Bon Bons to Yoga Pants

Chapter 16-Better

Within twenty minutes, the carnage of my eating binge had ended.

A ketchup-and-ranch-streaked plate sat empty in front of me, topped by an empty Ben and Jerry's container with a spoon sticking out the side. I stared at it with a blender of emotions.

"Oh no," I whispered. "I just ruined everything."

I dropped my face into my hands. The high of eating quickly subsided, just as it had with the donuts, and I sat in the aftermath with nothing left to think about but the shame of giving up. The numbers 249 flashed across my eyes. Surely, next week, they'd be even higher. I'd just doomed myself to an eternity of cyclical dieting and unending calorie counting.

"I'll never meet Bradley. I'll look like a bloated flamingo in the stupid bridesmaid dress and live in McKenzie's pictures forever."

Tears welled up in my eyes. Why did I do this? Why did I sabotage myself?

Just when my heavy thoughts of despair had turned to the Ho Ho's in the closet—despite my self-loathing for everything else I'd just eaten—my phone buzzed. Mira's number flashed across the screen, but I ignored it. It went to voicemail, and seconds later a text message came through.

I had a bad day. Let's go to the gym.

My eyes slipped to the clock above my desk. Almost seven o'clock. The gym? My forehead furrowed. I'd never heard of such a strange idea in my life. Who went to the gym at this time of day? Against my inner instinct to raid the fridge and wallow a bit more, I texted her back.

Uh, okay. I'll be ready in five.

I'm already in your driveway, so hurry up.

Although I didn't really want to go, escaping my self-imposed torture and prison sounded much better. If I stayed, I knew I'd just eat the Ho Ho's and further my downward spiral of shame. There had been plenty of nights in the past when the eating never stopped. At least I could cut it off somewhere tonight.

When I sat in the passenger seat, Mira was staring straight ahead, her hands at ten and two on the steering wheel.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi."

"I had an awful day," she whispered. "I drank six cans of Pepsi and only worked out this morning for twenty minutes without you there to motivate me to keep going."

I laughed in bitter irony, but tears had resurfaced again, so it came out as more of a wet chuckle. "I ate two donuts, half a plate of mozzarella sticks, half a pint of Ben and Jerry's and half a plate of pizza rolls because of my bad day."

"At least you only ate half of all those things," she pointed out. I snorted.

Mira looked over at me with a heavy sigh. "I thought losing weight would have made me more motivated to keep going, but it's like today I lost all my desire to keep up this new routine."

"Me too."

"It's so new, and so strange. I-I don't know how to . . . I don't know how to deal with my life without finding comfort in food, so in some ways it's feels like everything is more difficult because I can't forget it by eating spaghetti." Mira dropped her head back against the seat rest. "This sucks."

I felt as if she'd taken the words from my very heart, and hearing them stated by someone else left me a little empty inside. Wow, I thought. We are certainly messed up. But at least if I was messed up, I wasn't alone.

"Me either," I admitted. "I got my worst test score ever, and I didn't eat lunch. It was a horrible day to start out, and then Mom and I got into a fight."