Read Online Faerie by Eisha Marjara - Free Book Online Page A

calories daily, making my total intake exactly that: 1,500. This fifty-percent balance somehow reassured me that Dr Messer and I were even; we were head to head. It was a truce. For now at least.
    â€œGood afternoon!” Nurse Personality didn’t bother to knock. I wouldn’t earn that privilege until I was off bed rest and had graduated from the currency of three added pounds. I sat upright, forced my eyes open. She was looking more pregnant each day. She opened the blinds and let the sun flash into my eyes.
    â€œI want my camera,” I blurted.
    â€œGet to Phase Three, then you’ll get the camera.” She dropped the tray of food onto my tray table. “They didn’t have green salad, so I got you carrot and raisin salad instead,” she said.
    What gall, replacing an innocent green salad with that greasy, sugar-laden dessert they called salad, then expecting me to swallow it without objection.
    â€œI don’t want the carrot and raisin salad.” I crossed my arms over my chest. The feel of my ribs pleased me. I was proud of the work, time, and effort it took me to develop that bone and eliminate the breast.
    â€œIf you don’t eat the salad, you’ll have to make it up somewhere else. If you don’t, it will go on your record. You didn’t make three pounds last weight day, Lila, so you’d better think about this.”
    â€œThere is a difference of eighty calories between green salad and carrot salad.”
    â€œThere will be no negotiating,” she told me.
    â€œI’ll have a Melba toast.”
    â€œThere will be no negotiating.”
    â€œI’ll have apple juice instead of the salad.”
    We argued more heatedly until she gave me an ultimatum. “I’m going to call Dr Messer.”
    I agreed to eat the salad.
    Exhausted and angry, I nibbled away. Feeling sick, I shivered as my lips touched the oily, cloying sweetness of the grated carrots. I chewed, swallowed, and cringed as numerous horrid button-sized raisins scratched against the back of my throat. I hated them; I hated those useless pieces of desiccated grapes that I’d spent hours of my life plucking out of muffins and cereals.
    Nurse Personality stood watching me as I ate. I had the uncanny feeling that she got a thrill from seeing me fattened up before her eyes, especially as her once-slim figure thickened from her pregnancy. I saw her tugging at her tightening belt, perhaps in a moment’s recognition that her body was swelling up and therewas absolutely nothing that she could do about it. I seemed to be more loathsome to her as that baby grew inside of her. The rest of the staff was just as hypocritical, always comparing dieting tips and secrets and exercise trends, always competing in some contest of self-control as they encouraged me to put on weight.
    When I’d finished the carrot and raisin salad, she took my tray and walked out. What followed was a silent tidal storm within me. Within half an hour, as I lay on my back with a full belly, a nightmarish torrent of guilt ensued and lasted a gruelling eighteen hours. I spent the day in a corner of my room—one the nurses couldn’t see unless they came in—unrelentingly running, skipping, and burning off that four-ounce salad.
    Tomorrow was weight day. I was afraid to gain. I was afraid to lose. I was stuck in an irreconcilable middle. Between the fear of gaining weight and falling short, I faced the possibility of tougher restrictions or reliving the onslaught of guilt and anguish all over again. Which was worse? Dr Messer had warned me that if I didn’t gain on the next weight day, I’d be force-fed another 1,000 calories daily with a feeding tube and sedated until I had put on fifty pounds. Fifty!
    At night I lay awake. I was not permitted to have a clock or watch in my room, but considering the turbulent relationship I had with time, it was just as well. After lights out, I could recognize the