Beautiful Monster by Kate McCaffrey

food. Get rid of it. If you don’t you’ll get fat.’ The thought of seeing the disapproval in his eyes makes her grit her teeth. You can do it, Tess, she tells herself. You can.
    Grimly she shoves her fingers further down her throat, feels them against her tonsils. The gag is powerful this time and her stomach heaves violently. Dinner floods the toilet bowl. She retches again and again, the sight and smell turning her weak and aching gut. Finally it stops.
    Deflated, she flushes the toilet, wipes it for any traces of food. She stands in front of the mirror again.
    â€˜You were right, Ned,’ she says, resolving to tell him so when she next sees him, ‘I feel much better.’ She rubs her hand over her stomach; it doesn’t feel as fat anymore.

Chapter 6
    She looks at the alarm clock: 3.42a.m. She lies back against the pillows. The clattering and banging from the kitchen continues. Next the whirr of the electric mixer. She groans and buries her face into the crook of her arm. Not again. Finally, reluctantly, she swings her legs out of bed and finds her dressing-gown on the floor.
    In the doorway of the kitchen she ties her belt. The sight in front of her is not uncommon. Her mother is frantically baking, her movements fast and erratic. Flour covers the benches and floor; broken eggs sit in puddles of milk. Annelise pours flour into the mixer, running it at top speed, and a cloud billows up into her face. She looks up as Tess pulls out the kitchen stool and sits down, trying not to rest her elbows in her mother’s mess.
    â€˜Morning,’ Annelise says cheerfully. ‘You’re up early.’
    â€˜Couldn’t sleep.’ Tess traces a love heart through the flour on the table. ‘What are you making?’
    Annelise throws chocolate chips into the mixing bowl and across the bench. ‘A birthday cake, a chocolate one.’
    â€˜Nice,’ Tess says, picking one up and then hesitating before she puts it to her lips. ‘What for?’
    Her mother stops her quick movements and stares at Tess incredulously. She has flour halfway up her face and there’s eggwhite in her hair, stiffening it so it sticks out. ‘Your brother’s birthday.’
    Tess’s stomach drops. Of course. How could she have forgotten? She is such a selfish bitch sometimes. ‘Yes,’ she says slowly, trying to lessen the pain in her mother’s face, ‘but it’s tomorrow. Not today.’
    Her mother shrugs, her movements back to fever pitch. ‘I know. But I need to have it ready now. I don’t want to be making it when he gets home. I need to have it ready now. So that when he gets off the bus I’ll be there. So that he can come in and eat his cake. I need to get it ready now.’
    Her voice becomes higher, faster, with each sentence. The panic rises in Tess’s chest. She’s already around the kitchen bench as her mother sags against it. ‘Mum,’ she cries, holding on to her. Through her satin gown, she feels her mother’s bony body, her heart beating at a hundred miles an hour. ‘Mum,’ she cries again, holding her tightly. And then her dad is there.
    â€˜Come on, Annelise, let’s get you cleaned up.’
    Her mother sinks against him.
    â€˜You’ve got an appointment today with Dr Simpson. Shall we wash your hair?’
    She nods. ‘But what about Brodie’s cake? I haven’t put it in the oven.’ She stares at the kitchen. ‘And I need to clean up. I’ve made a dreadful mess.’
    â€˜I’ll finish it, Mum,’ Tess says, fighting back tears.
    â€˜Thanks, babe.’ Her dad is pale. ‘Come on, Annelise, let’s get you sorted.’
    Tess pours the cake mixture into a pan and slides it into the oven. She wipes the bench, building small piles of wet flour with the kitchen sponge. This is Brodie’s birthday cake—and he’s not going to eat it. It hurts to remember his