Even Heroes Have Scars

[77] The Middle

Demi's P.O.V.

Everything had been really hard lately, and I felt the need to hide it from my girlfriend. I knew I shouldn't have, 'cause honesty was the key to a strong and successful relationship. But I was not happy, and I was scared of telling her and her blaming herself for it. I was happy in the relationship, of course. And I was happy with her. I just wasn't happy with myself, and I didn't know how to explain it to her.

Touring always put me in this depressive mood in the few months leading up to my departure from home. I wasn't feeling it as much in 2014 because I had just ended one tour a few months before starting another, and I had been working out an insane amount (sometimes two or three times a day for hours at a time). Because of those reasons, I was particularly small back then. Now I wasn't as small, and it was going to my head. Everyone adored how small I was back then, which made me feel great, but it just reminded me that they all liked how I used to look more than how I looked now. They all preferred a thinner me, and I hadn't been able to get that out of my head for the longest time.

I wanted to ignore my eating disorder. I wanted to just eat whatever I wanted and not worry about anyone's opinions on my weight, including my own. I wanted to just... be. But I couldn't do that, 'cause I was going on tour, and Phil, my manager, was reminding me that the whole world would see me, so I needed to make sure I was okay with how I looked at that I ate what my chefs would make for me in L.A. Because God forbid I eat any sugar. I wasn't even allowed to go to the movie theater because I wasn't allowed to eat any candy or popcorn or anything. I was going mad. It was surprising to me that they even allowed me to have a watermelon cake on my birthdays considering how much sugar was in watermelon; it was very low in calories, though, so maybe that's how they made the judgment that I couldn't have an actual cake on my birthday. I just wanted a day where I could go eat Taco Bell and then hit up the movies and then Ben & Jerry's afterwards. And I wanted to do it with Ansley. I wanted us to both be free of our demons.

Everyone always wanted me in a dress. Every red carpet always had to be a dress, and I couldn't explain why I was tired of that. Something in me just didn't always feel right when I was in a dress. Sometimes I wanted to wear a suit – something more comfortable or unique, a little less feminine. Why did I have to be so uncomfortable with my body and my style? Why couldn't I just feel free and like me?

So now, as I stood in my bathroom at my family's house in Dallas, staring at the mirror, all I wanted was for everything to stop. The fame, the mental health, the use of cameras. I wanted to feel free. But instead I was standing her, pinching my stomach fat between my thumb, index finger, and middle finger and wishing I could make it disappear. Once I released my skin, my hands trailed up my body to my chest, hovering over my breasts as, just for a moment, I imagined if I would look smaller if I didn't have boobs. They weren't even that big. I mean, they'd been bigger before now, but in this moment, I thought about slicing them off, just for a minute, just to see how different I'd look and feel. My hands met my neck, and I made a mental note to cover my hickey that Ansley left me a yesterday – just a dab of concealer and a tiny bit of foundation and blush would do the trick. At least my hair would hide it as well. My hair often hid so much of me. It gave me both relief and fear, because why should I feel the need to conceal myself? Then my hands were in my hair, and I pulled all of it back behind my head like a ponytail. I just held it there for a minute, absorbing the idea of if I ever were to cut my hair short. It would lower some of my femininity that my fans and the world love so much, but it would also force me to feel comfortable in my body and to embrace it. A certain pain encircled my head as I tugged tighter on my hair and closed my eyes. The pain soothed me, let me forget my thoughts for a moment.

My phone dinged with a text message on the counter, and I released my hair, quickly wiping away tears I hadn't noticed were trickling down my cheek as I checked the name on my screen: Jacob.