“I'm fat.” I mumbled under my hot breath, prodding at my thighs in the full length mirror. 

 “What?” A slight raise in voice came from behind me, I turned around facing a girl with a length of bleach bottle long hair, sitting on the rainbow leopard pattern on my bed sheets that I had chosen thanks to the black eyeliner and side bangs I envied. She took a stick of black charcoal to line her bottom waterline. 

 “I said I’m fat.” I ended my statement there, shutting my wordy mouth covered in a wine of purple lipstick. 

 I assume that’s where it started. A situation draw out in a fine long line, not a simple sudden issue. It was not like falling in love all at once, or the pain of heartbreak stretched for months. It was the years in which dietary magazines and thigh gaps were added to a mix of vodka diet coke. Yet how do we know we have a problem when things that we experience are so sought after and painted over with a shinny gold layer of insults and hopes. I certainly didn’t know the brew of body image issue would come so slow yet hit so hard, a simple 12 year old girl with swooped side bangs and a fringe and my neck tattooed with a black lace choker. Yet I did not know the girl I met one day in a dark night would pave a path for me, be so relevant in the way I viewed myself with black rimmed ray bans. The girl, she had long blond hair, tall and stood with such confidence and be loved with a sweet voice. She looked like me, exactly the way I envisioned myself. Not the pudgy thighs or overhang of stomach fat that had been formed from years of volleyball and eating big macs. She was simply beautiful, glowing skin and a gap between her long legs. Or maybe it was the hip bones that must've belonged to a skeleton that made her so pretty. The only thing that set her apart from me was the eyes that was the color of a blazing fire of self deprecation. She told me the night where the sky was painted with black ink that her name was Marigold. 

 I sat there fluffing up my hair and making sure my clothes looked okay, for the first day of 8th grade I was consumed with the thought of looking nice. 

 “Your hair looks fine Ray, that’s not the issue here” Marigold sat and laughed, twisting her hair around, blowing a bubble of mint gum into my face. Her face twisted in disgust as mine formed into confusion. 

 “Then what is it?” I looked at her wondering what insult would come out of her mouth this time. 

 “Your body, dummy. The diet I told you to go on isn’t working babe. I think we need to do something else.” She moved my bangs aside, looking to me with fierce eyes. I was lost, what else could I cut out? I had already moved aside pork and beef. I thought I looked okay, good even. 

 “I think I look good Mari-” I mumbled out, yet her swift voice cut me off. 

 “Well you don’t, you told me you wanted to be pretty like me? Right? So listen to me, I’m only here to help you. I’m your best friend Ray, everything I do is for the best of you,” I nodded in agreement, she was right. I didn’t look pretty, in fact I was very far away from it.  ¨Fixing your bangs isn't going to help, welp you look as good as you can.” She shrugged, pushing me out the door.

  The day passed as simple as it could, a few hugs thrown into my classes. Smiles and laughing was the main communication among friends. Yet lunch was the easiest part of the day, Marigold travelled behind me like a shadow. Eying my every move, what I choose to eat. 

 “No, nope, nope,” She whispered in my ear, making me jump. “Just eat this,” Marigold handed me a single cookie. I took it placing down any other fatty food I had picked. That was the first day the diet Marigold had placed me on extended. No longer did I just cut out pork and beef, regular food seemed to disappear too. Marigold was becoming louder and more pushy, her cold hands wrapping around my wrists to measure how much fat drained away. But she was so beautiful, I wanted to be like her, oh god all I wanted was to be like Marigold. Even if it meant giving up something that had given me comfort all throughout my life. My eyes drained of live each day, the once calm ocean that occupied them turned into still water lacking energy, but Marigold was happy. It seemed as each pound I dropped it fed her, wanting to groom me into the same skeleton she had become. Months passed in a slow slur of sadness, I had lost all interest in my hobbies that seemed to bring joy in my life. The only thing that brought me happiness was to see the number on the scale drop. If I ate, I had to work it off. One bagel meant running a mile in volleyball or no dinner. Marigold taught me to trade one food for another. Her smile soon turned into a grimace, scary yet powerful. Her clammy hands running down my hips to see how much hip bone to stomach fat ratito there was. No longer was the sweat the ran down my back as I jumped to met the ball, it was tears flowing from my eyes draining the sea. All I could hear was Marigolds loud screams if I even dared to look at food, her sweet voice turned into a horse call. 

 “I can’t do this anymore.”I sobbed to Marigold, pleading for her to stop the insults. 

 “Do what? Lose weight?Look at yourself Ray! You’re not beautiful till I say you are. There’s still fat lining your body. You’re disgusting, gross.” I sat on my floor, eyes bloodshot and cheeks painted raw from tears that now felt like acid against my skin. “Tell me when it kicks in.” She sighed, leaving my room. Leaving me alone in the darkness. I didn’t know what she meant. But as soon as I heard the creek of my door slam shut, I clasped my head into my hands. Tangling my fingers into my blonde hair, screaming at the top of my lungs. Sobs broke, leaving my chest burning and mouth dry. The feeling of emptiness and dragging hunger soon became welcomed, yet the came along with this was an unbearable feeling of nothing. The thought and hope of being skinny consumed my life, the numbers on the back of nutrition labels no longer became a thing I was concerned with, it was the number on my father's scale that was left in my parents room. One forty, one thirty, one twenty. Marigold had finally become my only friend, I distanced myself from people. She held me in chains covered in rust and painted over with the false hope of freedom, putting me into a box. My family became foreign to me, my room was the only place I found comfort.  

 “Rachel, honey?” My mother knocked at my door, peeking her head through. “Did you eat today?” She asked with a soft voice. 

 “Yeah I had breakfast and a sandwich when I got home.” I lied through my braces lined teeth, not wanting her to know that the only food I had consumed that day was a cookie that Marigold handed me during lunch. She left without another thought, not being able to see her daughter disintegrate in front of her. Compliments on my outfits soon turned into complements of my body, oh how blessed I was to be skinny. As if it was beautiful to see my once thick hair turned into string, or my spine bruise from sitting in a chair. My hands looking as the belonged to a thin spider, they wrapped around my thighs hoping that my thigh gap would be wide enough for Marigold to stop her screams and supside. 

 Yet one day, when I weighed myself. The number rang one hundred and ten, such a beautiful number. Standing at five feet and eight inches, I was proud of the small underweight number. But something didn’t feel right, being this skinny did feel okay. I could look at myself in the mirror and see the bones that were so obvious. But like Marigold, this skeleton didn’t belong to me. I was no longer me, in the search to be beautiful I lost my sanity. 

 “You look beautiful Ray.” Marigold appeared next to me, clapping her hands. Her eyes again blazing. I sat on my bathroom floor, trying to realize the extent of my issue. Gazing her face, I could feel my eyes sink in, the tiredness consuming me. 

 “No I don’t,” I clasped my face, feeling my back bruise as a leaned against the cabinet. “I need help Marigold, I’m not healthy.” I could feel the full force of the issue hit me, maybe it was the mix of menthols and no food. But I couldn’t seem to find the energy to continue denying myself of something that I needed to live. It was physically painful to see my smile fade, the once bright blue eyes turn to gray. She started to scream on how I didn’t, that I was beautiful and needed to stay this way. But I knew to see myself waste away was not okay, I tried to move away. The rusty chains marigold kept me in pulled but didn’t break. Keeping me close to her, I sat there pulling my wrists hopping that these chains that had been so nicely disguised  as love would break. But that night, the only thing I learned was that thing doesn't always mean beautiful. 

 For months I wasted away, hoping one day I would banish Marigold from me life. I couldn’t continue looking at myself as another person, maybe people thought I was beautiful. Yet they did not know the demon that plagued me. One day, I used my voice that was once silenced by her. I was let out of the shackles that bruised my wrists, Marigold faded away. Soon locked in the prison she once held me in, though today I believe I am beautiful. I hear her screaming oh so silently telling me that skinny girls bleed flowers.