There is a ghost that follows me.

She watches me when I eat. Her mouth moves in the shape of numbers, keeping a tally of all I ingest. She remembers whiteboards hung on kitchen walls to make her think twice about the food she tried to sneak in the middle of the night. Multicolored lists of calories and carbohydrates and daily intake caps.

I no longer own any whiteboards for her to keep track.

Whenever we pass the hallway closet, the ghost pauses. Perhaps she can sense the scale inside gathering dust. Remembers gathering her courage on Monday mornings to hop on, naked and hungry in a way that rarely worked in her favor. Being forever disappointed by the numbers glaring back.

I’m told I can remove my jacket and shoes before getting on the scale at any medical facility. I don’t bother to do so, and the ghost stares in wide-eyed horror. I don’t look at the outcome or ask what it is because I no longer care. I carry on with my day, and the ghost obsesses. She thinks about when she used to hang pictures of herself in her underwear on the fridge. It wasn’t sexy. The poses were from the front, back, side. Like a full-body mugshot shouting perceived imperfections at her. She wanted to reach a size that gave her the permission to stop caring about the numbers.

I know that size will never come and it’s better not to wait for it.

Shopping terrifies the ghost. When she was growing up, options were limited. Beige and white and flower print. Shapeless bags of fabric to drown in. She dressed in layers and hid in oversized sweatshirts and jeans that were uncomfortably tight. I know I’m lucky to have access to the plus-sized clothing she didn’t. That I can enter those stores with my head held high and choose to wear the correct size for my body. Sometimes we both poke at the vacuum-sealed bags beneath the bed, stuffed full of clothes from the past. Pants for the Somedays that never came, shirts bought too small on purpose for Motivation.

I give them away and she hisses at the waste of it.

The ghost does not understand when I tell my family I am not interested in the latest diet fads or going back to the ones we did for years when I was young. She bristles at the way I deflect my grandmother’s offer to send me information on the pills her friends swear by, the annoyance in my voice when my mother tells me she’s trying low-carb again despite her constant hospital visits due to malnutrition.

I have had to relearn how to eat, how to be active in a healthy way. The ghost grumbles about how not eating carbs would be easier. As if she does not remember that her youth was full of gnawing hunger, followed by cheat days full of binge-eating, followed by shame and plans to be stricter going forward. A cycle of generational bad eating habits inscribed in one far too young to know better.

She’s strongest in front of the mirror when we stand side by side before the glass. She pokes at her rolls and pulls at her skin and mumbles the things she hates. She tries to not make eye contact with herself. Sometimes her insecurities leak out, sometimes they try to overtake me. I make silly faces and compliment myself until she disappears.

There are days the ghost is not there at all. Days when I’m not looking over my shoulder or being reminded of things I’d like to forget. When I can accept myself for who I am and rebuild self-confidence a block at a time.

But there are also days where the ghost is closer, stronger, clingier. Full of rage and despair. Lonely and uncertain and lost. Bleeding into me and reminding me of what once was.

On those days, I face the ghost head on. It is not always a battle that I win. Sometimes, I join her in commiseration or fall back on bad habits. But I’ve stopped beating myself up about the losses. There is always improvement. There are days where I hold the ghost tight and tell her I love her and things will not always be this way.

And that makes the ghost cry, but in a different way than before, and she looks a little lighter, a little more comfortable in her own skin.

A little more like the me I aim to be.

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Hannah Lockhart received a BA in Creative Writing from Western Washington University. Her work has appeared in Jeopardy Magazine.