Tabitha tilted her head and stared at me, causing everything in my stomach to twist and turn.
"Tabitha Camilla Thompson- why are you staring at me like that?" I asked with a small blush rushing across my cheeks.
"You're so pretty," she said in a whi...
"I like you, not him" That was what was what Harmony had told me a million times in the seventh grade after she promised she liked me and even gave me a fucking promise ring.
But you know what?
After I became her "seventh-grade side piece", Harmony promised she'd break up with her boyfriend- she promised that all the text and the naked pictures and the late-night conversations, were a relationship- our relationship.
And then, during November, she completely embarrassed me- plastering my naked pictures all over the school and then told me in front of everyone "Did you really think I would date you? I don't date whales".
For the rest of the school year, I was known as "Maxine the naked walrus".
That's when my life turned around for the worse.
My Mom wanted to take Harmony to court for distribution of child pornography- and since Harmony was rich, her parents tried to pay my mom to drop the chargers- and then things got even messier.
So, to take control of my life after my thirteen-year-old self's naked pictures were released to not only the whole middle school, but high school, too- I started to barf.
When I started the seventh grade, I was 144 pounds, when I ended, I was 97 pounds- and my weight rapidly dropped during the summer- I went from 97, to 76.
When my Mom and Henry found out, they were so scared and sad, and confused. I was too. I had become somewhat underweight since then.
When we went to the doctor in August before my eighth-grade year, they revealed I had an eating disorder.
Bulimia to be exact.
So, while the court case went on, I spent my eighth-grade year in an eating disorder treatment center- but it wasn't exactly easy.
I was so scared and I felt so alone. I wanted to cry. And I did- every day.
I was alone- lost my friends, my technically first girlfriend, and my life.
The end of eighth grade rolled around and I had recovered- still having scars from what happened at Bridgewell, my Mom did the only thing she could do, she took the 40 thousand dollars Harmony's parents offered her and all three of us moved out of Lewisburg, and into Summerville County- where my mom was raised and Henry and I spent most of our summers running around.
Lewisburg was where Maxine Parker died. And Summerville, was where I- Max Parker, was alive.
Maybe it was all stupid, maybe it wasn't "traumatic" enough, but it mattered to me.
I didn't want people to see me the same way people at Bridgewell did.
I wanted to be different- and thanks to Layla, Laney, Charles- and the hella overprotectiveness of my Mom and Henry...
I was.
Maybe that's why I gave up so easily, because I lost to Harmony once...
I just didn't want to lose again.
I didn't want to lose me again. But I almost did. . . . I rushed while writing this- don't ask why but I write on my phone most of the time so my thumbs hurt like hell 💀 . . .
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