Hunger

f i f t e e n

Week 2

It's been three days, three days of feeling so depressed. I wake up, go to school, spend my day alone, get home, cry, eat and exercise or eat and purge.

I've been eating dinner because after my talk with Olivia, guilt has been slowly consuming me. Not to mention that I help her do her homework every day, so she doesn't feel alone.

I leave my room and stand in front of Christopher's door. Why am I so nervous? I quickly knock, and he opens the door.

"What?" He asks annoyed.

"Are you taking me to practice?" I ask taking a step back. Suddenly feeling self-conscious of being so close to him.

"What," he says crossing his arm. "Nate doesn't have time for you anymore?" He says sarcastically.

"Forget it." I whisper going to my room.

I go through the door and sit in my bed. There's no way in hell I'm asking Nate to take me there.

"Fine." He shouts, and I hear his door abruptly close.

I quickly get out of my uniform and go to my closet to change to my gymnastics clothes. I decided to wear my red leotard today with my nude tights. I stare at my reflection in the mirror and cringe at the amount of red dots in my cheeks, plus my huge eye bags made me look worse. I put some foundation on and a hoodie, feeling a bit colder today.

We get to the building and I quickly go inside. Wanting to know if I lost more weight this week.

Like every Friday, I was the first to be called in, so I quickly went to the scale next to the coach. While everyone else stretched and warmed up.

"Step up." He says, and I take my hoodie off.

A few seconds went by and I see him staring at me, concern.

"What?" I quickly ask looking down. "Did I gain weight?" I ask worried but all I see was 132 pounds.

I smile proud, but he kept looking at me concerned. "Can we talk after practice?" He asks seriously. "In my office."

"Okay." I reply confuse, not knowing what the problem was.

Practice went by slowly, and it was harder for me today than last week. All I wanted was to sleep and shower, but the coach wanted to talk to me.

I enter his office, after grabbing my bag from the locker room, and he was sitting in the chair behind the desk. I took a sit in front of him, and he turns his head up to look at me. He was around his thirties, and had really dark brown hair, almost black. His eyes were a mixture or green and hazel, and his beard was starting to grow, so you could see the shadow of the hair almost appearing. I don't know what he does, when he's not coaching but he probably spends most of the time at the gym, because his body was perfectly molded with his muscles.

"So." He says putting his hands together over the desk. "Do you know why I asked you to come to my office today?" He asks raising his eyebrows.

"No." I truthfully reply.

"You have lost an alarming amount of weight in two weeks." He says, and I frown.

"What?" I ask confused. "But you asked me to lose weight." He must be joking.

"Seven pounds in a week is more than you should be losing, even if you exercise and eat healthy." He says seriously, and I realize he wasn't joking. "Not to mention the four you lost the week prior."

"I'm sorry?" I say confused, not knowing what to answer.

"Have you been eating properly miss Allard?" He asks crossing his arm, making his arm muscles flex.

"Yes." I lied, not knowing where this conversation was heading to.

"If you lose more than seven pounds next week, I'm not letting you go to regionals." He says, and I feel my heart skip a beat.

"What?" I ask sitting up straight, feeling like crying. "Why?" I ask feeling the anxiety hit my chest. "You can't be serious." I continue, my voice breaking.

"I'm sorry, but that's the professional thing to do. It's pretty obvious that you have a problem."

"But you told me I was overweight!" I shout standing up. "You said I needed to lose weight, and I did!" I continue feeling a tear escape my eye. "I don't see what the problem is. I only lost 14 pounds, that's not enough!"

"11 pounds." He says staring at my chart.

"What?" I ask confused, taking a sit again.

"You said fourteen." He says frowning. "You have lost eleven pounds."

I quickly remembered he didn't know my initial weight was 146 pounds and I curse mentally.

"I meant eleven." I say nervously.

I cry, and he sighs, passing his fingers through his hair. "Take this." He says handing me a piece of paper. "You don't need to lose more weight okay." He says trying to make me feel better. "Promise me you won't lose more weight. And maybe you will make it to regionals. You're one of the best from the group and I cannot have you getting sick."

I nod, cleaning my tears and standing up. I look at the paper and see that is a phone number and I frown.

"Call me." He says shrugging. "If you need to talk to someone."

I smile at him and leave, feeling awful that I just lied to him. I really want to make it to regionals, but I need to lose more weight. It's not enough, fourteen pounds is not enough.