Excerpt: Bones

The astonishing thing about descending into darkness is that it doesn’t feel like you are. There’s no dramatic music or sudden realization that Things Have Gone Horribly Wrong. In the grand scheme of things, it’s about as earth-shattering a journey as going to pick up a few things from the grocery store. (The irony here being, of course, the fact that going to the grocery store may eventually become an earth-shattering journey.)

The day that I looked at my body and decided that weighing a hundred and thirty pounds a five-foot-six was unacceptable was a day probably not much unlike that in the life of any other young woman who decides that she is, simply put, Fat. Or Not Thin Enough. Not Thin Enough sounds better than Fat. Fat implies something disgusting and off-putting, whereas Not Thin Enough sounds like a decision, and decisions are controllable.

Of course, for some people, it stops there. One look in the mirror, one poke of the thigh, muttering, “Geez, I’m fat,” and it’s all over. Or it goes a step or two further and the decision manifests itself as more fresh fruit in the refrigerator and an exercise video or two, maybe even a yoga mat or a set of weights. Actions that are fairly smart and rarely harmful.

But when you declare yourself Not Thin Enough, smart no longer has anything to do with it.