“Miss Natasha?” I heard the nurse, young and sweet, call.

“Yes, that’s me!” I said while following her to the doctor’s office.

“Miss Natasha, what happened to you?” The doctor asked me, glaring at me up and down, eyes full of shock. I stood silently waiting for it to hit me, thinking. Everything that happened all came back to me, swiftly.

“Natasha! Oh my God!” Katia yelled with concern.

“Are you okay? Oh my God! Mr. Matt! Someone please help!” I didn’t know what just happened. I looked around and I found myself lying on the ground. Everything was so blurry. I couldn’t see anything but black and white dots. My head was pounding twice the time of my heartbeat, which was beating pretty fast. My hands were shaking and my face was beginning to turn yellow. I was so confused, I could barley speak to even try and ask someone what happened. All I knew was that something bad happened because of the conditions traveling through my body and because of the big group of people surrounding me, their eyes glaring into my soul.

“What happened to me? Why am I shaking? Why am I sweating? Why does my head hurt? Why am I lying on the cold hard ground?” I threw my questions at them all at once. Mr. Matt rushed towards me to help, seating me into a chair. It was his turn to throw questions at me.

“Natasha, how are you? Are you feeling okay? Did you have breakfast this morning?” Breakfast. That was it. I didn’t have breakfast this morning. I woke up late and had no time to even catch my breath. Other than that, it’s my diet as well. The very strict diet I’ve been following for the past month, I thought to myself. Ashamed, I replied with a quick and short “No.” He explained to me that nothing too bad happened and that I’ll be okay in no time.

I was sent down to the nurses’ office to get checked up on. With Katia’s help, I reached the nurse safely. Nurse Minnie’s eyes widened in shock when she first glanced at me. I was still not fully sure of what I looked like, so I swiped out my phone from my front pocket and opened to the camera. A weird feeling of shock erupted through my body when I first looked at myself. I had mistaken myself for someone else. I could not believe my eyes. A huge bump began to form above my eye and it turned red, blue and black while starting to swell. I turned to face Katia and before I knew it I heard a shriek! She gasped in shock, slowly frightening me.

“Natasha! Your eye! Its blue...” I was afraid. I was petrified. Nurse Minnie began to ask me how, where and why this happened, and like Mr. Matt, she asked if I had breakfast this morning. Too many questions at once, I thought to myself. I couldn’t think properly. I tried as hard as I possibly could to think of what happened, but I just couldn’t. Doctor John was called in after what seemed a century, for extra check up.

While I was getting checked up on, Katia tried calling my mom to inform her about everything that led up to me being at the nurse with a huge bump establishing on my forehead. Ring, ring, ring. She called once, twice, three times, four times, but there was still no answer. It took fourteen calls for my mom to pick up her phone.

“Auntie, hi, its Katia. Okay don’t panic but Natasha just fainted and we are at the nurses’ office. Can you please come? Don’t panic. Everything is okay now, she is fine. I am going to stay with her until you come, don’t worry. Okay, see you. Bye!” It was during this exact moment where I thought back to the appointment with my dietitian.

After what seemed like forever, I heard my name called. Insecurity took over me like ocean waves on a windy day, feeling threatened by what she might say. She was going to determine the fate of my future, and has control over the new lifestyle I will be following. I felt confident about changing my lifestyle and taking that new step into my future. I felt proud and tried to push away all the self-doubt.

While lying on the cold, white sheets, I heard a familiar voice call my name. “Natasha?” It was my mom. Rushing to where the bed was, she looked confused and worried. Mixed emotions overtook her. As all the others did, she threw many questions at me. I felt the nerve to answer her for a strange reason. Her face grew haggard with worry when I refused to answer her questions. It seemed like she had called my doctor to take an appointment for me. I didn’t need to ask, I was positive she did because of her reactions. I knew my mom by now. After Dr. John and my mom discussed my condition, we thanked both him and Nurse Minnie and headed towards the car. On our way out, I saw an old friend with a cast around his hand. “Are you okay?” He said. I glanced at his cast and nodded.

My mom, still feeling apprehensive, clutched onto me to make sure I was safe during our short trip to the car. I still had not said a word. I was still so confused. I guess I lost my sense to speak. My mom gave me time, knowing that I needed it. Slowly, I began to open up, explaining briefly what had happened. Well, most of it, since I was in my own world, blacked out, for a part of it. We got into the car and our deep, pensive conversation began.

“Natasha, why did you decide you wanted to go on a diet? I feel like you let the diet control your life, and that is not the purpose of being on a diet.” My mom asked confused.

“Look, mom, you know that I’ve never liked my body and after I heard someone tell me that I am fat and they compared me to someone else that was much skinnier than me, I was assured that not only I needed the diet, but I wanted the diet.” I said shyly. It felt good but wrong telling my mom this. She is supposed to be my best friend, the one I can tell anything and everything to. Continuing, I then explained to her how I thought about what the person said, but also, most importantly, what I wanted. That led me to my final decision, which was that, yes, I wanted the diet. Not for someone else, but for myself.

“At the moment, you are the important one, not the diet. Who cares about the diet right now? Your health is the most important thin-” Ring, ring, ring.

“Hello, yes hi, yes we are on the way thank you!” Someone from the International Clinic called my mom to confirm our appointment with the doctor.

“As I was saying, if this diet is not suitable for you and is affecting your health, it is going to have to come to an end,” She explained sadly.

“No mom! I don’t want to stop, I am happy with the results. I freakin’ lost 7 kilos in around 2 months. Yes, I know everything that just happened is probably because of the diet, but I truly do not want to stop it completely. At least not just yet.”

“When this diet takes over your life, and your body starts failing, don’t come to me saying I didn’t tell you it’s a bad idea especially at a time like this,” she said roughly.

“Mom, I am the one that is going through all this. This is my body. My choice. And if I don’t want to stop, then I’m not gonna stop. I know you’re saying this because you think its what’s best for me, but I really don’t want to just leave this whole thing behind.”

After what seems like a while, we reached the International Clinic. It was 11:55 am, meaning that my appointment was in twenty minutes. I knew that the wait was going to take long, so I took out my phone and began to scroll through Instagram, while listening to Maroon 5’s new hit single, Animals. I started to receive a few messages and phone calls from my friends, each of them sounding scared yet hopeful. I could hear the sound of the hand on the clock’s ticking’s, gradually moving forwards but backwards. Tick Tock, Tick Tock. That sound was buzzing through my ears. Five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen and thirty minutes passed and still, my turn would not come. I was sure I might have forgotten my own name by now, even maybe graduated school and college! It seems like every minute that passed with me waiting in that line, a new person would appear standing in front of me. I stood there sending out glares to the nurse announcing the patients’ turns, name after name. I could not wait to walk into that office, have the doctor explain to me the reason behind my fainting and prescribe medication to heal the pain that seems to increase minute after minute. The bump on my head continuously throbbed like darts being thrown at a bored, one by one. In front of me stands a girl with a broken arm waiting for her turn. She had broken bones and she was waiting to see an orthopedist. Tick Tock, Tick Tock. That noise still screaming at me was driving me insane.

I found myself staring into the distance, a white object capturing my attention. I realized it was a white cast wrapped around the girl’s broken arm. I then began to think about my conversation with my mom earlier in the car. Was what she said right? Should I have agreed with her? I thought to myself. That cast, depriving the arm from its freedom, and caging it inside made me think of myself. The diet was the cast and I was the arm. This diet that I supposedly thought was the best thing for me, and did me nothing but good, turned out to be pressuring me into doing things I did not want to do, and taking away all my freedom.    
    

“Miss Natasha?” I heard the nurse, young and sweet, call.

“Yes, that’s me!” I said while following her to the doctor’s office.

“Miss Natasha, what happened to you?” The doctor asked me, glaring at me up and down, eyes full of shock.

“Well, I was walking a flight of stairs with my friend, just talking, everything normal, when I suddenly found my self laying on the ground. I fainted. I just completely blacked out,” I replied still confused about what had happened.

“Natasha, can you please walk over to where the nurse is and let her check your height and weight?” The doctor asked politely.

I stepped onto the scale, nerves taking over my body. I tried to look up to avoid the number that was going to appear in just seconds, but I couldn’t help but look down. The numbers on the scale where jumping around, going up and down, until it stopped at the final number, my weight. The weight that I had worked so hard to achieve, finally emerged right in front of my eyes. I thought back to the very first time I stepped onto the scale at my dietician’s office. A big difference.

The doctor assured me that I was going to be okay and that all I had to do was to be cautious about what I’m eating and not to skip any meals, especially breakfast. He told me that it’s good to follow a healthy diet, but its most important to know what our body needs, and not to be slaves to any diet plan.

The drive back home was silent. As soon as we reached our doorstep, I smelled something. Something that made my stomach jump in excitement. Seated at the dining table, a burger and a salad in front of me. What do I choose? The burger. The juicy, juicy burger.