They sparkle like diamonds, the sharp angles of their colourless faces reflecting beams of light through the computer screen. They are The Glass Girls. Dazzling the brightest of all is Anastasia Parfait, queen of the online Pro-Glass-Lifestyle world.
How glamorous they are. How happy, cool and confident. How completely the opposite of me: A teenage failure. Unpopular, unprepared for GCSEs. Sad about my parents’ divorce. Missing my Nan. Suddenly there’s nothing in the world I want more than to become glass.
I type a question into the live Webinar.
“Glass Girls, I want to be like you! How do I start?”
Of all the questions, Anastasia picks mine!
“Here’s a great question from Lucy, asking how you get started. Well, Lucy,” she says, “it’s a purification process, and to do it you must empty yourself, and rise above temptation. Once you are emptied of food, softness and colour, you are emptied of stress and uncertainty. You will emerge in control of your life.”
“I always suggest eliminating foods by colour. It’s a good metaphor for achieving clarity. Take a look at our “Uneating the Rainbow” menu for details. After a week, you won’t feel the hunger pangs any more, and that’s a sign that you’re on your way to becoming glass. Good luck!”
I scan the menu. This week, I need to eliminate red and pink foods. No peppers, tomatoes, strawberries, jam.
Brown week is hard. Meat has gone. Chocolate. Gravy, too. Mum asks why I’m not eating.
At the end of white week, I feel weak, but finally a result: my toes have turned to glass! I decline an invitation to go to town with my friends. I can’t walk far with glass toes. It doesn’t matter, I’m getting closer to my goal.
It’s yellow week, and I have glass legs! I can’t dance any more. You can’t really jump when your legs are glass. Mum took me to the GP today.
Mid-way through green week, my arms are glass! I had a meeting with Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services this afternoon. They said being glass is unhealthy, and school has to stop. Glass hands make writing too hard.
“Darling, they are trying to make you fat,” Anastasia says, “just keep your goal in sight”.
Being a Glass Girl is not all it’s cracked up to be. My delicate heart is slow. My brittle lungs heave, rattling air around the nasogastric tube. Where I had hoped to shine, I am dull. A layer of dust shrouds me, the body’s way of keeping warm, so the doctors say.
It was all a lie, as empty and hollow as glass.
Pain buzzes in and out of my fragile body in different, unpredictable places, like a persistent wasp. At any moment, I could shatter into a million pieces.
I feel my Mum gently stroking my hand from beside the bed. In my dreams, I float among rainbows. I drink in their colours and I am filled with warmth, energy and strength.
