Letters to a Princess by Libby Hathorn Page B

over-exercising—heart attack, muscle tears, you name it. But to tell the truth, I wasn’t buying it. I’d heard it all before.
    And whatever anyone says, getting fat again is just as big a problem. How could I explain that, to me, getting fat again would be like dying. Why don’t they get it? I’m not
ever
going to get fat again.
    And the only way to not get fat is to eat less and exercise more. But I’m not obsessive. Well, maybe a bit obsessive about exercising, I suppose. Still, it’s not as if I’m popping pills, like some of the gym junkies, so I can do longer workouts. I’m not into laxatives or any of that crap. But I’m also not into ever being fat again. And if that means avoiding carbs and fats and doing a few extra runs and push-ups, well so be it.
    The biggest problem in my life, bigger than the kids giving me hell, bigger than being in trouble with teachers over the Diana article, was, and still is, not having mymum in my life. Not being able to talk to her about all the crap that’s going on. She’d tell me exactly what to do like she always used to. She’d take control of the situation. But now she’s dead and I’m all alone. But Mum’s death was the one problem no-one could fix! So why bother talking about it?

13
    ‘How often do you exercise?’
    ‘What, when you first wake up?’
    ‘Push-ups?’
    ‘How many, on average?’
    ‘How far do you run?’
    ‘Is this on a daily basis?’
    ‘And do you think you’re fit?’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘What constitutes fit in your mind?’
    Things had taken a turn for the worse. I was in hospital facing a barrage of questions I didn’t feel like answering. The dark feeling inside me was getting blacker every day and my throat would not, could not, swallow. I felt a dim kind of pleasure in not answering too many questions; in just lying there not speaking, scarcely eating, pretending not to be there.
    It was Babs who had finally convinced me to go to hospital. One night after I’d slunk into my room toavoid dinner and do some push-ups, I heard Graham on the phone, ‘I just can’t get her to see reason.’ Bloody Ingrid again. ‘She goes running for hours on end. She’s always complaining about my food and, as far as I can see, she survives on apples. No, I haven’t given up, but it’s up to her in the end!’ Then I heard him say ‘Yes, I know Marcus gives her a hard time,’ and then the dreaded words, ‘hospital treatment facility’ and ‘good idea’, and I knew it wasn’t Ingrid who was talking him around, but Babs!
    My first thought was to resist hospital, but Babs was determined and she wore me down in the end. She came and sat on my bed one afternoon when I was really sick with the flu. She told me she thought I needed intensive help and that my school work and my plans for my whole life would suffer if I continued down the path I was on.
    ‘You’re addicted to this eating disorder like a drug now pet, that’s what it amounts to!’
    I was indignant. ‘I don’t take drugs, Babs. Everyone’s bugging me about that. I wouldn’t lie to you. Look, I don’t take drugs at all. You know that!’
    ‘Your chosen drug is starvation, Di! It’s like a drug and it will be just as harmful to you if we don’t nip it in the bud right now. I want you to listen to me.’
    Who’d she been talking to? How come she was suddenly an expert? She just sat there unmoved while I raged a bit about everyone putting in their ten cents’ worth and harassing me endlessly. Then she interrupted.
    ‘I want to tell you something I’ve just learned about Graham and Marcus.’
    ‘Please no!’ I begged, but she forged on.
    ‘They’ve had their tough times too, Di. You see, your stepbrother’s mother didn’t die of pneumonia like you’ve been told.’ I held up my hand in protest. I couldn’t bear to hear anything about my stepfather or Marcus. It simply didn’t interest me but Babs just kept talking in that bossy way of hers. ‘Hear me out, Diana.