Skinny

Michael sat down to dinner with some friends of friends, a smile on his face as he tried to play a good host. The truth was, he wasn't a big fan of these people, but they were good friends of his good friends, and he wanted to be able to get along with them. He was willing to put himself out there in order to please the people around him. But there was one in particular...

Rochelle was a skinny girl. Unhealthily skinny. She was little more than skin and bones, and that was not enough for her. It was quite apparent to Michael that she had some kind of eating disorder, and she made it clear whenever she spoke that it was because she was not attractive enough, and needed to be skinnier. He tried not to talk about it, especially not with her, but it thoroughly bothered him that she acted the way she did.

He wasn't a health buff, per say, but he was a big and tough guy. He worked out regularly, he kept an eye on what he ate, and his body reflected it. He was proud of what he had sculpted out of himself, and he knew well how to maintain it. He didn't want or think that everyone should follow in his footsteps, but he had become familiar with what it meant to be healthy. And looking at someone who so clearly had tossed that aside while claiming to be healthier and smarter than the people around her...

It was irritating. She would even go so far as to taunt him about what he was eating, because he would get somewhat larger meal, with plenty of meat, and yet he deigned to choose to get vegetables as his side. She had utterly no concept of what constituted an actually healthy meal, and she avoided proteins all together. Salads were virtually all that she consumed, and only those with the blandest ingredients.

He couldn't tell if the others with her when genuinely jealous of her figure, or if they just wanted to feed her ego for fear of what might happen if they went against the grain. But Michael had no such attachment to Rochelle. His only reason for satisfying her was because other friends - who weren't even at his dinner party - had requested that he do so.

Patience was growing thin, however, as her voice continued to prattle on. She complained about how weak she felt and how poorly she slept, blaming it on eating too much food, while Michael silently raged in his mind, knowing that it was because she was not eating enough. She was starving herself into her own grave, and encouraging the people around her to do the same. It wasn't hard to see his form and see that he was the wise one, and yet the people around him seemed ignorant of that.

When he finally couldn't take anymore, he excused himself to the bathroom. He strode immediately to the waitress, paid his section of the tab, and left. It truly was not worth the struggle.