Outside In

by Chrissie Keighery

  Appear to be growing when you’re trying to shrink.

  Cecilia lay in a straight line on her bed. When she lay down like this, her breasts were flat. Thank God. If they grew like Lee’s, there would be no more dance. Not the real type, anyway, with a future. Breasts and ballet didn’t mix. And dance was the only oblivion, the only time she was able to forget about all the changes that were making life spin out of control.

  Other than … the other thing.

  It had been better before Meredith got ‘it’. Cecilia hated even the word. She wouldn’t use it, even in her thoughts. Cecilia had felt more secure, then. As if maybe the two of them could escape together. But that was before ‘it’ came and dragged them into a new phase from which they would never, not ever, return.

  But Meredith had been stoked. She’d gathered the girls together as though she had the best news in the universe. And they had all carried on with talk and jokes about pads. Carried on as though Meredith had achieved something great, when what she’d really achieved was having blood come out between her legs. Disgusting.

  Cecilia had only coped with it all by counting the number of parallel panels of wood in the section of wall behind Meredith. The door interrupted the whole lines, with panels above and below that were horizontal. She was up to 258 when Meredith noticed she wasn’t paying attention to them. When Meredith pressured her, asking what was wrong.

  Cecilia had lied. She’d told them there was nothing wrong. There had been so many lies lately, so many cover-ups, because there was no option of telling the truth about what she felt. About what she was doing.

  Cecilia could fill herself up with lies. She could digest them slowly until she actually believed what she was saying. She was becoming a professional. The story about an empty lunchbox was enriched by leaving the crust of a sandwich inside, or the crumbs of a biscuit after she’d thrown the rest away. It was a terrible thing to do while people were starving in the world.

  How could she begin to explain it to her friends? When she didn’t even understand herself?

  It was different for the others. They had problems, yeah, but their problems were real. They were understandable. Jordan’s parents splitting up, or Lee liking someone who didn’t like her back. They were normal problems. They could be spoken about.

  Like when Meredith told them all about her mum, about why she was always jokey. Everyone had listened and understood. They had cried together, and laughed, as they unravelled Meredith and put her back together. Meredith deserved their understanding.

  Cecilia checked the bills in her purse. She opened the zipper inside her bag and tucked the purse away.

  Her dad had bought her the bag in Prague a few months earlier. He’d seen it in a store window on the way to conduct one of his concerts. A symphony orchestra that received rave reviews. He’d been gone a month that time. Newspaper clippings with headings like Johann Walters reaches the zenith of creative passion, had been laid on the kitchen table for inspection. Then came the bag.

  He’d thought Cecilia would like it. She did. She liked the stark, white canvas, the China bluebirds etched over its surface. The bamboo rings hugged her shoulder. It was the perfect size, too.

  For this.

  Outside, the afternoon was bright. Inside the shopping centre, the light was artificial and ugly. People walked around with plastic bags, shop logos plastered all over them, filled with stuff they thought they needed.

  Cecilia’s bag was empty, apart from the purse. So far.

  She paused outside the window of the pet shop. It was stage one of the ritual. Today, there were three puppies. Maltese Shitzus. Fluffy balls of fur. They rolled around, climbing on top of each other as though they didn’t know where one finished and another began. Brothers and sisters.

  Cecilia was an only child. It was a very deliberate choice. Her parents wanted to give her everything, invest in her life. Dance and school, laptops and iPods. She owed them. A loan, with interest.

  Coco’s Internet Cafe was dark, moody. Smelled of coffee. It was a haven from the shopping centre. Domes of dark green light fittings, fringed with black lace, hung over private booths. Cecilia took the last booth. Number ten. Very private.

  The second stage of the ritual began. Cecilia fingered her wrist, her pulse, before typing words into the search engine.

  The website gave her courage. It built her up. She wasn’t alone anymore. In cyberspace, someone understood. Someone gave advice. Advice that was both gross and fantastic. Especially the tips on how not to get caught.

  Cecilia didn’t feel the need to write anything down. It was firmly implanted inside her brain.

  She closed the site and went back to the home page. She slipped out of the seat, keeping her head down as she paid at the front counter. She noticed a flash of her school’s uniform as someone headed down towards her booth. Legs she didn’t recognise, thank God.

  She looked around before she entered the supermarket. Stage three of the ritual. She kept checking as she walked the aisles. Didn’t see anyone she knew.

  Aisle two was the starting point. It was important to keep everything in order. Savoury first. Chips. The biggest packets were on sale. That was a bonus because she didn’t like spending her parent’s money stupidly. She knew how hard they worked for it. Three packets went into the trolley, blanketed under the canvas bag.

  It was important to put her thoughts into compartments, to separate the stages. This was the time for purchasing goods. It was the flat part of the slide, where she could sit for a moment before … whoosh … she was off. This was the preparation, and she didn’t need to think, yet, about what she was preparing for.

  Maybe she wouldn’t even end up doing it?

  The wheels of the trolley seemed to have a mind of their own. Cecilia had to use all of her strength to swivel around the corner, to push into aisle six.

  Sweet, now. Chocolate-covered biscuits. Marshmallows were perfect. Better than chips, because they were soft. Would be soft, too, afterwards.

  Ice-cream was difficult. For ice-cream, she would need to use the freezer in the kitchen. For anyone to see. Better just to get one tub. Two at the max.

  As she unstacked the trolley at the checkout, Cecilia was edgy. This bit was dangerous. Anyone could be in the queues, even though she’d chosen the least popular supermarket.

  Just in case, Cecilia layered her bag over part of the load until the checkout chick pushed the button to move the conveyer.

  ‘Hello,’ the girl said. She had a giant pimple on her chin that was kind of mesmerising. ‘And what do you have planned for the rest of the evening?’

  Cecilia bit her lip. ‘Nothing much,’ she said. ‘Nothing much.’

  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 g
oing 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.