The campus café buzzed with the usual lunch hour chaos, but Charlotte's table remained an island of calculated calm amidst the storm. She sat with her usual crew - Madison, Sophia, and Brittany, their designer handbags creating a fortress around their claimed territory. Charlotte pushed her salad around her plate, taking microscopic bites while her friends dissected the latest campus gossip with surgical precision.

"Oh my God, did you see them at the cafeteria line yesterday?" Madison giggled, her voice carrying that particular edge that meant blood was in the water. "I literally watched them pile their tray with like, three servings. It's honestly embarrassing."

Sophia snorted. "Right? Like, maybe if they spent less time eating and more time at the gym... I mean, I'm just saying what everyone's thinking."

"The freshman fifteen hits some people harder than others," Brittany added with fake sympathy. "Though in their case, it looks more like the freshman fifty."

Charlotte felt bile rise in her throat, and for once it wasn't intentional. The casual cruelty about food, about weight, about bodies... Today it hit too close to home. She could taste the metallic tang of her own purging sessions, feel the phantom ache in her knuckles. She watched them across the cafeteria, sitting alone with their textbook, and all she could think about was how they probably heard comments like this every day. How they probably went home and stared at themselves in mirrors the same way Charlotte did, finding fault with every curve and angle. The thought made her stomach clench with something that felt dangerously close to empathy.

"Maybe..." Charlotte heard herself say before she could stop the words. "Maybe we should lay off them for a bit?"

The silence that fell over their table was immediate and suffocating. Three pairs of perfectly mascaraed eyes turned to stare at Charlotte like she'd just suggested they burn down the campus.

Madison's laugh was sharp enough to cut glass. "I'm sorry, what did you just say?"

Charlotte's throat went dry. She touched it reflexively, her tell screaming her panic to anyone who knew how to read her. "I just meant... you know... maybe it's getting a little old? The whole thing with them?"

"Getting old?" Brittany's voice rose an octave. "Charlotte, are you feeling okay? Since when do you care about some random loser?"

"I don't care," Charlotte said quickly, but her voice came out wrong - too defensive, too high. "I just think-"

"You think?" Madison's eyes narrowed, and Charlotte suddenly realized she was no longer sitting with her friends. She was sitting across from predators who had just caught the scent of weakness. "Charlotte, are you seriously sitting there defending that pathetic-"

"I'm not defending anyone!" Charlotte's voice cracked. She could feel her carefully constructed world tilting dangerously off its axis. "I just said maybe we could-"

"Maybe you're losing your touch," Sophia said coolly, examining her nails with deliberate indifference. "Maybe all that pressure is finally getting to you. You have been looking a little... stressed lately."

The word 'stressed' landed like a physical blow. Charlotte's hands started to shake - first her fingers, then spreading up her arms. She gripped her fork tighter, but that only made it more obvious.

"I'm fine," she whispered, but even she could hear how unconvincing it sounded.

Madison leaned forward, her smile razor-sharp. "Are you though? Because honestly, Charlotte, you've been acting weird for weeks. And now you're defending losers? Maybe you need to figure out which side you're actually on."

"Because there are definitely sides," Brittany added with false sweetness. "And if you're not with us..."

They didn't need to finish the threat. Charlotte could see her entire carefully constructed world tilting dangerously off its axis. Without her friends, without her position, she was nothing. She was just another girl drowning in a sea of her own inadequacy.

"I... I need to go to the bathroom," Charlotte managed, standing so abruptly her chair scraped against the floor. She could feel every eye in the cafeteria turning toward their table, drawn by the commotion.

"Take your time," Madison called after her, loud enough for nearby tables to hear. "Figure out who you really are."

Charlotte practically ran from the cafeteria, her heels clicking frantically against the polished floors. She burst through the doors of the nearest women's restroom - the one by the gym that was usually empty during lunch - and collapsed against the row of sinks.

The tears came immediately, hot and unstoppable. All her carefully applied makeup began to streak down her cheeks as months of suppressed pressure finally found release. She gripped the cold porcelain so hard her knuckles went white, staring at her reflection and seeing nothing but the scared, broken girl she'd been trying so desperately to hide. The words 'fatass' and 'whale' echoed in her head, and she could hear her mother's voice underneath them: "Maybe you should watch what you're eating, sweetheart."

"I can't do this anymore," she whispered to her reflection, her stomach cramping with familiar hunger and self-hatred.

She didn't hear the bathroom door open behind her.