Our Secret

The feeling was euphoric: squinted and dilated eyes, tensed muscels, and blood rushing to my head. The fluid gushing from my mouth looked like a pre-schoolers rainbow. So vile and dirty the colors were. I felt strangely relived because I had cleansed myself of the filth. I was pure until the next time I was forced to succumb to the sinful temptation once more.

“Guess what, I have a secret.” Alexis whispered to me in her airy voice.
“What” I asked in the same tautly giddy resonance.
“I found a way to get skinny faster” she whispered back conspiratorrally.I was instantly interested. Alexis and I had been committed to loosing weight. It was our dream to walk the runways of places like Milan, Paris, and Tokyo. After watching models on television we both agreed; models aren’t fat. It was the motto we used on each other when we felt like giving up the newest crazy diet or the near impossible exercise plan.

“Okay so all you have to do is take an old tooth brush. Like this one.” She held up an old, red, baby tooth brush, “and stick it down your throat, and touch that pink thing that hangs down there”.
“Lexi, girl what did I tell you about smokin’ that stuff and not sharin’.Do you know how dangerous that is?”

“Stop worrying it’ll be fine. It works and that’s all that matters.” She said breezily. The look on my face must have said differently because she quickly added, “And we’ll be really really cross my heart. Here try it.” she said as she pushed me into the bathroom with the toothbrush. Once the door closed Alexis shouted, “Remember models aren’t fat!” That’s when I decided my fate and Alexis’s…

“Alexis! Lexi! Oh my God, wake up please”, my screams pierced through the stunned silence that filled the room. With bleared vision I watched as the paramedics lifted a limp and impossibly slender body onto a stretcher. I watched as the foamed spit and smeared crimson flooded from its mouth. I watched as the body jerked as if it were a child’s plaything. I watched in fascinated horror as my best friend had a massive seizure.

“Stop blaming yourself”, Alexis rasped, “This is my fault”. I smiled and took Alexis’s tiny hand but didn’t bother to contradict her again. I tried to hold back the moisture that seemed intent on breaking my carefully molded cheerful façade. But I couldn’t help it. She had changed so much; I couldn’t even see her as “Lexi” anymore. She told me not to blame myself but how I can not. I could have prevented all this chaos if I had been stronger. I could have saved my Lexi from becoming this shell, this fakeness, this sicklier version of… me.