She slices her chicken into strips and keeps glancing at the pager, which is sitting next to her napkin.
Maybe she’ll drop some water on it. Then it’d stop working.
“How was your day, Mom?” I ask through a mouthful of chicken.
“Okay. I had to perform emergency surgery on a woman who ate cheeseburgers for the past twenty-five years.” She shakes her head.
“Will she make it?”
“I doubt it. She was a mess. Her blood sugar was awful and her heart rate was through the roof.” She explains.
My mom is a cardio surgeon. She spends her days performing surgeries on people who’d die without major surgery.
“Okay. I’m done. Can I go now?” I stuff some vegetables into my mouth and get up from the table.
She nods absentmindedly.
I sprint for the bathroom. I lean over the toilet and stick my finger down my throat. The cesspool empties and I flush the mess out of sight.
I gargle with some mouthwash and rinse my wrist with cold water before leaving the bathroom.
No need to terrify Mom yet.
Once I’m in my room, there’s no way that I can hide in the shadows. They reach through my chest and twist around my heart.
Cutting will take care of this, you know. They whisper. The empty words explode through my skull. Or… you could go eat some more food.
No. I am not eating anything else. I cannot eat any more.
I’m empty, clean and strong inside. Eating won’t help me get skinny but cutting can help alleviate the pain.
I stare out my bedroom window. The sky is darkening and the sun is disappearing behind the hills.
The night is worse than the day for me, because in the night time I can’t escape from the darkness.