Meeting You Saved Me

Short Story Ellipses: 2016

     It’s the summer of 2016. The trees are stiff from the windless air, and the flowers are wilted from the dehydrated earth they sit in. I’m in my dark, closed off room, fighting with a girl twice my age about each of our versions of twisted love. The temperature was skyrocketing, but I was still huddled in a hoodie, hiding all of the cuts and bruises littered over my battered arms. My eyes were dark, the bags under them holding all of the corrupt, tired nights I spent awake bending at every demand I was asked. I can hear the small ramblings of a fight outside, and my mouth grew dry. I finished my quarrel with the girl, and started to clean off my bed, preparing for my sister's arrival, so that they wouldn’t be alone during my parent’s yelling and hot headed screams. This wasn’t unusual for me, in fact, it was almost like a routine, the same thing, every single day. A part of me wondered what this fight was about, but the rest of me was tired, and numb. When it was over, we got up with wet eyes and dusted ourselves off. My sisters would go back to doing their makeup, or drawing in their rooms, and I would go back to talking to a girl who I thought loved me, when really I was being groomed.

     At this time in my development, I was easily coerced to do things, and I thought any attention was love. It was at this point in time that I started to have my gender crisis, amongst suffering with a blossoming eating disorder and malnutrition. I became obsessed with numbers, counting my calories, counting my pounds, I watched everything, including my childhood pour away with every number. I had tried and written out hundreds of letters stating how I was going to run away, or kill myself. I wanted to escape the reconcile I called a home, by any means possible.