Castles crumbling (Taylor Swift's little sister)

Chapter 54

The afternoon after the hospital visit you were revising your test to know exactly in which questions you did wrong. You were practicing and studying with similar exercises until you felt like you understood everything perfectly. You were absentmindedly revising when Taylor knocked on your door.

- "Come in"

- "Hey baby, what are you doing? I was wondering if you would like to bake something for mom to take to her meeting with friends tonight?" Taylor asked. Your mom had this meeting at a friend's house with her school friends planned months ago. She wanted to reschedule it to stay with you, but you insisted that she should go and have fun.

- "I was revising my physics test, you know,

studying so I don't fail ever again" you replied.

- "Liz... you've been here for hours; have you been studying all afternoon?" Taylor asked sitting on your bed.

- "Probably since 9 am? Right after breakfast, but I've taken breaks: to eat my morning snack, to eat lunch" you said.

- "It's almost 3:30pm. You need to stop, Liz, this is not healthy" Taylor said worried.

- "I told you I've been taking breaks. Don't worry"

- "I do worry" Taylor said approaching to close your laptop and gently pulling away the notebook in which you were writing down. - "You cannot keep punishing yourself for failing a test. It can happen again, it probably will, but it a grade doesn't define you"

- "If I can't starve myself as a punishment, then I need to make sure I will never fail" you said softly, but immediately regretted saying it out loud.

- "Liz, failing and making mistakes is part of any process, that's how you learn. You don't need to be perfect. You need to be more compassionate with yourself" Taylor said stroking your shoulder.

- "But Tay, how come I never failed even at my sickest and I fail now?" You asked your sister as tears built in your eyes.

- "I don't know Liz, I don't know. I wonder how this is the first test you fail; you were absent for months last school year!"

- "It's exhausting" you replied wiping your tears away.

- "You are fighting a war in your head all the damn time. If that's not exhausting, then I don't know what is. The time you were absent was not because you wanted to, you were fighting for your life at hospital, at inpatient treatment. I'm fucking proud of you, and you should be too. You're always so hard on yourself. There's no need. Food doesn't define you, your weight, grades or your illness, none of those define my wonderful little sister. You've studied enough. Now, come on, help me bake something for mom. Remember: messing up, making mistakes is how we learn, but you are so much more than that" Taylor hugged you and grabbed your hand to take you downstairs to bake something for mom.

You went downstairs and baked some blueberry muffins with Taylor. You enjoyed the rest of the evening with her, you even ate a muffin as afternoon snack. You were glad Taylor came into your room and dragged you downstairs, you wouldn't admit it, but you were tired of studying, you wanted to rest, but your head wouldn't let you do it.

A week after the "runaway" event you went back to school. It was hard but you were able to come up to terms with the physics failed test, you kept repeating yourself that a grade didn't define you and that you needed to be more compassionate with yourself, just as Taylor told you. On Thursday mom and Taylor picked you up at school to go to the treatment center, as usual, but you also had the "end of the month" meeting with your team. Dr. Maine decided to speak up first:

- "So, you've made great progress Elizabeth. Up until last week we were going to discharge you completely, but, due to last week's events... we've decided to keep you coming twice a week for another month"