Chapter Fourteen
Quinn - Present Day
Imagine being addicted to the one single thing that keeps you alive.
Addicted to it like it’s the air you need to breathe, and without the noise the addiction brings, your brain is the scariest place you’ve ever inhabited.
Which is saying something considering the trauma you have survived in your relatively short life.
Because life is relatively short in the grand scheme of things, twenty-eight years on this planet is nothing, really, is it?
Every single day, aside from the ability to breathe, you need food.
The one thing that keeps your body filled with the nutrients you need to sustain life is essentially one of the things that is killing you.
It’s the first thing you think of the moment you open your eyes and the last thing you think of when you close them. It’s all-consuming.
I’ve loved food since I can remember. It’s been my one constant source of comfort throughout my life.
Issues with Mum? Food solved them. Issues with Dad or Eric?
Food solved it. Bullied at school for being fat?
Food was the balm that soothed the wound.
Squirreling away wrappers in my bedroom, bingeing sweets and chocolate in the middle of the night, all in a desperate attempt to feel—something.
A food addiction—my mum calls it—something I should snap out of.
Yet, doctors have since put names to the conditions and validated me.
So why do I still question whether it’s all inside my mind?
I mean, don’t get me wrong, sometimes I play the system.
Building things up to get that surge of attention flooding through my veins.
But just like it does with the food, the minute that attention stops, so does the acceptance I have within myself.
It’s like food is my narcissistic ex-husband.
Impossible to live with and impossible to get rid of.
From the moment a morsel of food hits my taste buds, my mouth waters.
My brain is consumed by the silence I feel within that moment.
The only thing that has ever rivalled that silence is self-harm.
But some would say food is another, more accepted, form of self-harm, like tattoos, I suppose.
An average woman is expected to consume two thousand calories a day in order to maintain her weight, but some days I will binge four times that without a second thought.
It’s not always fatty, greasy food. It’s whatever is in reach.
Fruits, vegetables, meals, takeaways if I can afford it, seconds of meals even though my stomach feels like it’s about to explode.
Desserts are my weakness. No matter what I’ve eaten beforehand, my brain needs something sweet to curb the cravings.
It’s almost like without it my entire body will implode.
I couldn't even tell you when my body issues began, but if I had to hazard a guess, I can tell you who they began because of.