Edie.

Edie. She speaks without words. A look. A cocked eyebrow. I drop my food. She notices when my clothes fit too tight or I retain water from my period. I'm told no else does. But she does...

Edie says she wants what's best for me... well she doesn't really say it, but she must! She's there confirming my thoughts when no else understands. She sees what I see and doesn't let me forget it.

At first Edie was an inspiration. A poster I put on the wall of my mind just like a young basketball dreaming boy would of Micheal Jordan. Edie was very much like me yet so different. She was thin, beautiful, confident, sexy, smart and did I mention wonderfully thin?

Edie was who I looked at when I looked around at my life and wondered if there was more for me. She slowly developed a voice and she made me feel sane! Everything I thought and asked others and they shook there heads like I was nuts, she saw!! The imaginary elephant in the room that was my "fatness, ugliness and stupidity" that no one else saw, she confirmed. I wasn't crazy after all and this was a problem that we could fix. Together. With her, we would be great. Just the two of us.

She was polite and in control, yet firm in her rules. She told me to write down everything I ate so I could see where I went wrong. She wanted to understand why I was the mess I was, so she insisted we read diet books and learn. "No sense in complaining about something if we aren't gonna fix it" she'd say. I agreed.

Her rules at first made sense but were hard to follow all the time. I'd carry around my food journal so I could write down when I was good and when I was bad. She always was disappointed when I was bad. The control and power she had started to make her much more aggressive and it seemed that she had all the self control in the world. I would cry over eating a donut and she would walk around in a mid drift baring top looking at me with disgust. This wasn't how friends treated each other. But I knew I was wrong, so I obediently came back waiting for our next plan on how I could be more like her.