Skinny girls are fragile

The skinny girl wondered why her mother was never happy with her. She always complained about how she looked. Her hair was always too flat. She was too skinny. She was too fat. No boy would ever ask her on a date because she was too ugly. The skinny girl envied other girl’s relationships with their mothers. She watched how they interacted when they were picked up from ballet class.

Their mother’s always tell them how proud they are. My mother never says that to me, the skinny girl thought as she waited for her mother to pick her up.

“Get in the car, quick!” her mother said in a hurried tone. The skinny girl snapped out of her trance, and jumped up and in to her mother’s SUV. “What’s the hurry?” she asked her mother as she put on her seatbelt.
“I don’t want Mrs. So and So to see you looking a mess,” she said.

“Mom, I just came out of ballet, of course I look like a mess,” she said.

“Well, that doesn’t mean anyone has to see you getting in to my car.” The skinny girl looked down in to her lap, and away from her mother’s glare in the rearview mirror.

“How was ballet class? Did the teacher tell you that you gained too much weight, because I think you’re much fatter than you were last season,” her mother inquired.

“She said I am fine the way I am.” The skinny girl said. She never actually discussed her weight with anyone except for her mother. Her mother was the only one who really cared enough about how she looked. The skinny girl even stopped caring.

“Well, we need to weigh you before dinner, because I’m not sure if you should actually eat a full plate of dinner tonight. Maybe just carrots and some green tea,” her mother said.

“Okay mom, that’s fine.”

The two continued the rest of their journey home in silence. The skinny girl was completely used to her mother’s efforts to keep her skinny and perfect.

After all her mother had been the perfect ballerina. And according to her mother, that is how she met her father. If her mother was not skinny, then her father would have never noticed her.

“There’s my granddaughter,” the skinny girl’s grandmother was waiting in the living room for her. “Oh my gosh,” the grandmother said under her breath to her son. “She’s so skinny she’s disappearing.”

“Mom, don’t start,” the skinny girl’s father said to her grandmother. The horror on the grandmother’s face could not be wiped away as fast as the skinny girl’s father wanted it to. The grandmother stared at her granddaughter, and they hugged. The skinny girl weighed all of 80 lbs and she was 15 years old. “Wow baby, you look so different than you did the last time I seen you,” the grandmother said.

“Well, we have her on a strict diet for her ballet. She’s going to be the world’s greatest ballerina,” the mother responded.

“Yes she is,” the father chimed in.

“I’m going upstairs to change, I’ll be back down in a minute,” the skinny girl ran upstairs.

She couldn’t wait to get away from the whole discussion about how she looked. That’s all they ever discussed in her house was her looks. The skinny girl was tired of talking about her looks. She was tired of ballet class. She just wanted it all to end. As much as she pretended to care with her mother, she really didn’t care.

She opened up her white dresser drawer and pulled out her pack of Virginia Slim cigarettes and her pink lighter. If her father knew that she smoked cigarettes, he would kill her. It was her mother that got her started because she told her that it would keep her skinny.

The skinny girl went inside her bathroom, stuffed a towel under the door and lit up her cigarette. She just wanted to relax a little. While in her tiny bathroom she felt all alone. Her father never stood up to her mother, she really didn’t have any friends in school or ballet class. She was only allowed to do things that would further her looks or improve her physique. Cigarette in mouth, she stripped her clothes off, and turned on her bath water. She sat in the tub while it filled up around her. She didn’t even add bubble bath or bath salts. She just wanted the hot water around her. She wanted it to burn her skin. She wanted to feel something else besides emptiness. Her mother removed the mirrors from her bedroom and bathroom, so she never got a chance to see what she looked like. Her mother told her how she looked. Her mother dressed her and picked out her clothes and hairstyles. She just let her mother rule her life.

As the water filled up in the tub the skinny girl’s cigarette diminished in her mouth. She didn’t bother to ash the cigarette; she just let the ashes fall on to her chest while in the tub. Off in the distance, she heard someone coming up the stairs. The echo of the water filling up the tub made such a loud, crashing sound that she ignored the footsteps. Her bedroom door was locked and so was the bathroom door. If her mother was to try and enter she would have to go get her key, like she always did. But by that time it would be too late. The skinny girl was now submerged under the water in the tub. The echoing sound of the water had changed, and the water was now dripping over the edge of the claw footed tub. The skinny girl didn’t bother to open her eyes or struggle to get out of the water. She let the drowsiness take over. She allowed the water to enter every opening in her body, until it over took her.

Seconds later her mother came in to her bedroom, key in hand. The billowing cloud of cigarette smoke still lingered in her bedroom from when she first lit the cigarette. The mother noticed the towel stuffed under the bottom of the bathroom door, and she heard the water running. She didn’t want to disturb her daughter, but it was time for dinner. She proudly made her daughter’s green tea. She decided that she didn’t need the carrots tonight. The mother knew that she had been harsher on her daughter than her own mother had been to her, especially during those years of ballet. But she just wanted the best for her daughter. After all, she knew how fragile skinny girls can be. She was a former skinny girl herself. So she left the room deciding to give her daughter 5 more minutes in the tub.