Fragile Obsession

Abby Littman I learned early how to take up less space. It started as a habit, then a ritual, then a rule carved so deeply into my days that it felt older than memory. I folded myself inward the way paper learns to crease-naturally, without resistance. Shoulders rounded. Breath shallow. Eyes lowered. The quieter I became, the safer the world felt. Morning arrived without ceremony. The alarm on my phone vibrated against the nightstand, a low insect hum I silenced with practiced precision. No sound. No disruption. I lay still for a moment, counting the seconds between breaths, listening to the apartment wake around me: the radiator clicking like impatient fingers, a car door slamming somewhere below, the distant murmur of voices I would never join. I swung my legs out of bed and stood, waiting for the familiar dizziness to pass. It did-eventually. It always did. I considered that a small victory. The mirror across the room was already watching me. I didn't approach it right away. Mirrors demanded honesty, and honesty was a negotiation which I preferred to postpone. Instead, I pulled on one of my sweaters-oversized, gray, soft from too many washes. It swallowed me the way I liked, hiding angles and questions and evidence. Baggy sweaters were shields. Armor made of wool and plausible deniability. Only then did I step closer. The girl in the mirror looked like someone I vaguely recognized. Pale. Sharp in places that used to be soft. My collarbones cast shadows like parentheses, holding something unsaid. I tilted my head, assessing, cataloguing, measuring with my eyes the way other people measured with scales. Too much. Too little. Never right. I turned sideways, then away. Control, I reminded myself. That was all this was. Control in a world that refused to offer any. People liked to call it a disorder, as if it were chaos. As if it were wild. They were wrong. It was precise. It was disciplined. It was mine. In the kitchen, I poured black coffee into a chipped mug-no sugar, no cream. The smell alone felt like indulgence. I wrapped both hands around the mug and stood by the window, watching the city from three floors up. People moved with purpose down on the sidewalk, carrying bags, carrying conversations, carrying lives that took up space unapologetically. I wondered what that felt like. My phone buzzed against the counter. Mom. I didn't answer. Dr. Elaine Littman was many things-brilliant, respected, calm in the way only therapists seemed to be. She had built a career around understanding other people's pain, translating it into language that could be managed, medicated, healed. She was less skilled at recognizing pain when it wore her daughter's face. We spoke often enough to maintain the illusion of closeness. Weekly check-ins disguised as casual calls. How's school? Are you eating? You sound tired. Elaine asked questions the way she asked clients-carefully, strategically-never quite stepping where the ground might give way. I let the phone stop buzzing on its own. I opened my notebook at the small table by the window. Pages filled with neat columns, numbers written in a careful hand. There was comfort in order, in rules that didn't change their minds or raise their voices. Numbers didn't leave. Numbers didn't judge. They simply were. I added today's date at the top of the page. Another day accounted for. By midmorning, I was out the door, backpack slung over one shoulder, earbuds in without music playing. Silence was easier to manage than sound. The city pressed close as I walked, buildings towering like witnesses. I kept my gaze fixed ahead, avoiding reflections in storefront windows, avoiding the casual intimacy of eye contact. At school, I blended seamlessly into the background. That had taken years of practice. Sit in the back. Speak only when called on. Smile politely, briefly, like punctuation rather than a sentence. Professors knew my name but not my voice. Classmates knew my face but not my story. It was perfect. During a break between lectures, I sat alone on a bench outside, the cold biting through my sweater. I welcomed it. Cold was clarifying. Cold reminded me that I was still there, still contained within the boundaries I'd drawn. A group of students passed by, laughing loudly, careless with their joy. One of them bumped into my shoulder and murmured an apology without slowing down. I nodded, even though no one was looking. I wondered, not for the first time, how easy it would be to disappear completely. Not in a dramatic way. Just... gradually. A skipped meal here. A smaller portion there. A little less of myself offered to the world each day until there was nothing left to take. The thought didn't scare me. It comforted me. That afternoon, I found myself in my favorite place: the library. It smelled like dust and old paper and quiet agreement. I settled into a corner desk and pulled out my books, losing myself in other people's words. Fiction was safer than reality. In stories, pain had arcs. Endings. Meaning. My stomach tightened, an insistent ache I acknowledged and ignored. Hunger was a language I'd learned to translate into something else-strength, discipline, success. I focused harder on the page until the words blurred. Control, I reminded myself again. When evening came, the sky bruised purple and gray, I walked home slowly. The apartment greeted her with familiar stillness. I dropped my bag by the door and sank onto the couch, exhaustion settling into my bones. I checked my phone. Two missed calls. Mom. A text followed this time: Just checking in. Call me when you can, okay? Guilt flickered briefly, then faded. I typed back a neutral reply-Busy today. I'm fine. -and set the phone aside. I heated water for coffee I wouldn't finish and stood at the counter, staring at nothing. The quiet was peaceful. In moments like this, when there was no one watching, no one expecting anything from me, the walls I'd built felt thinner. I pressed a hand to my ribs, feeling them beneath fabric and skin. Too much. Too little. Never right. Somewhere across the city, lives tangled and collided in ways I could barely imagine. Families bound by loyalty and secrets. Names that carried weight. Worlds where weakness was currency and survival demanded sharp edges. I wanted nothing to do with any of it. And yet. There were nights-quiet, dangerous nights like this-when I wondered what it would be like to be seen without being measured. To be held without being handled. To have someone look at me and not ask me to be smaller. The thought unsettled me. I shook it away and retreated to my bedroom, pulling the sweater tighter around myself as if it could stitch my back together. I crawled into bed, curling onto my side, counting breaths again until sleep finally claimed me. As darkness closed in, I did what I do best. I vanished. Not completely. But enough to survive another day.