Fragile Bones

Chapter Twenty-Seven

"It's been a while since we've seen you, huh Madeline?"

"I guess so. " The paper sheet crinkled beneath me whenever I made the slightest movement. The bright lights gave me a headache if I opened my eyes wider than half-way. There were two posters on the wall to decorate the room, one of which being a cat poster, and the other one on how to perform CPR. I never liked going to the doctors, and as I got older the feeling never really went away. You would think going to the same lady twice a year since I was little would become routine, but it didn't. Every time I went to see her, it was like meeting her all over again.

"How have you been doing?" Dr. N asked me, keeping up the friendly jibe even though I was obviously not reciprocating it. "Keeping up the good grades?"

"Straight A's like always," I lied. The only class I had an A in anymore was English, and that was purely because I had put my focus on mine and Ashers project since I liked spending time with him.

"That's great! Your parents must be proud of you," she commented, turning to look at my mom for confirmation. She didn't get one. Just a distracted glance and blank eyes.

"Yes," I muttered. "You'd never seen anyone prouder."

Dr. N looked awkwardly between the two of us, particularly at my mother. "Well, it's always nice to have that support behind you. Mom, I'm gonna ask you to step out of the room for a few minutes while I ask Madeline some questions," she smiled.

"Oh yeah, sure. I have to make a phone call anyway," my mom said, grabbing her purse and hurriedly leaving.

I stared at the wall while Dr. N asked me the questions, nothing I hadn't ever heard before. The answers stayed the same, although maybe they shouldn't have. My hands were shaky the entire time, so I stuffed them in my hoodie pocket so she wouldn't see.

"You wanna come and step on the scale for me?" She asked as the final question. I looked at the contraption for a second, and carefully stood up from the bed. "You can go ahead and take off your sweatshirt and shoes," she said, grabbing a clipboard with my information from my last visit on there.

"I'm not wearing anything under my hoodie," I lied, keeping my hands in the pocket the entire time. I kicked off my shoes though, since there was no real reason to keep those on.

"Oh? Well, that's fine. I'll just take off a couple pounds for it. Now, hop on up."

I stood on the black platform, watching as her fingers danced with the scale sliders, figuring out the weight bit by bit. When she reached the answer, she frowned, and looked at the clipboard, then back at the scale. I took an involuntary step backwards, away from the scale, making the sliders fall to one side. Static silence filled my ears, as I waited for her to say something. I hadn't weighed myself in a few days, so I didn't really know where I was at.

"106 pounds," she said finally, scribbling it down on the paper. I couldn't stop the small smile that ghosted my lips, which Dr. N noticed. She set the clipboard down onto the table, and crossed her arms, shooting me a worried glance. "That's a pretty big weight loss from the last time you were in here, almost forty pounds."

I hated hearing that. How much I used to weigh sounded so ugly. "I've been trying to diet."

"Well, perhaps it's time to stop." I looked at her, annoyed. "You're weight is bordering on being underweight. Not to mention, that's a lot of weight to lose in a period of six months which makes me think you've been doing it an unhealthy way."

"That's like two pounds a week, which isn't abnormal," I replied, trying to steer her off the course she was currently on. It wasn't like I was going to tell her I had only been doing this for about a quarter of that time.