Reflection:

Once upon a time, there lived a family with more wealth than love.  Christina and David Collins decided to have a baby simply because the rest of their friends had done so, and it was considered the "in" thing to have that special pregnancy glow.  From the moment she was born, Whitney was treated as more of a nuisance than anything.  Her parents doted on her for five seconds out of her life; for the rest, she was with the nanny of the week while her mother pored over her magazines and her father practically lived in his office.  When her parents did encounter her, it was only to pay her credit card bills, or, in her mother's case, to tell her whatever she had done wrong in that particular moment.  She was always too stupid, too lazy, or, her mother's favorite dagger, too fat.

Eventually, as she entered puberty, Whitney developed anxiety and anorexia nervosa.  She would go days without eating more than a few handfuls of goldfish.  Only when the pain of her stomach eating itself would she choke a few bites down.  Eventually, her grandmother realized what was going on and paid for the best therapy.  Whitney recovered slowly, but her relationship with her parents continued to deteriorate.  One day, scarcely a few weeks after she had finished therapy, Whitney had entered yet another fight with her mother.  Her mother screamed that all of the chocolate was gone, and declared it was no wonder Whitney was so fat (despite her daughter being a lovely size two).  Her father had stood there dumbly, and suddenly stated that they would be going to family dinner, whether she wanted to or not.

Whitney complained from the backseat as they merged onto the highway.  As her mother continued to criticize, Whitney lost her temper and screamed that she hated her parents and wished they were dead. And then..in a flash, she was waking up in the hospital with a concussion.  Her grandmother informed her that a truck had slammed into her father trying to merge into their lane. The other driver and her parents were dead instantly, and Whitney only survived because the backseat was untouched.  From that moment on, Whitney blamed herself, believing that she had jinxed it somehow, and caused their deaths.  She had never really forgiven herself.

Even now, as she pulled out of her memory and looked around her enormous bedroom, Whitney couldn't shake her guilt.  She looked at the bowl of chocolates beside her and grimaced, pushing it away. But then...screw it. She knew now that she was anything but fat. Her fear of food was in the past, and that delicious Hershey kiss screamed at her. Whitney snatched it and unwrapped it.  If only her mother could see her now. Minus her swollen belly from her pregnancy, Whitney was more gorgeous than ever, and on top of the corporate ladder. She wasn't going to let anything bring her down.