the pact

r | mental health | eating disorders | death



Once upon a time, two little girls played together in the woods.

They were both named Elizabeth. They were six when the met, and at that age, their shared name was enough to bond them together. It was as if they belonged to a secret club - an exclusive club - and that made them feel special. They swapped secrets on the playground. Passed notes in class. Like some twins do, they developed their own language, so they could share intimate information even in a crowded room. Their mothers used to worry that their dependence on each other was unhealthy, but the school counselor spent a few minutes with the girls and assured them that the friendship was perfectly fine.

Maybe at that point in time, things were perfectly fine. Snapshots from that time seemed to capture nothing but happiness. Huge smiles. Hugs. Kisses. Joyful children living blissful lives in happy homes. Healthy little girls with their whole lives ahead of them, assured by everyone that they could do anything they wanted if they put their minds to it. That all they needed was willpower.

Once upon a time, two little girls played together in the woods.

Now, the parents hover over the photo albums. Their time capsules. It's as if they think looking at the pictures, holding them in their hands, and remembering the events before and after each shot will somehow erase the pain of the past few days. They possess frozen time, but are unable to unthaw it. The past is the past. The present is the present. The future will exist, but only for those who are alive. Somewhere in their minds, they know this - they are not unreasonable people - but they look anyway. They know looking will not change anything, but they look anyway.

Once upon a time, two little girls played together in the woods.

They climbed trees and swam in the lake and ran away from the bizarre creatures with unfamiliar shapes that popped out of here and there. They got bruised elbows and skinned knees and dirty socks. They seemed perfectly normal to the parents who had conceived them and let them loose onto the world.

Their parents read book after book about child rearing, swearing that they wouldn't make the mistakes that their parents did. They would be good mommies and daddies and their children would love them very much. They would live happily ever after until the end of time, which was so far away that it wasn't worth thinking about.

Once upon a time, two little girls played together in the woods.

They returned to the woods even when they were no longer little girls. The tree house of their youth provided a sanctuary away from parents' watchful stares and young men's groping hands. They could not escape from the world completely, however. Where ever they went, they were still Lisa and Beth, two little girls who carried their baggage with them everywhere. Eventually, that baggage found a home and a refuge in that tree house.

It wasn't until much later that the truth was discovered. Beth's father went to the tree house to clean out the place. It was there he found the paraphernalia. He hadn't known. He did, but he didn't. He hadn't any idea it had been as bad as it was.

Once upon a time, two little girls played together in the woods.

At the funerals, the townspeople cried and sighed words of sympathy, even as they looked at the parents with suspicious eyes. Murmured rumors behind their backs. After all, it had to have been something the parents did. The girls were poor victims. It wasn't their fault. And if the girls weren't to blame and if the parents weren't responsible, then it could happen to anyone. Their daughter. Their sister.

So the parents had to be to blame.

Once upon a time, two little girls played together in the woods.

Nobody really knew when it started, and the little girls weren't around any more to fill in the details. One of her friends remembered Lisa saying she needed to lose ten pounds. Someone else thought she remembered Beth eating carrot sticks at lunch. But dieting wasn't unusual at that age. The parents cried out to the teachers, asking why they hadn't seen anything. Why they hadn't noticed. The teachers muttered excuses about it not being their place. And after all, the parents lived with these girls.

Why hadn't they noticed? Or at least noticed before it was too late? It was the parents who were to blame. The town had decided that by now.

Once upon a time, two little girls played together in the woods.

Of course everyone had noticed them getting thinner. And everyone had complimented them. No one had worried. Everyone had noticed as they got thinner. And thinner. And thinner. Until they seemed to be swimming in their clothes.

Some of the teachers tried to talk to them about it. But it was a big school and they really weren't getting paid enough to care about each and every student. The girls said they were fine and that they were eating normally, so the teachers kind of shrugged and went on their way. They figured if the problem was really that bad, the parents would know and the parents would take action.

Once upon a time, two little girls played together in the woods.

The father found hundreds of images, cut carefully out of magazines. Glossy pictures of skinny women. Women so skinny you couldn't even really tell they were women unless you looked at their faces. Their hips and breasts - the characteristic anatomy of women - were gone, dieted into non-existence. The pictures were plastered all over the tree house, creating a wallpaper of unattainable goals. Here and there, words were scrawled in lipstick.

This is why you don't eat. You'll never look like this if you eat. This is why you don't stuff your face, you fat bitch! Food is the enemy.

Once upon a time, two little girls played together in the woods.

They found websites that gave them tips. The best laxatives. The worst foods to eat. How to vomit just the right way. How to push their food around on their plate to make it look like they ate. Excuses to use to get out of eating in public. How to hide from the watchful eyes of those evil people who would seek to destroy them. Make them eat. Make them fat.

They held each others' bony bodies in the tree house, chanting mantras to keep them from giving into temptation. They bottled up their willpower and put it all into not eating. They did jumping jacks and push ups and sit ups and yoga. They ran in the woods, frantic looks on their faces, as if running from some unseen enemy. As if trying to run right out of their own skins.

Once upon a time, two little girls played together in the woods.

Lisa had learned about it by happenstance. She wandered downstairs to use the bathroom and overheard her mother saying today was the day. She planned to tell Lisa they were going clothes shopping. They would get in the car and the mother would drive to the hospital, where the people there would know how to make her eat. How to make her well. How to fix her.

Lisa was convinced she was not broken and did not need to be fixed. Eating would destroy everything she had worked for. Everything they had worked for. This could not happen. So she snuck out the house and ran three doors down, tossing rocks at the Beth's window with her scrawny hands.

Once upon a time, two little girls played together in the woods.

And on that day, they returned to the woods, to the tree house of their youth, trying to figure out a way to prevent all their hard work from going to waste. Even with three layers of clothing each, their hands trembled in the balmy air as they sifted through piles of papers, hoping someone somewhere had written a way to get out of this.

There was only one way out. They had known it all along - ever since Lisa first spilled the details to Beth, in a hushed whisper as they scurried to the tree house.

Once upon a time, two little girls played together in the woods.

They went to the lake that they used to swim in, ten laps a day, to get the non-existent fat to fall of their bodies. They would rather be dead and thin then alive and fat. So they held each others hands and marched into the water. The cold almost made them turn back, but they knew what waited them there. Food and calories and evil monsters who would ram the poison down their throats.

They walked and walked until the water was up to their chests. Gripping each others' hands, they nodded silently and then sunk into the lake until they could sit on the sandy floor. Panic tugged at their hearts, urging them to rise, but they stayed put, eyes locked on each other. They held their breath, refusing to allow the water to invade their lungs, just as they had refused to allow the food to invade their stomachs.

Once upon a time, two little girls played together in the woods.

Lisa succumbed first. Beth saw her inhale, horror on her face as her body jerked, trying to fight for life, trying to reject the unfamiliar sensation. The shock induced her own gasp, sending water flooding her windpipe. Fingers stayed clenched together, each urging the other to stay, to give in. To die.

Lisa's mother was the one who found them. Floating face down in the lake they had loved when they were ten. Two little girls who had always been little girls, who had always wanted to be little girls, even when their bodies refused to stay behind.

Once upon a time, two little girls played together in the woods.

(fin.)