Outside In (14 page)

Nobody was home on Thursday nights. Johann had orchestra practice. Her mother, Hannah, did overtime at Legal Aid. Pro bono. Helping.

Every other night, Cecilia had dance training. Dancing off the molecules of fruit and salad she had allowed herself. That was followed by homework, and then in bed early, because she needed to stay focused.

She was so sick of staying focused, of trying to get everything right. And what was the point, really, when life just kept on spinning off the rails regardless?

A note on the fridge in her mother's handwriting
suggested
that she put in a little extra practice on her pirouettes. Johann had prepared dinner for her, a stir-fry. There were music scores on the bench beside the wok. He never stopped working. Neither of them did, really. They were role models of success.

Cecilia dumped most of the dinner into a plastic bag and took the bag to the outside bin. She left snow peas on her plate. They both knew she didn't like snow peas.

They both knew nothing about her.

In her room, under the bed, there was the stash. In the canvas bag. Cecilia was barely sitting down before she began.

There was an order to how she did it. She knew it off by heart. There was relief, surrender, as she crammed chips into her mouth. Each mouthful made her more hungry. Her body was a black hole, screaming to be filled.

She had to be quick, had to rush, couldn't afford too much time or her body would begin to digest. The food would become part of her, lodged and permanent. It would grow inside her.

She took sips of water between the mouthfuls. Another helpful tip from the website. It would aid the process, help to soften the mass of food. For later.

The swap from savoury to sweet was seamless. The tastes overlapped.

Cecilia sat on the carpet next to her bed, stuffing down marshmallows. The ice-cream was liquid. She drank it.

Her mouth was still full when she lit a scented candle. She locked the door of the ensuite, though no-one was home. It was her very own ensuite, complete with matching towels and tiny soaps in a circle, because she had everything, didn't she?

Cecilia held her hair back with one hand. With the other, two fingers down her throat. A flutter of fingertips on tonsils was all it took. A lurch of the gut, and everything surged upwards. The chips had been a mistake – she had forgotten that the website had a tip on that too. There were jagged bits in her throat, and it hurt as they vaulted from throat to toilet. Her arm circled the toilet bowl, her knees pressed on the cold tiles.

Again and again, until nothing more would come. Until there was nothing more inside her. Nothing.

The cleaning was part of it. Cecilia scrubbed the toilet. She wiped around the sink. She replaced the soiled hand towel with an identical clean one. Folded it, arranged the soaps. She broke a brand-new toothbrush from its packet and cleaned her teeth and brushed her hair.

Only after that did the shame hit. Along with the raw throat, the aching stomach.

Cecilia unlocked the door of the ensuite and walked like an old lady into the bedroom. Her white leotard hung from the doorknob, reminding her of two mistakes she'd made during the dance recital. Her mother was right, her pirouette had been sloppy, her pointe work too.

So many mistakes she'd made.

Stripped down to singlet and knickers, Cecilia opened the door of her built-in wardrobe. She angled the mirror to reflect the one on the bathroom door so that she could inspect herself, front and back.

Cecilia could count the flaws until she ran out of numbers.

The front. There
were
bumps in the singlet when she was standing upright. The nipples stuck out, pointing at the mirror. And there were hips, wide hips that were out of proportion to her top half. There was too much flesh at the top of the thighs.

At least the stomach was concave at the moment. A tiny reward for purging all that food. All that
food
…

The back was even worse, though. The bulge of her bottom bursting out of those cotton underpants. Thighs like tree trunks. And dimples! Disgusting.

She would have to work harder. She would drag her tired body into her bedroom and she would dance for at least sixty minutes. Three hundred calories.

It was war. Willpower versus weakness.

It felt like weakness was winning.

The doorbell chimed its orchestra music, clanging against the music blaring from her iPod speakers. Cecilia stopped dancing, stopped the music, froze.

Hers wasn't the kind of home where people popped in. They made a time. They were expected and prepared for. It was probably the Jehovah's Witnesses, scouting for souls.

Cecilia's soul was unavailable. If she stayed still, they would go away.

The cards her friends had given her after the dance recital stared at her from her desk, like three accusations. They were lined up in a row, the spaces perfectly equidistant.

Grace. Courage. Cecilia
. She was a fraud. Deserved none of them.

Whoever it was at the door wouldn't quit. Again and again with Beethoven's Fifth.

Cecilia groaned. She put on some leggings and a sweat and walked through the kitchen and opened the door.

‘We all need help with these problems, Cec,' Meredith said, and already she was walking through the door without an invitation. ‘It's not fair when Colton gives us all this homework.'

Jordan and Lee walked in behind Meredith, not saying anything.

Cecilia scratched her head. She had completed the problems two days ago, moved onto the next chapter. She was ahead of the class schedule, but still behind her own.

Cecilia's eyes were stuck on Lee. She sensed that there was something going on, something other than maths problems. Lee was the best bet to find out what it was. She was the indicator of truth.

But Cecilia could only glean that Lee was nervous. That she and the girls had an agenda that Lee wasn't comfortable with. It was in her eyes. They were blinking.

‘Those maths problems were easy,' Cecilia said softly.

What wasn't easy was this situation. It felt like a set-up. Cecilia felt the foul taste of bile rising, undoing the clean feeling of toothpaste. She stayed a safe distance from the others, moving back towards the front door, hoping they would get the hint and leave.

‘Cec, can we come in?' Lee asked. ‘Please?'

They walked past her, heading for her bedroom.

Her maths book and worksheets were laid out on her desk next to the cards. Cecilia silently willed them not to glance down. On the floor next to her bed was a clear plastic bag of rubbish from the binge. She hadn't taken it to the outside bin yet.

‘So, where are you guys up to so far?' she asked brightly, pulling the book towards her, holding it up high in the hope of keeping their eyes off the floor.

‘Cec, it's not about the maths,' Lee said quietly.

‘No,' Jordan agreed. ‘It's not.'

There was something missing from their voices. Or something extra in there. Cecilia wasn't sure. They were just different.

‘Cec, we're here to say something. We need to say something to you,' Meredith said, and it was weird hearing Meredith's soft and serious tone with no laugh in it.

‘Someone put a note in Lee's locker,' Meredith continued. ‘And anyway, we all suspected something was wrong. You never eat at school. Like,
never
. We're
worried
about you, Cec. Cec?'

The nothing inside Cecilia's stomach was churning. Her heart thumped as violently as it did after an hour straight of dance.

Lee blinked. She passed a torn page from a notepad to Cecilia. The words were handwritten, in writing she didn't recognise.

I think you should know that your friend was on a website at Coco's Cafe. It's a website that offers tips and tricks for anorexia and bulimia. I hope this information can help you help her.

That was it. There was nothing else on the page. It was already too much.

Cecilia felt the panic shoot through her body, rising up from her toes to her chest. Suddenly, she remembered the school dress, the legs as they walked towards the computer she'd been using. She could have kicked herself. How could she have been so careless? It was so stupid of her not to pay attention.

She had no idea who owned those legs. Who would do this to her?

‘This note doesn't mean anything,' Cecilia said, trying to sound calm. ‘It's probably just some crazy …'

She couldn't finish. Jordan was crouching down, opening the plastic bag of rubbish. Chip packets, ice-cream container, biscuit crumbs.

Cecilia felt as though she was going to faint. There didn't seem to be anything she could say. No lie she could weave together, this time.

She wished they would go, leave her alone.

‘Cec, we don't know who wrote the note,' Lee said, her voice wobbling a bit, ‘but we
do
think there's a problem. And we want to help you. We just don't understand why you're doing this to yourself.'

‘We rang a helpline,' Jordan said, and at least she was shoving the evidence back in the bag. At least now it was out of sight, pushed under the bed. ‘The thing is, they asked a heap of questions that we couldn't answer. Like, how do you see yourself? Do you have a real sense of how you actually look?'

‘You're tiny, Cec,' Meredith joined in. ‘Do you know that? And you're going to get sick if you keep going like this. We love you, we all do, and we want you to be well. The helpline lady explained that this is an illness, a disease. But she also said that it really needs to be
you
who rings. Cec, I don't know how to say this properly. But you're not just your body, you know.'

Cecilia's head ached. If only all this noise would go away. If only they would stop talking and asking questions.

‘Go,' she said. ‘Just get out.' Cecilia needed this to stop. Now. ‘Just go.'

The silence was deafening.

The girls seemed immune.

‘Cec, talk to us. Please,' Lee said, and there were tears building up in her eyes.

‘I can't,' Cecilia yelled. And she really couldn't. She wouldn't have known where to begin. She wouldn't have known when to stop.

‘I can't,' she said again, but this time her voice was soft.

‘Here,' Lee said, holding a card out to Cecilia. Cecilia didn't look up. Lee reached over and put it on Cecilia's desk, next to the card that said
Grace
. ‘It's the number for the helpline.'

Cecilia was a robot as they hugged her, one by one. She couldn't look at anyone. Their footsteps sounded up the hallway. The front door was gently closed.

And then she was alone.

Cecilia slumped on the carpet floor. She smelled the incense oil, gulped back the nasty taste in her mouth. It was a while before she could think at all.

She stared at the cards on her desk. Reaching under the bed, she brought the plastic bag out from under the bed. She counted the empty packets.

Her throat ached with raw sadness as she took the cards from her desk.
Grace. Courage. Cecilia.
They went in with the rest of the rubbish. She took the lot to the outside bin.

Her parents came home, one at a time. Cecilia feigned sleep when they stuck their heads in for a good-night kiss.

She hovered on the edge of sleep. Floated in the darkness. She wanted to cry but the tears wouldn't come. It was as though her body denied a relationship with her mind. As though she didn't deserve the connection.

The night dragged on and on. This would be her forever. Her future.

She wondered who wrote that note. She hated whoever it was, hated herself for not following the most important tips on that website. Erase your site history! Don't get caught!

It was suffocating in her room. Cecilia opened a window, but it didn't help. It was her life that was suffocating. Trying to control everything. Squashing her feelings deep inside her. Creating a web of lies.

Her friends should mind their own business. They shouldn't be judging her. She was surviving.