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Everything was fuzzy. Like the radio station is slightly out of range fuzzy or the tv antenna isn’t quite receiving the signal fuzzy. And everything was moving. I don’t mean the people. I mean the ground, the bleachers, me. I was moving. I was moving and I wasn’t aware that I was moving. I had stopped as soon as I got to my seat. Or at least, I thought I did.
Someone was calling my name. It sounded familiar, but distant. Kind of like a dream. I didn’t think that it was real at first; I thought that it was all in my head. Until…
Until that voice was in my ear, screaming my name, begging me to answer it. Asking me repeatedly if I was okay. I think I mutter a weak ‘yes,’ or at least attempted to do so.
Everything was spinning, blurry. Music was playing. People were staring. I was confused. The notes, they sounded so familiar to me and I tried to figure out what they were, and then I was falling.
The closest stable object to me was China. I grabbed onto her arm and lowered myself to sit on the bleacher. She sat next to me, looking at me with her big, concerned eyes that I was so familiar with. And then the voice was back. Questioning.
Yes, I was okay. Yes, I had eaten more than the meal before the game. Yes, I didn’t need to go talk to a band director and go home. No, I wasn’t dizzy; I only stood up too fast this one time. I was fine, promise.
But what she didn’t know was that I had only eaten once in the past two days and that was the ‘meal’ right before we headed to rehearsal. Or that I’d spent the ten minutes right before rehearsal in the bathroom throwing up. She didn’t know that my mother had been asking questions, bringing up accusations, telling me I wasn’t eating enough. And she definitely didn’t know that I was extremely tired and dizzy and in pain.
My heart was beating loudly in my ears. Crazy loud. So loud that I was absolutely positive that everyone in our 218 member band could hear it. I candidly took my pulse. Fast. Entirely too fast. And extremely erratic. This wasn’t good, I thought.
That’s the last thing I remember.
I was suddenly sitting on a chair in the band room. I wasn’t entirely sure how I had gotten there. But since only China was around, I figured that it must not have been because I passed out. Thank goodness. People couldn’t know my secret.
He sat down across from me, the teacher. He looked at me. I looked at him. It was sufficiently awkward. Words came out of his mouth, but I couldn’t hear them over the heartbeat in my ears. He looked concerned. China looked worried. I tried harder to focus. But everything was spinning and blurry and I didn’t know how I got there.
I mumbled something about needing a drink of water. They both nodded. They watched as I stood up, attempted to take a step forward and almost fainted.
I had an eating disorder.
It was obvious.
To them.
It would never be obvious to me.
