AGAIN

These Four Walls (Jade)

Growing up wasn't easy for me. In the area I lived in, almost everyone was white except me and my mom. That was enough for me to have my life be a living hell at school. People called me every slur in the book, threw bleach on me, made a bunch of unfunny jokes about how I would blow up the school, things like that. I didn't see the point of telling my mom because every school I went to would be the same, a bunch of ignorant people making ignorant jokes about me.

Apart from being miserable at school, I didn't have too many complaints at home. My father left me, my mom, and my brother to fend for ourselves when I was little, but my mom was the best and gave me all the love and support I ever needed. Because of the constant harassment at school I hated being Arab, I wished I could be white, so things would be easier for me. My grandfather had none of this European nonsense, as he would call it. He took me to the mosque, to learn arabic, and we cooked tons of traditional Yemeni foods. My grandad moved in with us when my father left, he took care of us while mom was at work to support us.

My mom always said that the bond we shared was really beautiful, he and my mom always cheered me up when I was down. Even though I always bottled up my emotions and didn't tell them what I went through at school, they always managed to put a smile on my face. Sometimes my irritating brother helped too.

All this happiness I had at home changed when I was thirteen, my grandad passed away, and it was like a piece of me was ripped off. Of course, my mom was also devastated because her dad was gone, but she tried to remain strong for us. Her help wasn't enough to calm my sadness, though, but I don't blame her for it. 

I felt so trapped and alone, of course the bullying hadn't stopped either, and I felt like everything in my life was spiralling out of control. As a thirteen-year-old, I didn't have power over many things, but one thing I had for sure, and that was food.

Trigger Warning ED

When It first started, that's what it was about, control. But then, suddenly, I looked in the mirror and I thought I was fat, that I wasn't good enough, that I didn't deserve to eat. I was never happy with my body, and I started to starve more and more.

Nobody noticed for a while as I wore baggy clothes and did my best to pretend that I ate. Once I had already lost a lot of weight, the physical symptoms of starving myself started to show up, I was tired every time without even doing anything, I had insomnia, I didn't get my period anymore, but I was able to hide all those symptoms. However, there were symptoms that I was not able to hide, my face was very gaunt, my skin was dry, my thick hair started to thin a bit.

I was destructing my body little by little, but I didn't feel bad about it because that was something that I thought I had power over it, instead it had power over me. One day I felt dizzy and fainted, my mom took this opportunity to take me to the hospital as I refused to go when I was awake.

I stayed there in recovery, and I'm glad I did. I went to therapy and slowly but surely got better. Some things still trigger me, but I'm doing good. I even look a lot more health now, I know my mom feels incredibly guilty for not noticing until I was in the brink of death as my doctor kindly put it, I know it's not her fault, I hid it well.

Trigger Warning ends here.

I'm way better now, I still get bullied which sucks but at least soon I will be out of here. Things changed one day when a new girl arrived at school.

As it was routine, some bullies were disturbing me; this time they pressed me into the lockers and were trying to draw a bindi on my forehead because apparently being racist was not enough for them; they had to be dumb as well to not know the difference between Arabs and Indians. They were interrupted when one of the guys was thrown to the floor.

The other bullies and I stopped in our tracks to look, it was very uncommon for someone to defend me, specially in such a strong way. And there stood a girl, she had short platinum blonde hair, was pale, had light blue eyes, was very tall and was wearing grunge-style clothes with a nose ring and piercing in her ears and all. As soon as the guy was on the ground, she turned to the other ones that were in front of me.

"What the fuck do you assholes think you're doing?"

After the guy said, "You stay out of this, blondie," she pushed him into the locker.

"I just got expelled for beating someone into a coma; don't make me do it again."

With that, the guys let go of me, and everyone started dispersing from the hallway.

"Are you okay?" she asked me, helping me pick up my stuff from the ground.

"Yeah, I'm used to it" I replied.

"You shouldn't be. I'm Perrie, by the way."

"Jade"

"Jade, can you show me where the English class is?"

"I'm actually heading there too."

"Great, let's go then." she said, offering her arm for me to hold, which I did.

Aside from Holly, Perrie was the only one in the school who treated me like an actual person. For the most part, people pretended I don't exist, and the others who don't, bully me. Despite being my friend, Holly never really defended me because she was afraid of the bullies as well, but Perrie seemed like she didn't fear anyone, and I got instantly attracted to that and to the feeling of protection that she provided, not to mention that she was really hot.