TW: Eating disorder/food/weight

Ambrose was already in the coffee shop when I arrived at ten. He was sitting by the large, front window with a teapot and two cups on the table. When he saw me, he smiled, said as I sat down, "I thought we could discuss the general vision, I guess you could call it, for the series. Since you'll be the subject of each painting, I want you to have as much creative impact as you're willing to have on it." 

"Oh. amazing," I said, and I meant it. It was rare for me to be asked my opinion on the way I was presented. "I was thinking about this, actually. Like, when you said I could wear what I wanted, I was like, fuck. I'm excited. I love having some creative control. And I was looking through my wardrobe last night and found this shirt that I'm wearing, and I thought, what if the colour scheme could be these dark purple tones." 

"Purple sounds great. I haven't done a fully purple collection yet. Do you have any specific locations in mind? Or are you happy to just see where the day takes us, so to speak?" 

"You lead, I'll follow," I told him. 

He poured the tea into both cups and offered me the milk jug first. "It'll all be very relaxed, and please feel free to tell me any ideas you come up with anytime." Taking the milk from me, Ambrose added a slosh to his own drink and asked, "How long you been a model?" 

The question surprised me. I don't know why, really, other than that no one usually asks. Once they find out about my job, they tend to move on to something else and barely bring it up again. Like it's a shameful thing to talk about. 

"Since I was twenty," I answered. "So...eleven years." 

"You must be pretty well versed on it by now. "

"You could say that." I sipped my tea, hoped it would silence the noise of my stomach grumbling for food. BMI said I was underweight that morning. 

Ambrose was smiling thoughtfully at me. Not in the way that people do when I'm posed in minimal clothing and they're probably wondering what I look like underneath. But in the way that made me want to ask what he was thinking about. I wasn't used to being looked at in such a kind way from someone outside of my immediate circle. And even then, that was unreliable.

I didn't know where to look, so I dropped my gaze to the tea cup and waited for him to say something. 

"Are you alright?" He asked. I didn't know what he meant, but then he said, "You're teary." 

I blinked and blinked again.

God, I had to stop getting so emotional. I'd cried for an hour last night, and longer the evening after Thursday's shoot. Wasn't that enough? Couldn't I tell my body, alright, fuck off with this emotional shit now? 

"Yeah, no, I'm good." 

Seriously, I thought, get it together. 

Ambrose didn't mention it again, but I'm not sure he forgot, just that he was being polite. What a novelty, someone being polite. 

We spent the morning taking photos in sunny spots of town, and every time he opened his mouth to speak, I expected a comment on my waist or my wrists or the amount of muscle in my arms, but what he said were things about 'turning slightly to better catch the light' and could I sit on the ground and look up?

I wondered if I had stepped through a portal into a world where no one viewed my body as theirs to change. 

At just after midday, he suggested we take a break and get lunch somewhere, and I could hardly stand there and tell him, 'well, actually, the other week a photographer told me to lose six pounds and it triggered an entire relapse and now I'm medically underweight and refuse to let that go.' So I nodded and smiled and thought, fuck, I'm gonna start crying again. 

Here's the thing people don't seem to understand.

By people I mean my parents.

Here's the thing my parents don't seem to understand. It is not the food itself that makes me cry; I do not 'hate' food or never want to eat again; I fucking love food; I wish I could eat for hours at a time; I can't stop thinking about eating. The problem comes with what the food does.

People seem to assume that if I just eat 'healthy' foods for the rest of my life, I'll be fine. I won't need to cry about it because I'll be healthy. God, I fucking despise that word to my core.

Getting teary (again) around Ambrose was not going to happen. For one, I barely knew the man, and he barely knew me. 

In the cafe, I ordered a baked potato with chilli and I decided it was fine. It was one meal. I'd lay off on anything else until the following morning. It was fine. 

Over lunch, he showed me some of his favourites of the shots he had taken. It was a shock to see myself so unobjectified. He had captured me so that the eye was made to focus on the way the sun hit the planes of my face and everything else was unimportant.

My body was slightly blurred - some effect or other - and I thought, Jesus, I don't know who I am when my body isn't the focal point.