I had yesterday? How many days can I go without eating? Is it possible to make it a week? Does one even need food to function? Maybe water with lemon is sufficient?

 

Daily, she checks her image in the mirror. "Is it done yet? Have I succeeded?". The figure she sees becomes less and less perfect. She desperately tries to speed it up, her fight for The Body. "I want a perfect body, I want a perfect soul."

 

She has stopped crying; it's too exhausting, her body can't handle it. She has stopped being angry; angry takes effort, effort she can no longer give, due to lack of energy. She has stopped calling her parents; picking up the phone makes her tired, and even more so their worried voices. She has stopped seeing friends; she can't stand their worried glances - she's just trying to be perfect, what do they know about perfection? They're all beautiful. She has stopped doing so many things, and one after the other, her organs follow her example. They shut down, one by one. They, too, are exhausted. She falls. Everything goes black.

 

She wakes up in a room with white walls. There's a fan in the cieling. She feels groggy. She tries to turn her head, but it feels like her muscles have given up. Someone comes up to her.

 

"Oh thank God, you're awake!"

 

She tries to reply, but her lips won't take orders.

 

"No no, shh, don't say anything. There'll be time for that later. For now, just rest. Everything will be okay, my perfect, little daughter."

 

Perfect.

 

She was finally perfect.

 

She smiled vaguely before she fell asleep.