What's Wrong With Me? (Steve)

(A/N: It's revenge time.)

I wish I saw in the mirror whatever made the public think I was worthy of their constant adoration, but all I see is something that I want to kill. How could anyone stand looking in my direction? It makes me sick--so sick that I had my head in the toilet after eating the homemade food Everan made for me. Going down, it was delicious, but I couldn't let it settle anywhere on my body. I had already lost muscle. I didn't need to be fat too.

Nothing slips past the eyes of the public--at least nothing that they want to see. They turn a blind eye to all the shapewear, extensions, makeup, extreme diets, and overall discontentment of the famous while there's always someone willing to make a conspiracy theory about lipstick on a model's teeth or using my suicide attempt to justify some crackpot theory about Big Pharma. I thought about the night I had with Mark. What did he find tolerable, much less attractive, about me?

People think I don't--or even can't--notice or care about the covert whispers exchanged among female teachers and prominent Twitter activists. The thing is, I do notice. I have no choice but to notice--and noticing means I need to fix the problems I see. That started with speaking normally and then doing my hair differently. Now, I need to fix my body. If that means I have to throw up every time I eat, so be it. People are free until they are needed--and now I was needed more than ever.

Amid all the politics and the fighting, people needed me to be this face, this image of something that was okay no matter what. But I'm not okay and I'm not as strong as everyone says I am. I'm like a piece of gold armor: cool and shiny, but so flimsy that any real use will cause it to bend out of shape. One of my students had a phone case that said: "If you can't be useful, be pretty." Did people only "listen" to me because I was just another piece of eye candy in the dish?

Just yesterday, a little boy stopped me in the street the other day and told me that he wanted to be just like me. I smiled and ruffled his hair as my stomach churned thinking about him willing himself to throw up. But I still couldn't stop. I rinsed my mouth out and fought myself as I tried to avoid the mirror. I knew I would see the visage of a bloated corpse, but I also knew that the camera was a brutally honest friend.