My name is Sapphire, and my best friend is an anorexic. Just thought I’d clear that up.
At first I was jealous. Ruby was just so skinny. She started drinking water like it was the only drink in the world, and it gave her spotless skin. I admired her. She had the self control to choose what she wanted to eat. Whereas I couldn’t seem to stop myself if someone offered me something yummy.
But slowly admiration for her slim figure turned into me being freaked out and a little bit disgusted. All her clothes started to hang off her body and her stomach started to curve inwards. Her face lost most of its flesh and made her eyes look sunken and too big. She couldn’t talk about anything except food and dieting, and she started fainting all the time.
Me and her other friends tried to get her to eat. She didn’t even like chocolate any more. And when we told her she could end up in hospital she just told us to stop being so melodramatic. If only she knew.
Two years after Ruby stopped eating she was admitted to hospital weighing the amount of a four year old even though she was 15. She was fed by tubes into her stomach for two months, in which time she gained a healthy weight. But as soon as she was sent home she refused to eat. She locked herself in her room and nobody could visit her; especially not the friends who cared about her.
She began to self harm. She would faint daily. She would scream to be fed but when her mum asked what she wanted she told her nothing. All of her friends and family would phone the house or visited every day to see how she was doing. Every day the news was the same.
July 2nd 2012 was the day Ruby died. Nearly everyone cried, asking nobody in particular how she could do that to herself. Nearly everyone ... except me. I don’t know why I didn’t cry. I just couldn’t.
My name is Sapphire, and I am at my best friend’s funeral.