She’d left me alone in the hotel room to visit the bar downstairs on the ground floor. In my mind, I reasoned that she was either tired of looking at me or in dire need of a drink. Maybe one needs a little liquid courage to check her daughter into rehab for her eating disorder. I wouldn’t know.

No, I was the daughter in this scenario, the one doomed to watch from the sidelines as her fate was discussed by her parents and medical professionals – but then beckoned forward in which I had the choice to obey or be dragged. Being a minor and all, I couldn’t be expected to make my own decisions; or – scratch that – not permitted to. I could scream profanities until my lungs collapsed, but I couldn’t escape the unknown that was my future – not with myself as my sole comrade.

I tried to make sense of the numbing silence that both physically surrounded me and inhabited my mind. Blank thoughts, yet beneath that surface, I could hear faint cries and shouts of what was in store for me.

The part of me that was exhausted from the trip of flying from down south to Washington D.C. would have loved to simply curl up into a fetal position on the bed, but another part of me – the part that had stuck me in this mess of discomfort and general despair – couldn’t bear to fathom the prospect of wasting time pitying myself that I could be utilizing to burn calories.

I’d been sitting on my butt the entire day and I grimaced at the thought of going a full day without some sort of exercise to assuage my irrational anxieties of – on the surface – weight gain and – much deeper – feelings of inadequacy. It simply would not do.

I’d failed to resist the indulgence of an ice-cream treat, a Haagen Daaz Dazzler, earlier that day as my mom and I had browsed the large Pentagon mall; no matter that I had absolutely no plan – or, I suppose, made a plan to not have any plan – to eat anything else that day.

According to that sick part of my mind, I was a binger and a sinner; the two were synonymous.

Thus, I couldn’t sit still. The sunlight was still beaming through the window which overlooked a particularly ugly sight – a construction site beside the hotel and a crowd of motorcycles, leading me to the idea that there was some sort of bikers convention occurring at or near to where I was staying.

Wringing my wrists in anxious contemplation, I sat myself on the hard carpeting of the floor and proceeded to do sit-ups and crunches. The bruises already situated on my spine wailed, and the bones of beneath the skin of my tush similarly protested against the added stress. The bones in my back jutted grossly, so much so that I knew my mom could barely stand to hug me.

But I worked through the pain, because I still wasn’t good enough. I couldn’t not take advantage of some last hurrah before having to face the enigmatic horror of a psychotic prison for two months. I was sure I’d be greeted with the sight of model-figured girls, girls so much thinner than I.

I’d stand out as the thick, pitifully ugly girl as I always had. I would not only spend the next sixty or so days in some kind of hell, but I’d be exposed as a sight of ridicule as well. Who let the fat girl in? they would say.

When I could no longer ignore the pain, and my breaths were coming out in uncomfortable huffs, I propped myself up and returned to a standing position. White spots clouded my vision from the sudden standing and I waited before my vision cleared before moving to another open spot in the room – a lame attempt to change up the scenery; maybe dispel the rotten experience I’d just had torturing myself through petty floor exercises.

I felt claustrophobic in the room. It was narrow and that didn’t give me much space to work with. I was both mentally and physically worn at that point, but I nevertheless commanded my legs to exert themselves as I began jogging in place.

It was easier for me to notice how tired I was when I was bored, however, so I jogged in little circles pitifully and from the door to the window on the far side of the room, several times.

I didn’t feel much better after I’d stopped, but I tried to find whatever comfort I could from my lethargy. I’d need to remember the punishing exhaustion if doctors were to stuff food down my through, fatten me up like a pig.

I dreaded the following day – the day I was to be admitted into the rehabilitation center - but I also wanted it to come if only so I would be closer to being released, where I could once again have the freedom to search for solace in the hollow space between my bones.