My Secret Life (6 page)

‘But I really have to go.’

‘Not yet!’ she says again. But I can’t hold it in any longer. I give up and pretend to fall over, forfeiting the round to Maeve. Natalie knows I’ve done it on purpose and is not happy with me. I run to the bathroom and knock on the door.

‘I’ll be out in a minute,’ my Dad calls. I groan in urgency as I bob from one foot to the other in the hallway. Natalie and Maeve have appeared at the kitchen door and are laughing at me as I dance around the floor. The wait seems to last longer than it should and I can feel my panic and anxiety growing. I’m aware of my whole body now and have stiffened up so tight that my muscles are throbbing. I’m looking at Natalie and Maeve when I hear the bathroom door creek. There is a second noise behind me and in the moment I start to rotate, I see Natalie’s face light up like a cat about to pounce on an unsuspecting bird.

‘Leanne, come HERE!’ she shouts in a frenzied voice. It takes only seconds but in those passing moments, everything slows and I can’t help but walk toward her as she gestures me. I let that ball in my hand go and ignore the unlatching door behind me. The moment I reach my sister, her face changes and contorts itself into a smile, followed by roaring laughter. I hear darting feet on the floor behind me and veer around to see my older brother sprinting past my father and into the bathroom. As Dad shuffles away rather confused, I run to the door and begin screaming and banging on it.

‘Mum!’ I call. As Natalie and Maeve cry with laughter, I burst into tears of total panic and desolation. I am screaming at myself in my own head. I let the ball drop. That ball that kept me composed and in one piece was all I ever had to keep myself and I let it drop. Mum comes rushing out asking what’s wrong, only to see me still hopping around outside the door.

‘Peter, get out of the bathroom. Leanne needs to use the toilet now’ she yells at my brother. But it’s too late. My body has gone weak and limp. I feel the shame and degradation creep up my face, sizzling now with the heat of the moment. My legs are numb except for one feeling; the sensation of hot liquid running to my feet and my toes, burning into my skin as it goes. The bathroom door unlatches and the moment has passed. I stand in my spot calmly. I am lifeless and suddenly very small.

‘Oh my God!’ Natalie screeches. ‘Look Maeve! She wet herself!’ The two erupt uncontrollably and proceed to fall onto the floor, clutching each other in their fit. They were only young girls joking and messing about, but it had a huge impact on me. My brother pulls an awkward facial expression but can’t help having to suppress a laugh before going into his room. Mum merely sighs; she must pity me so much and now she has to clean the hallway.

‘Go and get changed Leanne’ she says gently. Deflated and drained, I walk into my bedroom. My trousers are damp and ice cold now and I wish the ground would open up and consume me. I dropped the ball, I think to myself. I dropped that bloody ball.

***

It had been almost two months of on-off fasting before I really started to notice changes in my body. If I still carried that proverbial stress ball in my hand, I still clutched it as tightly as ever. The slim physique was of course the most evident change. Whereas before I had always justified my unbearable reflection with the usual intentions of bettering myself, I now enjoyed the pleasure of uncompromising reassurance. For every failure noted, I now had the tools and power to change anything I wanted. My chest no longer felt fraught under the weight of an iron clad and my body seemed to move in the same rhythm as my thoughts. It was as if all the weight had been shifted from my body and into my head. When my limbs moved, they felt loose and unrestricted. For every fibre that unwound itself under my skin, a cerebral knot tightened somewhere in my mind; it secured itself and locked in the given loss, as if in a feeding frenzy. The sensation experienced by my body as I continued to lose weight nourished the fattening demons that blockaded my head. Strange things started going missing.

First, it was the crease that fell mid-way up my back. Somewhere near the base of my ribcage and hovering not too far north of my hips, there once lay a modest crease. It reminded me of the brushwork of Renaissance painters who sought to capture the quiet beauty of the feminine form. But the crease went missing in those months and left behind only the faintest hint of its past existence. Along with it went the sallow strip of flesh that ran so smoothly over my knee caps. It was replaced instead with a seemingly irregular scattering of bone protrusions and cobbled surfaces. I also lost some of my smile. My laughter no longer managed to reach the folds around my mouth and the wrinkles that ran from my nose and down my cheeks could not cement themselves into my face as they had done before.

For everything we lose, however, we usually gain something else for better or worse. I grew bones I did not know were there. From my toes to my ankles, five solid strings attached themselves and resembled a spider’s web up my foot. My stomach almost fell inwards and was concave in comparison to my ribs, which had apparently grown in size quite substantially. In bed at night, I would place the palms of my hands firmly against the broadest space taken up by those ribs. The skin that concealed them clung to their wave-like structure for dear life. It strapped itself around them and under my hand, I felt them rise and fall beneath the thin sheet of vellum. With every breath, my stomach disappeared further beneath my ribs and they slid against my interior walls like a snake on the sand.

I was suddenly more aware of my bones than I had ever been before this point. Mostly, this was due to the fact that they seemed to ache very often. By now, the disease of my mind had abandoned its roots in the corners of my skull and infested its way to the marrow of my bones. She wanted me to feel her everywhere and now my entire body knew about her presence. I didn’t sit in one position for very long at any given time; my back would weigh down on the bones beneath it until I was so uncomfortable I’d have to assume a different position. At night, my knees would rub against one another like chalk on a blackboard and I slept with a pillow between them for fear they would wear away.

My skin, once soft and smooth around every turn, looked aged. It looked like every cigarette I had ever inhaled began to exhale back onto my exterior canvas. It wafted out of every pore and left a dry and haggard ash-stain in its path. My lips paled and my face lengthened uncomfortably. As dark circles formed an encasement from my brow to my cheeks, my eyes faded in tenacity and indeed, lost any if not all indication of the life behind them. Somewhere in those months, I think I slipped away beneath them. Hiding beneath whatever I could in order to shield myself was something I was always good at. Slipping under the radar was my forte and I enjoyed the protection it provided.

***

I am 17 years old. After two fleeting years, Stephen and I broke up only days ago. I think I knew that it had been coming for a while and just didn’t want to believe it. I’m about to go to a birthday party and am sick to my stomach. The source of my upset is not that I miss Stephen. Surprisingly, it’s not as bad as I thought it would be. No, the main reason for my being so melancholy is because I miss the person I was when with him. After so long of being with someone, it’s as if I became that person’s interpretation of me. Everything I was could be wrapped up in what Stephen alone saw in me. He was like a safeguard, hiding me from everything I was afraid of. Now, I have nothing to hide behind and no radar to slip under and lie low.

Walking through my friend’s house, I try my best to move like a shadow. I don’t want to be noticed for fear of someone seeing that I’m missing a vital limb or something else of great importance. The crowd is an unfamiliar one with faces I’ve only ever seen once or twice. I try not to catch anyone’s eye. I don’t want them to look at me because I know they will observe how completely lost I am here. Instead, I retreat to the back of my encircled friends seeking solace and comfort.

‘Have your eye on anyone, Leanne?’ Kate smirks at me.

‘No, I’m only looking. Don’t think I could even if I wanted to.’ As it turns out, this is a lie. Under particular circumstances, it’s so easy so convince ourselves of what we’re feeling rather than face the repercussions of the truth. The truth, in this instance, is that I do want to and there are one or two boys at the party who I have noticed very briefly. But I can’t tell my friends this. If I do, a fuss will be made and a series of Chinese whispers will commence much the same as there would have been when I was 14. I can’t take that kind of glossed-over mortification, let alone the pressure of it all.

Thankfully, this doesn’t need to occur. In little to no time at all, I’m talking to a local boy named Adam. Confident and outlandish, he’s making this conversation easy for both of us. It’s a weight off my shoulders. If nothing else, I know now that I can at least still talk to a member of the opposite sex without feeling utterly foolish. Moreover, I’m in shock that anyone would be interested enough to talk to me for this long. The conversation is typical and wonderful. From school to what we will go on to study and a few brief words on the party, the small talk was all I wanted and needed that night.

I’d had no intention of this night amounting to anything. At best, I wanted simply to come here this evening, trudge through it and go home where I can continue in my growing loneliness. And yet, this is not the case. As I talk with Adam, I’m bubbling over beneath the surface and surprised with myself. Not only am I very attracted to him, but it’s as if his confidence has radiated to my very core. In his presence, a certain ease has descended over me and my worries of before have almost completely vanished. In this moment, I don’t want to hide or disappear. Rather, I want to showcase myself and push this debutante feeling to its full potential.

‘Here,’ Adam says, taking my hand, ‘let’s go somewhere more private.’ When we finally kiss, it’s as if Stephen and the person I was with him, never existed. Beneath the uncertainty with which I walked in this evening, I must have been merely waiting for something to open a bolted door. Now open, I feel confident, attractive and what’s more, I feel sure of the person under my own skin. I don’t want to hide anymore and I can only hope this feeling lasts for ever.

***

At a time when everything about me seemed to go missing, it was difficult for me to remember moments when I stood alone and fully formed in my own head. Before that night, I hid extremely well under the covering shield of a boyfriend. With the realisation that this protection was gone, I knew then that I had to find some other means of guarding myself. As it turned out, the next thing or person I would hide beneath would be my bulimia.

I had lost a tremendous amount of weight, the figure I struggle to remember exactly. It was enough, however, for others to commence with their anticipated comments, some positive and some of less so. Being around people I hardly knew and had little regard for became the highlight of my declining social life. My closest friends, the people I had known and trusted for years and who knew me better than I cared to believe, became unbearable company. Their shrewd eyes were inescapable and insufferable. Our history together and all they knew of me became overwhelming. I couldn’t breathe around them anymore. In the dead heat of their knowledge, it was stifling and completely suffocating. For the time being, I was done with them and all they had to offer. Instead, I felt at ease amongst strangers. I was comforted by how little they cared for me, as it guaranteed my own freedom among them; I didn’t have to work as hard hiding the truth because with these people, the fabrication was enough and easily maintained. When I ventured as far as my local pub with friends, it wasn’t long before I would abandon them and find a less challenging clique.

In this way, I eventually became defined by pretence, or at least I did in public. Self-definition was something I always strived for. I suppose I needed it. As a child, if I didn’t define myself under particular headings then I would have been nothing at all, or so it seemed. Whereas I once classed myself as an academic and a master of intellectual advancement, I now wore the mask of the perfect socialite. In public, my facade was affecting and almost flawless. How I spoke, behaved and carried myself became everything I was. It sounds like a rather hollow existence and if that was everything I embodied then of course it would have been. But my life, under my logic of the time, was extremely fulfilling. I told myself I had everything a person should have and more.

The impeccable illusion experienced by others was only a facet of the person displaying it. Unlike the moronic primates I found in new companions, I possessed something more substantial. I felt superior to their insignificant cares because I just knew that they did not have the mental or even emotional capacity to understand me or even fully understand themselves. They lived a one-track life that was directed aimlessly under one mentality. I, on the other hand, functioned under a dual-ability to live as both the person she wanted me to be and the person they all wanted me to be. Therefore, I was safe in my belief that their superficiality could surely never contend with my own complexity. She convinced me of this and as such, made my one-woman show a triumphant success for a time.

Her presence in my life and in my personal development made everything possible. Of course, I had no way of knowing who or what she was back then but I was moderately insightful enough to know that there was something different about me, even if I couldn’t put my finger on it. On a surface level, I just didn’t question it. Whatever it was, it made my life easier and more manageable. But let’s be realistic about this. I knew then as I know now, along with the rest of the human race, that a person should eat to live. My logic was not so forgiving in that sense and it obviously did not escape my attention that it wasn’t normal to live as I was attempting to. I must have known this or else I wouldn’t have been so desperate to conceal this secret life of mine.

Along with this, I was not so foolish to believe that everyone else lived and worked in the pain and discomfort that had become the norm for me. All memory of how my body should feel had disappeared. I was in a constant state of discomfort, to put it lightly. What most recognise as hunger pains were now excruciating and one of the only sensations I physically felt anymore. It felt like I was eroding from the inside out. Someone had carved a hole in my stomach and filled it with air. Eating steadily changed from something I would prefer to avoid doing to an unimaginable act of weakness. There were days I was convinced if I put anything into my mouth, I would feel it moving through me like an alien intruder that my body was trying to resist. I would feel it at the back of my mouth, chewed and fully-prepped to launch an aggressive assault. I would feel it creeping down my throat, building momentum and stealth. More than anything else, I would feel it grounded to the bottom of my once divinely empty stomach, rotting and stewing. It would begin an assault from that advantageous position and infest its way into my bloodstream, my defenceless cells and the bodily walls that shielded and protected it from being ripped out immediately. It was using my own body against me and as a result, it became all too easy for my mind to register that food was the enemy.