Page 4 of Rule Breakers Fall Hardest

I huff a humorless laugh at the text message and glare at the bottle she had delivered. Some new kind of diet pill she hunted down just for me, since my curves are apparently a disgrace. I’m a size twelve, for crying out loud. I’mnormal. I’ve got a butt and boobs and hips and thighs and cellulite. It’s not the end of the world. But tell that to my almond mother. I think she’s on a diet involving cashews andraisins at the moment. Or maybe that was last month’s craze. I can’t keep up, and I don’twantto. Truly, I feel sorry for her. She has an illness; it’s consumed her life, and, unfortunately, mine by proxy.

Me: Yep. Thanks for the box of condoms.

Don’t parents usually send boxes of goodies from home to their kids? Fresh baked goods and cutesy things like notebooks and pens or even a stuffed animal?

Mother Dearest: I didn’t send you condoms! Who sent you condoms?

She’s so dense sometimes. Sarcasm goes right over her head.

Me: It was a joke.

Mother Dearest: Did you get the package or not?

I sigh. She’s not going to let it go, so I snap a picture and send it to her. This way she can see with her own two eyes that I received her lovely care package. The pills will be going into the trash as soon as this conversation is over. I should’ve thrown them away as soon as I opened the box, but I set them on the desk and stared at the label that promised I could lose fifteen pounds in one week, wondering if maybe Ididneed to lose weight.

Then I cursed myself for letting her issues get into my head.

At the end of the day, I pity her. It consumes her, the obsessive thoughts about every piece of food she puts in her mouth and its calorie content.

The most ironic part? While her BMI is probably in the normal range, mine would be in the overweight range. YetI’mhealthier. Her body has to be begging for proper nutrients.

Mother Dearest: Oh, good. Muffy said she lost thirty pounds in less than a month using it. I got some for myself as well.

With a shake of my head, I use my foot to spin my desk chair in a circle. My dad forced her to check in to a facility that specializes in treatment for eating disorders. I told him it wouldn’t work, not when she didn’t want to go and refused to believe she had a problem, and shocker, I was right.

I want her to get better as much as he does, but shewon’t. At least not until she wakes up and realizes she has a problem with food, along with what could very well be OCD.

I don’t want to talk about this anymore. It just makes me sad. For her. For me.

And, despite being happy with my body and beingcomfortable in my own skin, my insecurities still claw their way out into the light of day from time to time.

Especially when my own mother makes it obvious that what I look like, the number on the scale, is more indicative of my value as a person than who I am as an individual.

Me: I have homework.

I set my phone down, intending to focus on my textbook and push away thoughts of Daire’s weird-ass proposal.

Literal proposal.

There’s no way one of his brothers didn’t dare him to do it. Or maybe it’s some sort of hockey player prank.

When my phone buzzes on the desk, I know I shouldn’t look, but I’m clearly a glutton for punishment.

Mother Dearest: Let me know how it goes with the pills! Send a picture of the scale every morning. I’ll track your progress! ??

The stupid smiley face just adds insult to injury.

I willnotbe sending her any sort of pictures of a scale. I don’t even have one in my dorm room.Iloathescales.

I take screenshots of her messages and send those, along with the photo of the pills, to my dad.

His only response isI’m sorry, sweetie.

He can’t really do anything to help her, and it’s not for lack of trying. When the rehab didn’t work, he took her from therapist to therapist. There was acupuncture and even a hypnotist involved. Any time he’s encountered a technique that has the potential to help her, he’s tried.

I throw my phone onto my unmade bed.

Frustrated doesn’t even begin to cover how I feel.

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