Goodbyes Are Often Hard to Swallow
Micro-Fiction by Traci Adams
My stomach packed her bags, and we didn’t even have a chance to talk about it. I don’t blame her. I would run away too if I had suffered that kind of neglect. “It was abuse!” she called over her shoulder.
“I’ll do better!” I echoed back, as the suitcases’ wheels tumbled down one stair after another. It wasn’t an overnight bag she yanked behind her. It was a matching set of rigid cases filled with all the essentials for an extended stay. All the bile she needed to combat the gastroparesis I gave her as a parting gift, and an ample supply of gastric acid to digest the joy of her newfound freedom.
“Do you think she will come back?” I gurgled and almost choked. My eating disorder therapist hurled the words back in my lap like an uneaten sandwich, “What do you think?” For all the money I paid her, I could never get a straight answer. Only more questions. How could I know the answers? I had lost that gut-feeling.
“Will she ever forgive me?” I wanted reassurance, but what could she say? That my intestinal tract had taken up residence in a corner café that served all the delicacies I had withheld from her for years? I saw her reclining in the faux leather booth, bloated with deli meat and cherry pastries doused in white icing. I watched through the restaurant’s window as she somersaulted across the brightly lit room, foodgasms coming in waves as digestive juices washed over her.
The last time I saw her she was boarding a flight to Greece. “Goodbye, Anorexia,” she chirped and flew away to a land flowing with strained yogurt and garlic, spicy lamb-stuffed moussaka and fresh dill. She posted food porn on social media of her wearing a straw hat, licking honey-drenched crumbs of baklava, her toothy smile a thousand miles from home. She was an overnight success; @bettawithfetta went viral with over a million likes, including many from my emaciated body parts. My liver’s comments stung a little. But even I added a heart emoji to the one of her at a rooftop bar dipping bread in olive oil. I barely recognized her, the way her hair had grown thick and her legs sturdy.
She looked satisfied, nourished, shoulders rounded and tanned, glistening in the Mediterranean sun, like a vital organ living her best life. She wore recovery like a coat lined with hand-spun silk. I had to admit, it looked good on her. I had a fleeting thought that I might even join her someday.
BIO: Tracie Adams is a retired educator and playwright who writes short fiction and memoir from her farm in rural Virginia. She is the author of the essay collection, Our Lives in Pieces. Her work was nominated for the Pushcart Prize and appears in over sixty literary journals and anthologies including Cleaver, BULL, Frazzled Lit, Trash Cat, Brevity Blog, SoFloPoJo, Fictive Dream, and more. Visit tracieadamswrites.com and follow her on X @1funnyfarmAdams.