Beautiful Forever

Beautiful Forever

Author's Notes: Well, here it goes. They say that every author puts a bit of her own soul in their stories. Perhaps I am no exception after all.

For as long as she remembers, she's had a tricky relationship with food.

She doesn't know how it all started. It's not as if she planned it like it was the Quidditch World Cup. Or like how she planned her first sexual encounter with Cedric (not that she'll ever admit it of course, and besides, it's improper to speak of the dead).

After all, she was always one of those strange people who plan every single little event that dares to occur in one's lifetime. You know, the type of person who plans what kind of cereal she's going to consume tomorrow, so that no nasty surprises will pop up (bear in mind, we're talking about cereal here). Basically, the type of person who gets off on control.

Anyway.

Her life started the day she overate. Who knew why? She herself can't exactly remember the fuzzy details but perhaps she was reading or something, reading the latest Witch Weekly magazine, reading and eating trash at the same time. Then she lost track of things and in less than an hour, she guzzled: two slices of pie, six carrot sticks, a few spoonfuls of pudding topped off with chocolate icecream, two candy canes and a handful of stale popcorn. Even Marietta sitting across from her, with apple crumble on her chin gave her a look and muttered (with mouth full), "Why are you eating so much?"

She ate all that, and then felt that sick heavy feeling in her stomach, the feeling that made her think "shit". So she excused herself, setting off jauntily for the bathroom and did what she had once read about. She stuck her fingers down her throat.

At first she wasn't exactly sure how to proceed. The media didn't really elaborate on the finer details, you see. She looked at her fingers hesitantly, unsure of whether she should carry through. She knew about the consequences of it all, after all, she did read magazines. Oh, what the hell, she scoffed. Those girls who become addicted to vomiting of all things? What the bloody hell? How can anyone be so stupid? It'll never happen to me. I'm reasonably intelligent and down her fingers went.

She was persistent enough to open her mouth wider, and let her fingers touch the soft buds that lined the edges of her throat. For some reason, the first time her stomach lurched, she felt a crowning sense of achievement.

Her fingers automatically jerked away. But two minuters later, they crept back again, being pushed by some damned force. Her stomach rumbled again and she wondered whether she was doing it right. She was glad that she was in control though. Everything was working her way for once.

The vomit came out a while later. It came out like chunky, thick soup and still retained its chocolate-y colour. It tasted somewhat like chocolate too, if chocolate was rancid, bitter and somewhat sour. There was only a little bit, perhaps a mouthful, as she turned on the tap and watched the water push it all down the drain, removing all evidence from the scene of the crime.

She turned to leave, wondering whether it was enough and then she felt her throat constrict again. This was a periodic, on and off cycle.

She adapted to it like a lifestyle. She adopted the crafty means of using tissues and pretended to blow her nose, whilst she was in actual fact, spitting it all out. She realised that everybody believed that she had a cold (even though flu season was a month ago) and naturally averted their eyes, when they saw the approaching tissue. She realised that she could play Cedric's death to her advantage, her friends didn't question her when she came out of the bathroom, puffy-eyed and red-nosed. She was fooling everyone and she was proud of it.

The sad thing was that seeing pre-digested food gave her some sort of rush. It was nothing drug-related, being purely psychological. Perhaps it was the power that gave her that certain sense of elation; the feeling that it was she who held the reins of her life. She was her own God. She could control her weight and eat everything she damn well wanted! She was the one in control. It gave her a sense of stability, something she had lost when Cedric died. After all, Cedric was there one day and then gone (poof!), the next. She didn't understand how it was possible for somebody to disappear so suddenly. Death was too sudden, too strange for a teenage girl.

She puked until there was nothing left, save the sharp stinging pangs of hunger in her stomach. And she smiled at her own all-knowing ravenous reflection in the mirror.

But perhaps it all didn't start from there. There were times in the past, when she did hate herself.

Oh, she knew that she was pretty, all right. She had it all: the oval face, the porcelain skin, the thick curled lashes and pout. But she didn't feel pretty, if that made sense. She looked in the mirror and only saw the fat on her body: her expanding thighs, her arms, her stomach which never seemed to be flat, no matter how many crunches she attempted to do. She spent hours staring and scrutinising every single flaw, every pore of her body, to think if only I were thinner. Then everything would be all right.

If she was thinner, she'd be beautiful. Not pretty, not sweet, not cute, but beautiful. She'd be delicate, fragile, romantic (because really, fat is the least romantic thing ever). She'd be the glass-like heroine whom everybody loved and admired and wanted to be. If she was thin and lost all that weight on her hips, she'd be perfect. She could be the person she always wanted to be - manipulative, a Machiavellian bitch, histrionic, narcissistic but beloved by all. She saw Cedric looking at Fleur Delacour with her long graceful legs, and knew that if she was half as slender as the Veela, Cedric would have eyes for nobody but her.

Drawing on the power of bitter memories, she resolved to purge everything everday. She told herself that she'd only do it when she ate junk food, and on days when she ate healthily, she wouldn't (after all, she was reasonable). But she still did it anyway, even when she only ate celery sticks. After all, human greed kicked in, and she reasoned that if she ate less and got rid of it all, she would be getting the better end of the deal.

The hunger pangs didn't really bother her that much. They were irritating but she was sort of used to them, seeing that she always went to bed hungry (eating at night only increased calories). She was used to it.

She couldn't however, get used to the sound of her heart thumping as she lay awake, staring at the ceiling of her room. It was loud, in her ears, thrumming away. She spent whole nights tossing and turning, scared that her heart would give way, just like that. She resolved to stop the purging and lose weight via healthier methods, just so that she could sleep soundly without the fear of an early heart attack. Just to get rid of her heart fluttering every now and then.

Of course she couldn't stop. It wasn't that she didn't try. She just couldn't. She stopped for a day or two, and even flirted with Harry Potter, but there came a time when he ditched her to talk to Hermione Granger (who was not really that fortunate looking but was unfortunately quite slender) of all people, and she just went to the school kitchens and binged on the pot roast the houseeleves were making (as if she could resist pepper and gravy!). Besides, Hermione Granger was probably only attractive because she was a freaking stick figure.

There were times when she was feeling like ...shit (no other way to describe it) and hated being fat so much, that her fingers of their own accord, slipped down her throat. Roger Davies gave her a talk on how her flying deproved. "I know you have had a lot on your mind with Cedric and stuff, Cho," he told her. "And I hoped that it'd get better, but your flying is ... terrible, I'm sorry. Smithers has been hounding me for months about replacing you, but so far I'm ignoring him, because I know you can do better than that. The teammates have been asking me what's wrong and now I ask you: what's wrong, Cho? You're not yourself. Is there anything I can do?"

She looked right into the eyes of her captain, and said: "Fuck you".

The sting of it followed her all the way to the bathroom. How dare he suggest that she was utterly crap? And Cedric. She hadn't thought about him for such a long time. She thought about him as she stared into the mirror, wondering what the last thing they did together was. Wondered what his last thoughts of her were. Wondered that if he was still alive, whether things would have changed for the better.

The next thing she knew, she was gone, having zoned out and then she was spitting out pre-digested noodles. They don't look like noodles, she mused, as she prodded a strand with a forefinger. They're sort of soft and squishy and cute.

Whatever the reason, she did it all again and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, history repeated itself, in that she found herself standing over the sink again.

Perhaps, in a masochistic sort of way, she was happy that the hungry fairy paid her a visit. Yes! She thought victoriously. I can lose weight now! Fuck the side effects! Fuck all the fat people, because I'm leaving Millicent Bulstrode's club and joining the waifish models in the magazines! Size six robes and latest fashion, here I come!

And when her friends commented on how pretty she was, she actually smiled. They admired how she could eat anything, and lose weight at the same time. She looked at them knowingly and superior-like. It was all about the power.

Then, her cheeks started to bloat. She had had the perfect oval face before (if you ignored the chin fat), and now her cheeks were starting to bloat like a fucking squirrel.

Her skin started to become all... blotchy. Disgusting. Her forehead and cheekbones started becoming red. Her skin became all dry and pimply, oh God, her breakouts become more than breakouts, until her face became one big blemish. She cursed herself as acne swelled right before her eyes on the side of her nose, and she spent half her life squeezing those whiteheads and dabbing the blood that spurted from them.

She was always cold. Especially in winter. She could have worn three layers of clothing, her blouse, a jumper, her robes, stockings, a scarf and gloves, and she could still be so cold, she wanted to die. The iciness really did get to her. Sure, her hands may have been all right (with the amount of writing she was doing to prepare for her NEWTs) but her feet were icy as her toes rubbed and chafed against each other. She shivered madly, and then felt guilty for being glad, because then it meant that she was using up any additional calories that could have been converted to fat. The sad thing was that she was cold nearly all the time. Especially when she was sleeping.

Sleep became a sort of luxury. Most days, she'd just lie there, brooding. She was never able to sleep. Soon she was able to function on a couple hours of disturbed shuteye.

Her hair. It used to be so silky and healthy-looking. Then it became all dull and straw-like. The other day, she saw it frizzle. It never frizzled before! Oh well, it didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, did it?

She feared for her teeth. They used to be her chief crown and glory. She had never worn braces before. Her teeth, they used to be sparkly white, the envy of everybody. Then they stained and became yellow and hurt everytime she ate icecream. It wasn't as if she didn't try to block the vomit from hitting her teeth. She flossed and brushed as if her life was at stake, but that didn't stop her stomach acids from eating away the enamel of her teeth. She dreaded the day that they'd literally crumble in her mouth.

She was tired every single day. Even when she took sleeping potions and fell under chemically induced stupor, when she awoke, she was more tired than before. Life dragged on for her. Things that used to excite her didn't anymore. Her new boyfriend Michael kissed her, and his lips were cold and she pushed him away. Nothing could get her high again, make her feel again, nothing except for sticking those fingers down her throat. Vomit was the very fetish of her life.

Nothing beat sitting on that porcelain bowl, angrily wiping away the tears from her eyes with spit-sticky fingers. Yeah, nothing beat swearing and cursing and muttering to herself, as she tried to remove stains from her favourite book. It wasn't as if it was disgusting or anything. Life could be worse. She could be still fat.

Her lips were dry and cracked. No amount of lip gloss could remedy this. Sure, sometimes there was the inconvenient dribble of blood but that she could totally handle.

She didn't really care anyway. She was too busy feeling down... all she wanted to do was just sit there. She lost motivation to do anything, she lost the drive. It wasn't that she was lazy... she just couldn't give a fuck anymore. Quidditch? Forget it, she quit the team ages ago. School? She hadn't done her assignments for a few months now and even the professors were starting to talk about her in their welfare meetings. Michael? He dumped her months ago, and then shacked up with Marietta because he wanted a girl who was "at least into him". It wasn't really his fault that she couldn't feel anymore. Lord knows, she did try.

Sometimes she missed that period of life when she was actually happy. She tried to cheer herself up so that she looked normal and lively enough, but when she was by herself, she was empty. She remembered how this time a couple of years ago, she and Cedric went for a midnight stroll on the night of the Yule ball and he kissed her, and she was so happy, she felt that she could combust right on the spot. She would've given anything to feel half of that now.

She thought that her self esteem would improve, didn't she? That she'd be happier after she became thinner. Yeah sure. That's right, because instead of seeing the fat monster (but with an ok face), she now knew what she truly looked like. She was FAT. BLOATED. FUCKING UGLY (look, they even had a term for that - fugly). There were truly horrendous bags under her eyes. Half her eyelashes went missing. Her eyes were red-rimmed (from crying? From forcibly squeezing those tear ducts?). Her ruddy, blotched up skin. Her cut lips. Her bloated, now round face. The treatening blobs of acne. She was fucking hideous, still fat, repulsive, feeling morbidly obese. She cried whenever she saw herself in the mirror, as she tried on all her clothes and she realised that she didn't look any thinner.

Her heat hurt. She just wanted to sleep.

She was cold. She just wanted to sleep.

Her throat was all swollen and it hurt, but she just wanted to sleep.

She started coughing up blood. She just wanted to sleep.

She went out for end of exam celebrations with her friends (but it was just a show, because she knew that she flunked it. After all, she did get all woozy on question three and her brain just died). She drowned in Butterbeer with them. She laughed with them, talking about what a pig she was because she could eat ten chocolate frogs. She ran into the bathroom and tried to purge it all out, and she was crying in a public place no less, and she knew that she couldn't tell anybody else because she was ashamed of herself and if she told somebody else, they'd then have power over her. They'd know that she wasn't in control half the time, that's she wasn't really happy. Even at this stage, appearances still mattered to her. Life was still about power and those too weak to handle it.

She wanted to be somebody else. She wanted to change. She did things with her hair: dyed it, tied it up in a completely different style and then smothered her eyes with eyeliner, but she knew that these superficial things couldn't hide her bulging stomach. She was Cho Chang, a tragic victim, an important statistic.

To the world, she was happy and smiling and simply above mundane things like school and relationships. She stared morosely at herself (picked at the dried spot of vomit on the collar of her shirt), coughed up little flecks of blood and wished that it'd all end. She got the panic attacks. Everything's jim fine and dandy, then somebody said something and instead of brushing it off, next thing she knew, she was hunched up in the Owlery (where nobody could see her), forgetting how to breathe. That's right. She was now the epitome of pathetic.

She wondered why the fuck she got trapped in the first place, feeling so bloody stupid. She had it all (she was just a little bit chubby), how did it get so out of control? And the ridiculous part was that despite everything, a small part of her wanted this to continue. So that when the next guy held her in his arms, he could feel her shoulder blades sticking out and she could be the fragile little Lolita doll she'd always wanted to be. That's what she thought as she stuck her fingers down her throat and her stomarch lurched comfortingly.

It's an old wife's tale that once you go bulimic, you never stop. You've inherited your eating disorder for good as you've sold your soul to the devil (the devil is not a devout fan of refunds or exchange). Cho doesn't know whether that's true.

She didn't live long enough to find out.

And the sad thing is,

She didn't even die beautiful.