Girl stares at what should have been her dinner, two Polo mints on a roasting tray in the oven.  In her mouth, the metallic taste of the thought of food.  It’s dark in the kitchen, just the glow from the oven door buttering the front of her naked body.  Girl’s body is a ruined place; bones grown too big for her skin, breasts like a boy's.  Normally Girl is up to her neck in jumpers and scarves but not now.  It’s not allowed.  Girl will not allow it.

“It’s all your fault,” Girl whispers, clutching her legs, the soft pelt of her cheek pressed to her knees.  A rocking takes her, slow, rhythmic, painful on the slate tiles of the kitchen floor.  “Your, fault, your, fault, your, fault.”

Girl can feel her stomach move against her thighs; hunger like fists in her gut.  Hunger that starts as an idea in her head then falls through her, snagging on her insides.  A bottomless hunger that consumes her, haunts her brown eyes, gets tangled in the frightened frizz of her auburn hair.  But Girl will win this defeat.  Girl always does. 

The chimes of the oven timer bounce off the darkness.  Girl struggles to her feet like a foal and opens the oven door, flinching from the blast of hot air.  It bastes her skin and makes her eyes water.  A sour smell of burnt mint invades the kitchen.  Using an oven glove, she takes out the tray and puts it on the hob.  The mint circles stare up at her from the spread of tin foil.  It’s a relentless stare; Girl can’t bear it.  She busies herself, fiddling with the wooden spoon, the tweezers, the cloth she’s laid out on the counter.  “It’s your own fault,” Girl says, picking up the spoon, changing the order in which it appears in the line-up.  Cloth, wooden spoon, tweezers.  “A five-mile run, that’s what we agreed, that was the deal.”  Tweezers, cloth, wooden spoon.  “A five-mile run, 100 sit-ups then you’re allowed dinner.”  Girl looks down at herself, pinching the fat that isn’t there on her stomach. 

She rests her arm on the counter, palm up.  “Five miles not two…”  Girl takes hold of the tweezers.  A pause      she’s waiting for her body to tell her not to do this, waiting for her arm to protest, shout no, please, not again. “100 sit-ups not…not 23,” she says, placing the mints side by side on a clear patch of translucent skin near her wrist.  Ssssss, a whisper of smoke then the pain.  Teeth bite lip.  Eyes swallow tears.  Girl covers her wrist with the folded cloth then presses down as hard as she can.  Her arm tries to resist, a tremor coursing from her clenched fist to her shoulder.  Girl puts the wooden spoon in her mouth and bites into the searing pain for there must be no noise, no crying out.  This is a silent fight, Girl’s silent struggle to be the perfect ghost.