Back when I was a normal girl with friends and Aeropostale clothes, I used to like myself. I took bites of bread and butter and didn't think about the caloric amount. I'd eat snacks worth 100 calories and think it was nothing. I ate granola bars and thinsation oreos like they were going out of style. I used to be a size small at Aeropostale, but I'd often get a medium anyway. Back then I thought it was normal, and any girl who was getting an extra small or a small, I just didn't care. I was glad to be myself. I got my shorts a size 1. I always said it was for length, since I was 5'3. It never really bothered me that I wasn't a 00.
Laughing with my friends at lunch one day, I took a big bite of my bread with butter.
"How could that be all you have on it?! Butter?!" Mary Brian picked up the bread and tossed it down again. I giggled. Aria threw her head back in laughter and kept eating her Crispy's. Lindzi was laughing too, pushing back her blonde curls.
"That's all I like!" I shoved the last bit into my mouth.
"Butter has a lot of calories though!" Mary Brian said, matter-of-factly. I stared down at my stomach in my uniform shirt. Now that I look back, I wasn't as fat as I thought, and I was eating way more then now.
"I can afford it." I shrugged. I oulled open my thinsations. "Want one?" I held open the bag to my friends who each had one. I tossed it out after finishing like it was nothing.

My friends and family would have never expected that within a year I would be caught in an eating disorder.

At 2:15 it was snack time. Doesn't that sound childish? Trust me, it's not really. We were eighth graders, after all. It was more like 'have a snack if you choose to. You've got two minutes until the recess bell.' I went to my bag, laughin along with Jay (fling count: 4) and Luke (fling count: more than I remember.) At my bag I was exchanging flirty looks with Luke.
"Want half?" I gestured to Savannah on my other side. She shook her head.
"Can't afford the calories." I paused. Savannah was one of the tiniest girls I knew. I stared down at my thighs and put the granola bar back in my bag.
"Yeah me either. That's why I was offering." I shrugged.

Recess came next. I saw HIM. Austin. (fling count: who knows) And for the next fifteen minutes, it was the same cycle that happened every recess, every day. Flirt, yell hit, slap, scream, make up, hug, repeat. I broke his heart so now he was doing his best to keep breaking mine. Day after day. I wasn't good enough. He said it was MY FAULT. I guess maybe it was. He went from liking me to hating me on a daily basis. I didn't blame him though. I was starting to hate me too.