this is me trying | taylor swift

five

❝stop, you're losing me❞

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

Ella laid in her bed, tears pouring out of her eyes. Taylor had left half-an-hour prior, and like usual, Ella was a mess. This time especially, because she wouldn't be able to see her for so long. She loved her relationship with her sister but hated how much it broke her, each time she left.

She checked the time and noticed that she still had two hours to spare before her ballet private and pressed on the TikTok app, ready to dull away the pain with random videos. Ella scrolled through the different short clips, not paying mind to any of them. However, as she continued to swipe down her feed, she came across a Taylor edit, which instantly reminded her of the video she had seen the day prior. The video with the hate comments.

Ella took a deep breath before going to her saved videos against every better judgment and the voice in her head that was screaming not to. Time and time again, Taylor had told her that if she ever saw hate comments, she was to supposed to stop reading immediately, and then tell Taylor, and finally remind herself that the comments are not true. This was what Taylor had engrained in her since she had been allowed to have her own social media pages, the year prior. Nonetheless, she ignored her sister's words, and pressed on the comment section of the video once more.

Immediately, Ella noticed that there were more replies in the thread, which caused her heart to beat faster. She read over the comments again, and each word felt like she was walking on shards of glass. Once again, the ugliness of the few negative comments heavily outweighed the positivity of the dozens of comments that supported her. Rationally, Ella knew that, but emotionally, she couldn't help it.

More tears welled up in Ella's eyes, as she locked her phone and quietly went to lock her bedroom door as well. She walked towards the left side of her bedroom, where her full-body mirror was mounted, and pulled her t-shirt up, exposing her stomach. Ella had never paid mind to how her tummy looked, or whether it was perfectly flat. Frankly, it simply never bothered her. She was an athlete and danced multiple days a week, on top of her school's physical education classes. She was active and never felt as though anything was wrong. Until now.

Ella turned to the side, noticing all sorts of things she hadn't noticed in the past. Within seconds, the blissful ignorance she had experienced in the past went away, as she nitpicked her body. For the first time, it wasn't just her body that keeled her strong, safe, and healthy, but it was a physical representation of her newfound insecurities. Her thoughts circled around the way her tummy was not perfectly taut with her leggings, her "not-so-small" thighs that overlapped, the way her arms jiggled when she moved them, and her chubby cheeks. Ella sighed heavily as she continued to criticize herself silently, but her thoughts loud, as she pulled her shirt back down and sat on the edge of her bed, pondering her next move.

A quick Google search gave her all sorts of diets and caloric intake suggestions. She pressed on a website, where she inputted her weight, height, activity level, and weight loss goals, and the system's algorithm spit out a daily intake value that was catered for her along with movement suggestions and tracking apps to keep her accountable.

Ella only hoped to lose a few pounds, just enough so that she wouldn't see her newfound insecurities every time she looked in the mirror, so she eagerly downloaded the suggested app and set it up with her information.

✮

"Sweetheart, it's time for dinner!" Ella heard her mom call from downstairs, as she put away her homework and got up. She had gotten home from dance and immediately began working on her assignments. She hated missing school because one day of missed classes equaled thirty hours of absent work. The math didn't make sense, but that's how it always worked out, so Ella just preferred to go to class and avoid the aftermath. The blonde teenager walked into the kitchen, and saw her mom place two plates on the table.