Sins of the Flesh (Exposed Series Book 1) (9 page)

Of course, now I can eat as many Double Whoppers as I want
because for the first time in my life, I’m losing weight without trying. To be
honest, I can’t believe the pharmaceutical companies haven’t cashed in on this
yet. I can see it now:

The Cancer Diet

“What’s the secret to the latest diet pill? It gives
you cancer! Just a little. Just enough to ruin your appetite and make you feel
sick! Don’t worry if you can’t control yourself in the face of fats and carbs,
just pop this pill and let the virus do the hard work for you!”

Anyway, it’s a good thing Hell’s not real. Cause I was thinking
about this atrocious idea while I watched people arrive at the cancer wing of
the hospital.

It wouldn’t be long before they were all seated with their
appropriate group, ready to support and be supported. I’m not sure why they
separated people based on the severity of their condition. I guess it’s
probably so those of us that are doomed don’t bring down the people who still
have hope.

But I didn't know if I was going to go in anyway. The only
reason I was even considering it was that, besides Tina, I didn’t want to
discuss it with anyone I actually knew. Because what if being open about it
made me feel uncomfortable and I wanted to take it back?

“Just kidding, I’m not dying. Gotcha! Whoa, you were
really looking sad for a minute there. My bad. Don’t worry. I’m not going
anywhere! Feel free to treat me normally again.”

Which I know sounds stupid. Especially since I’d been openly
discussing difficult issues with other people for years. But when it came to
being honest with myself, I had no idea where to start. And at least with a
support group, if I didn’t like their brand of support, I could just stop
showing up.

Obviously I’d already come to terms with the fact that I wasn’t
going to use my final days to raise awareness for the illness. I wasn’t going
to be brave or try to inspire hope in others. Even though it would be nice to
be remembered as a selfless, courageous individual.

But something caught my attention as I watched the people walking
into the building. I couldn’t help but notice that they fell into two categories.

Some of them looked really sick. Like stereotypical cancer sick.
Chemo sick. These were people who had no choice but to face the illness head
on. Cause there was no hiding what they were going through.

But the rest of them looked okay. Not visibly sick. Just normal looking.
Healthy even. Like they could still walk around amongst the most tactless
people in society without having to ignore obvious whispers.  

And suddenly, I had an epiphany.

I was still a member of the second group! Just because the
cancer was going to catch up with me eventually didn’t mean I couldn’t outrun
it for a little while. I needed to enjoy my life while I still had the chance. Surely
that would beat sitting around feeling sorry for myself and waiting for death. After
all, I had lived on my own terms. It was only right that I die by them.

I never flushed the toilet while I was purging until it got so
full that I had to. It was vital that I see how much food I’d thrown up and how
digested it was so I would have an idea of how close I was to being empty.

Plus, I couldn’t risk attracting unwanted attention. Or
interrupting my rhythm. 

After all, if I lost my flow, sometimes the easiest thing to do
was to binge some more until I was bursting all over again. On days when that
happened, I could spend up to four hours binging and purging.

It was mentally and physically exhausting.

The day I got caught I was having a particularly difficult time.
Before I sat down and had dinner with my family, I scarfed a bunch of French
fries in secret on the way home from practice. And I didn’t chew them up enough.
As a result, they were scratching the shit out of my throat on their way up.
Even the obscene amount of soda I drank with them wasn’t making a difference.

When I started to sweat, I knew I had to hurry up or I’d get too
lightheaded to continue. Then I’d have to sit on the bathroom floor until I
felt better, and I might have to start over. Which was the worst thing I could
think of at that moment.

Until I heard a knock on my bedroom door.

I stood up. “One second. I’m in the bathroom.”

“Open this door right now.”

It was my Mom. And she sounded pissed.

“One second.” I tried to keep my voice light, but I knew I had
to buy some time. My hand was covered in puke, and I didn’t need to look in the
mirror to know how red my face was.

“OPEN. THIS DOOR. NOW.”

“Hold on! Jeez.” I pushed down on the toilet handle, but nothing
happened.

She knocked again. It sounded like the knock the police used when
they were outside the wine closet.

My heart was pounding. I tried to flush the toilet again, and a
big bubble just rose to the top of the sludgy vomit. I looked around for the
plunger. I usually kept it in my bathroom. But it wasn’t there. Chris must have
borrowed it.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I tried to strain my voice so it sounded like I was mid-diarrhea
or something equally unpleasant. “Can I come talk to you in a few minutes, Mom?
I don’t feel very well.”

“No.” I could practically hear her folding her arms. “We are
going to talk now.”

I gargled with mouthwash and tried the flusher one more time in
vain before closing the toilet lid. I turned on the faucet to give my fingers a
quick scrub and before I turned it off, I spritzed a shitload of lavender air
mist towards the toilet. Then I turned on the bathroom fan.

“Open the door Kate!”

“One second!” I called as I stripped off my clothes. Then I
wrapped a towel around myself and closed the bathroom door as softly as I
could.

I stepped up to my bedroom door, exhaled, and swallowed.

“What is it Mom?” I opened the door a crack and peeked around
just enough that she would be able to see I was in a towel. “I was just about
to get a shower.”

She raised a hand in the air. It was holding an empty bottle of Skol
Vodka. I tried to remember the last time I’d drank Skol. It was before school
started sometime last summer. The girls and I went thirds on it. I think it
came to around four dollars each for the whole handle.

“Where did you get that?” I asked.

“Try again.”

“Can we talk about this after I get a shower?”

She put her foot against the door so I couldn’t close it.

I sighed. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

“Sorry for what?”

“Drinking vodka?”

I could see a vein popping out along her temple. “You know,
normally I would be mad about that. But not this time.”

“Why are you mad this time?”

“Because you’ve been driving around with this in your
car
.”

“No I haven’t.”

“Yes you have!” She was holding the bottle in the air like she
was thinking about clubbing me with it. “It was in your trunk!”

“Shit.” No wonder it went missing. It was like a yard sale back
there.

“Shit?” She stuck her neck out. “Shit?!” She shook her head. “Is
that all you have to say for yourself?”

I shrugged.

“Mind if I come in and have a word?”

I wanted to say it wasn’t a good time, but I could tell she
didn’t really mean it as a question. So I opened my door and stepped to the
side.

She came in and sat on my bed. I stayed standing. I wanted to
keep her eyes from looking towards the closed bathroom door where my puke
filled toilet sat, steaming like a swamp.

“Do you think I’m an idiot, Kate?” Her eyes were sad and her
expression was pathetic. I liked it better when she was angry.

“No. Of course not.”

“So why do you lie to me like this? About everything?”

“I don’t lie to you about everything.” 

“Do you understand how much trouble you could’ve gotten into if
the school had searched your car? Or if you’d been pulled over?”

I nodded, but all I could think about was getting her out of my
room.

“It just- you’re smarter than this.” She pulled one leg up onto
the bed and tucked it underneath her.

“I know, Mom. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”  

“Can you even hear yourself? Do you know how many times you’ve
told me that?” She laid the vodka bottle on the bed so she could talk with her
hands. “How long do you expect me to keep believing that it’s your
friends
that smoke and that you’d
never
drink and drive?”

I shrugged.

“I just don’t understand how you can be so reckless.”

I pursed my lips.

“If you were in my situation, what would you do?” Her eyes
bounced back and forth between mine. “What would you do if your daughter was acting
this way?”

I swallowed. “I don’t know, Mom.” I pulled my towel up and held
my hands over my chest. “I know I drink a little… but it’s not like I’m not a
total
screw up. It’s not like I’m on
drugs
.”
Unless you consider food a
drug.

She shook her head. “This-” She held up the bottle. “This is too
much.” She lowered it back down again.

I wanted to tell her it wasn’t a cry for help and that I would
think of the perfect way for her to punish me if she would just get out of my room.

But then she did the one thing I didn’t want her to do more than
anything. She sniffed the air, wrinkled her nose, and looked at me.

“What’s that smell?”

I just stared at her.

Her eyes got big and her eyebrows rose to make room for them.
“Well?”

“I told you I had an upset stomach.”

She cocked her head. “What kind of upset?”

“I think I just ate something that didn’t agree with me.”

She furrowed her brow. “You don’t think it was my lasagna, do
you? I made it the same way I always do.”

“No. It must have been something else.”

“Did you get sick?”

“Just a little,” I said. “I feel fine now.”

She squinted at me, her eyes narrowing on me like laser beams.

I knew the fact that she was there to confront me about all the
lies I’d been telling her lately wasn’t going to work in my favor. And it
didn’t help that the weird smell she detected didn’t smell like crap. Or even
“a little sick.”

She rose to her feet without saying anything, leaving the empty
vodka bottle on the bed. Then, as if in slow motion, I watched her head towards
the bathroom door.

I stepped in front of her. “You don’t want to go in there. It’s
kind of gross. I’m sure the fan will sort it out.”

“Move, please.”

My feet froze and I dropped my head.

She stepped around me and slid the bathroom door open.

I stopped breathing and listened to her walk into the bathroom.
I heard her lift the lid on the toilet. When I turned around, she was staring
into the bowl.

As soon as I realized that my darkest secret was exposed, my
eyes began to water. It felt like she was looking at all my pain all at once.
Like she was staring at my most festering wound.

She turned her head towards me, her whole face drooping like she’d
been punched in the stomach. “Oh Kate.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but I just burst into tears.

I fell to my knees and put my face in my hands. Then I curled forward
into the fetal position and shook with every sob.

I remember seeing my Mom’s knees drop down beside me. I remember
how I collapsed against her when she pulled me into her arms, how she held me
tight and let me soak her shirt with my tears.

It felt like I might cry forever.

And all the while she smoothed my hair against my head, shushed
me like a baby, and told me it was going to be okay.

I didn’t feel any solidarity with the people I saw on their way
to the cancer support group. I didn’t want to join them, fight with them, or
embrace them. If anything, I wanted to run the other way.

I wanted to have as little in common with them as possible. I
wanted to prove how alive I was by doing something wild, something a sick
person would never have the energy or guts to do.

If I were rich, there would’ve been lots of ways I could cheer
myself up. I could’ve flown somewhere to swim with sharks or jumped out of a
plane. But I needed to think of something less expensive and preferably,
something I could arrange myself on short notice.

While I navigated the busy sidewalks trying to think of a way to
make myself feel better, I wondered what everyone else was hiding. I wondered
who the cheaters and addicts were and who had incurable diseases like mine. Or
even just embarrassing ones.