Read Thin for Free Online Page B

does the trick. Put them in the position of vulnerability and watch them squirm.
    Now, if you are starting to feel that things aren’t exactly as you wanted, just remember the strategy. Your case is very simple. There are just a few more pounds to lose. You feel, and look, much healthier. They really can’t have been looking closely before, because you had seriously chubby legs. Remind them that you know your body best and you definitely need to know it inside out. You need to make sure that if one ounce of fat develops it is squeezed out, refined, purified and beaten.
    I’m here.
    BANG.
    White
Hazy white. Lying on the floor. Sit up and sit down and sit up and sit down. Fuzzy. Lying on the bed before sleep on the white sheet. Press up and press down and press up and press down. Things are light now. Slower, softer, gentle. La la la. Here we are. On to the next thing. Move along now. Look into the tunnel. Focus in. Walk in the white snow. Press each foot into the crisp, untouched whiteness. Lift your foot and place it down. Look ahead. Don’t turn round. Just keep looking at the seamless white stretched ahead of you.

PLAY
    [There are five girls sitting around a wooden table in a pub. They are eating dinner. Four of the girls are eating plates full of hot food, one girl is eating a bowl of soup. This girl is Grace. A bread roll is perched on the side of the big plate on which the soup is resting. Grace picks up the bread roll and slides it off the edge of the plate on to the table. The other girls look at each other. The table is noisy with chatter until this movement of the bread. Then Grace interrupts the silence.]
    GRACE (OUTSIDE VOICE ): So, has anyone got their cases packed yet? I’m going to buy mine tomorrow. Mum is taking me shopping.
    GRACE (INSIDE VOICE ):
Don’t make me eat it. The bread roll.
    [There is silence again and then the awkward sound of cutlery indicating that each girl is eating louder and louder as if to draw attention away from the silence and towards the food.]
    GIRL 1
[bravely]
: Grace, I don’t know how to say this, but do you think that you might see a doctor about things? I could come with you to see a counsellor?
    GRACE (INSIDE VOICE ):
Soup only. Liquid soup. No bread roll.
    GRACE (OUTSIDE VOICE ): Yes, maybe. That is very kind of you.
    GRACE (INSIDE VOICE ):
Not even one mouthful.
    GIRL 2: Don’t you want that bread roll?
    [Grace looks up and down as if to try and get away from their intrusive eyes.]
    GRACE (OUTSIDE VOICE )
[meekly]
: No, no thank you.
    GRACE (INSIDE VOICE ):
Just the soup.
    GIRL 3: Can we talk about it? I mean … will you be OK when you go to university? Perhaps you could see someone there?
    GRACE (INSIDE VOICE ):
I ate that apple earlier so I can’t eat a bread roll now.
    GRACE (OUTSIDE VOICE ): Sorry?
    GRACE (INSIDE VOICE ):
Now, how many calories could potentially be in a bread roll of this size?
    GIRL 3: About university? Will you be all right because, well … we are … you know …
    GRACE (INSIDE VOICE ):
Maybe 120? Too many, don’t eat it.
    GRACE (OUTSIDE VOICE ): I’m fine. I’m fine, no thank you, thanks anyway, though.
    [The girls continue to eat and we see them talk to each other and to Grace but we do not hear what they are saying. Instead, Grace’s voice takes over.]
    GRACE (INSIDE VOICE ):
I would cry if I had to eat the bread, not out loud, but inside-crying caught up in my mouth. Trapped and stuck tears in the goo of the thick, brown crusty bread. I don’t want to eat it. That’s how I feel. I can’t. I know that something might be wrong because I feel this way, but I do eat things – certain things. They probably think that I don’t. How would that be possible, not to eat anything at all? I couldn’t do it. I do eat. I did some work experience this week and I ate two packets of chewing gum and Tic Tacs (only two calories each!), and an apple and a banana for my lunch. I walked round the shopping centre to distract myself from eating.