Forgetting Is Completely Impossible

It was nothing. Just a crush, right? It couldn't hurt at all to tell him how I felt. I was never one to believe I had everything to lose.

Oh, just how very wrong I was.

He had the most beautiful brown eyes I'd ever seen in my life. He was an amazing musician. A drummer, actually. Better than what I'd ever be with my clarinet, even as the first chair. I'd known him for three years before I realized that I liked him more than I used to. Being the naïve person I was, I told a friend, who started a chain reaction, and, before I knew it, everyone knew. What could I possibly have to lose now? I asked a different friend to ask him what he thought of me. How bad could it possibly be?

I had the biggest ego at the beginning of that year. I had gotten contacts after years in glasses. I no longer had to hide my best feature, my ice-blue eyes, behind wire frames and thick glass. I was invincible. Nothing could bring me down.

The date I found out was burned in my memory. Not because I was obsessed, but because it was a day I knew I'd never forget.

It was early in the morning, during the break we had between first and second period.

"What did he say?" I asked my friend.

"I'm not too sure you want to hear it." She said, rather nervously.

My heart sank. But I remembered the fact that I was invincible. "Come on. How bad could it be?" I could hear the edge in my voice.

"Well, Manda..." She started off nervously, and then it all came out in a rush. "He said you were fat."

So much for invincible. I could almost hear my walls cracking. Then, I couldn't hear anything but the sound of my own heavy breathing. I never thought I was fat; maybe not skinny, but never really fat.

As soon as he found out, he tried to talk to me and I was in no mood to listen. I screamed at him, screamed words I didn't even know I could force out of my mouth. It was venom, more than anything.

I regret that every single day of my life.

That night I talked with my friend. She asked me if I was going to stop eating.

"Of course not. Nothing he says can affect my food intake."

I didn't eat breakfast or lunch the next day. I was just trying to rattle him up. To prove him wrong and show him what words could do to people, just like the over-passionate person I am.

It began to escalate to something I'd never imagined. Not eating became like a high for me. Skip a meal, you feel good. Like you're finally in control of something. My life was slipping through the cracks. Everyone asked me if I was anorexic. I would yell at them and tell them to shove it. I wasn't anorexic. I was defiant.

It was then that I realized I loved him. No one had ever kept me holding on to something for so long. I never listened to other people or what they had to say about me. I never let anyone have that much control. So why did I let my guard down so far?

Because I loved him more than what I loved life. Otherwise I would have made an attempt to make myself better.

I endured his abuse, the things he said behind my back to his friends. I knew they all hated me. And I was so insanely sick of everyone hating me. I was sick of being upset and angry.

I turned it off. I don't know how, but I did. I was never on medication for the depression I very obviously had. Somehow I found the switch and turned it off. I had friends again. Friends who loved me for being the bright, bubbly girl I was before all the pain. Everyone was so happy about me being happy, that no one noticed I still didn't eat. No one noticed how obsessed I still was with losing weight. I still loved him. That didn't change. I still wanted to make myself skinny for him.

But when I looked in the mirror, I never saw how skinny I really was.

It was summertime by then. Months and months since September, when my battle began. I was wearing a tank top, bent over doing the laundry when my mom made a comment about my spine. She took a picture of it and she was right. You could see every single bone threatening to poke out of my extremely pale skin. Ribs, vertebrae, hip bones, shoulder blades, everything. It scared the crap out of me. I was never able to see it go that far. When I looked in the mirror, I saw this pudgy little girl who hated herself. I never saw how bad it got.

One day, I was rushed to the hospital for severe abdominal pain near my ovaries. When the doctors asked me about my eating habits, I told them I had no eating habits. I just didn't eat. My mother was shocked. The doctors calmly diagnosed me with acute anorexia nervosa.

I didn't want to have to go to therapy. I didn't want to be treated like I was crazy. So I worked at it. I worked to fill my shrunken stomach up with food every day, and soon I was eating again, like a normal person. My friends were glad that they could finally talk to me about it, and all the interventions began.

Today, I stand happy for the most part. My already weak immune system was nearly destroyed by my battle with anorexia. I get sick almost every other week. I have amazing friends, but sometimes, they cant relate with me because they don't know what its like to go through something like that. Sometimes, if I'm upset, I won't eat. It's like being on cocaine or something.

And as for that boy? Things are getting better with him. We're working on being civil toward each other and that's coming along great. I've always been one to forgive and forget.

Even when forgetting is completely impossible.