you're my safe place ~ MILEVEN ONE SHOTS~

A Different Kind Of Hunger

TRIGGER  WARNING FOR EATING DISORDERS. This was requested by the super sweet __elliee__ who messaged me with some prompts. I hope that I used them well and that it is angsty enough for her :) <3

It was something that she didn't notice at first. Perhaps she had always been too happy to care, caught up in the new feelings of joy that were fueling through her bones to worry about being perfect. But as soon as she started high school with her friends, it crept up on her the more that she watched the people around her. She saw them on television, in magazines and walking down the hallways at her high school with slender bodies and pretty smiles. They had perfectly neat hair, pretty blue eyes and tight clothing that showed their perfection. The girls walked around with confidence, knowing that they could be themselves and that it would be enough. El found herself looking down in the hallway, hunching her shoulders over so that she would not be stared at. She had always been watched and judged, thinking that it was more to do with her mysterious background than her looks. But now she wondered if they were looking at the curve of her legs, or if they were sneering at the plumpness of her cheeks. Her own body was crafted differently to theirs, curvy in strange places as if she wasn't stretched out enough when created. If she could, she would change overnight into something that everyone wanted, something that would be perfect enough for the word that she lived in. 

At first she tried to ignore it, brushing off Hopper's worried looks as he noticed the television switched off every single day. It pained her to watch the perfection on the screen, of the bright clothes and easy smiles, something that she could never be. But after a while, she started to embrace the difference between herself and other people, becoming obsessed with making that difference disappear no matter what the consequences were. 

"Hey" Mike mumbled into her shoulder, squeezing her tightly. El was drowned in an over-sized sweater, practically lost in the warm fabric in a way that made his heart throb with joy. 

El smiled back up at him. "Hi."

"You watching TV?" he asked, glancing around the cabin and frowning at the lack of noise. "You like those shows, don't you? The ones that my Mom watches?"

She looked down. "I-I didn't feel like watching it."

Mike brushed off her odd behavior and nudged her playfully. "Do you want me to make you some food? Hop has been trying to teach me how to make the perfect Eggo extravaganza, convinced that he is the master of it...but mine is better, right?"

"I'm fine" she shuffled on her feet. "I'm not that hungry, you know?"

He chuckled awkwardly. "Come on, you're always hungry."

"I said that I'm fine, Mike" she gritted her teeth slightly, her voice coming out darker than usual. He shrank back slightly, eyes widening at her sharp tone, panic filling him at the idea of him upsetting her. It took him a while to speak up, playing with his fingers nervously until he spoke up in a worried voice. 

He stumbled over his words. "I'm s-sorry, I-I didn't mean to-"

El stood there silently, his words turning into nothing but a blur within her mind. She had wrapped her arms around herself through the thick sweater, trying to trick herself that she was turning into another perfect body by hiding the shame of what she really looked like. She just wanted to wake up one day and smile at the mirror, instead of wanting cry as she stared back at her reflection. All she saw when she looked at her reflection was lazy, fat, stupid, ugly, short, chubby, weak, imperfect, not good enough. The words swam around her mind like poison, embedding themselves deep into her soul so that she could never escape them.