Sophia

Chapter eighteen

Sophia

It's bad. I've got my whole family worried but I can't help it.

It started with me just skipping lunch and crying all day but then I cried all my tears and none will come out anymore. I've gotten to the point where I'm completely numb.

I've started doing things I'm not proud of just so I can make sure I'm still alive. To make sure I can still bleed. To make sure that I am breathing and not imaging it.

I've gone from not eating lunch to just not eating. I'm pretty sure the last time I ate an actual meal was last week. And even saying that it was a 'meal' is a stretch. I'd call it 'my mom got sushi so I ate half a roll one day and half the next.'

I don't cry. I don't even feel mental pain anymore. I'm mentally numb and ninety percent of the time, I'm physically numb. And yet I'm mentally and physically exhausted all the freaking time. People could say it's from the malnourishment but I don't even care anymore.

Most of the time I wish it'd all just stop. I've lost weight. A lot of it. I look ill. I just want everything to be over. The pain. The emotions. The overwhelming guilt of knowing I relapsed in something that I've been clean of for almost three years. The overwhelming urge to keep going. To stay under the bath water for a few more minutes. To not stop anything until I'm completely out of pain.

The urges and guilt and overall pain gets to be too much. I'm scared I'll let it win.

~~~

School starts again today. I got up ten minutes before we needed to leave and just put on my uniform. I've stopped caring about how I look. I brush my hair and teeth but that's the extent of my self care.

I hate how I let this effect me. I mean Zach isn't special. He's just like everyone else. He left just like everyone else. I was stupid to think I deserved love. I was stupid to fall in love.

Love sucks.

I saw him pass my locker. He looked completely normal. He didn't look sad or upset and that's the moment I decided.

I'm done being pitiful.

I am not, was not and never will be a damsel in destress that a man could fix and break. I'm not that.

I'm done.

~~~

The next week...

Mom was completely against me dying my hair black but after I explained everything to her, she let me do it. We went to the salon and I sat there for a solid two hours getting my whole head done the way I've wanted it done for so long.

After that we went to get the only food I could keep down, sushi, and she made me eat all of the appetizers and my whole sushi roll. I wasn't complaining at all.

I was scared to go to school but I went and got a new skirt and jacket for school considering the "uniform" is more of a guid on what to wear. As long as it's a neutral color— as in black, white, beige, or grey— skirt or pair of pants for the boys and a white button down with a jacket for winter, they don't care. In the winter girls have to wear black tights under the skirt but that's really the only rule. I wasn't as scared of going as soon as I realized I was really hot in the outfit. And my new hair was still in the loose curls the stylist did so it looked great.