Lower- Ed novel

12. Cancer

I go to school the next week and meet up with the girls. Jacob comes up and approaches us as well as some of his friends, but Leo Was nowhere to be seen. I open my phone and look at the delivered message that I have sent him asking if he's going to be coming today, but there was no reply, which had me feeling down and stupid for thinking that he would actually love me.

I notice Jacob glancing at me, making me feel like he knew something I didn't, but he quickly goes back into the group talk.

"Where's Leo?" Asks one of the girls doing the job for me for I was too shy to ask not knowing what Leo & I are.
" I heared his sister passed away two days ago" another girl says, making me choke on the water I was sipping!

I look up at Jacob for some reason and he looks away with sorrow "yesterday was her funeral, she had cancer".
I go completely silent as everyone started to show grief saying "poor Leo oh poor thing", and felt horrible about myself and hated it for being selfish about a message back.

I go through the day dead quite, before Maggie suggests us going to the mall after school to buy prom dresses, as it is tomorrow night.

I tell her I don't really want to, even though I've been saving up for a nice prom dress ever since I started working at the shop, but finding out what's going on with Leo, only made me feel bad about buying it.
Maggie eventually drags me with her thinking I'm too shy to socialize, and it's good for me to find someone, even though I kept on saying I don't want to find someone not knowing how to tell her that I kissed Leonardo already.

We try on dresses, many many dresses until we find the perfect ones. I come out of the dressing room wearing a diamond like silver tight dress that showed every curve of my new slim body which looked absolutely gorgeous and breath taking, even though I knew it would be probably too expensive for me to buy, but I tried it on anyways for the sake of the girls.

The crew even clapped and whistled when I came out saying" this dress was made for her", making me blush. I look at the tag price secretly reading a price I could never afford, making me put it back against my will claiming that I liked a different one (a cheaper one) more, even tho it was not true, and Maggie realized that.

We walk out of the mall, and Maggie tells me that she doesn't care, no matter what I have to let her do my make up for tomorrow, and I didn't mind at all, in fact I was grateful she was wanted to do mine, because I have barely any idea about doing party makeup.

Even though I didn't have a date to go with to prom, and knew it would be impossible for Leo to come, I still somewhat wanted to go. After recalling all the school events I've been avoiding these past years, made me want to not miss out..

I've been planning to go after we're done from the mall to Leo's house to support him, and let him know I'm there for him, always, but my dad calls me which was unusual! I pick up saying hello, and he demands me to back come ASAP saying "JJ can't be left alone in the house, some criminals now live in the apartment next to us and it's no longer safe for him. Me and your mom are going to your uncle's so make sure you come home ASAP", I say quietly "but...", but he hangs up, not leaving with me with a choice but only with more sorrow.

I open my eating disorder account as I wait for the bus to let me down at my stop, and check "Abigail Hudson's" newest update, aka the thin model. I see that I have gotten follow requests from other ED accounts, and I accept them as I follow them back. One of those accounts was named "ana coaching", that has already sent me a message, saying he can fix my life and be like her (referring to Abigail) if I listend to his rules and agreed to everything he ordered me to do without asking too many questions. The dude was creepy, which made hesitate alot, but looking back and forth from my pictures to Abigail's, I accept.

After he asks me alot of personal questions, he tells me I can only have a salad today since I haven't really had anything today, and that I shouldn't go tomorrow to prom because it includes food. I tell him I can't cancel, so he just tells me to watch out for what I eat and not to drink alcohol, and that if I eat tomorrow, I should purge right away.

The bus stops, and I walk to my apartment, greeting JJ at the door, then spend the rest of the day keeping him company until night came and it was his bedtime. I tuck him gracefully, and kiss him good night then go to my room

I get my self to bed and try to sleep but get a buzz from my phone, believing it was from ana coaching I open my phone, but find that it was from Maggie telling me to be at her's at 5pm tomorrow, for the prom was at 8pm. I give her a thumbs up and go to bed, but remember I haven't weighed myself these couple of days! So I get up, undress myself, and step on the glass scale to read a beautiful number of 104.7lbs, which means I'm now under 105lbs, which was my original goal and that I would stop once I reached it, but the ana inside me told me I can't stop now! Not until I'm under 100lbs or I won't be satisfied, and I give in, feeling happy and not happy at the same time.

I woke up next morning and open my phone to check if Leo replied but there's no reply...

The day passes until evening comes and I head out to Maggie's after I make sure mom and dad came back home again. I arrive at Maggie's huge house holding my new dress and whatever make up mom and I had, with a pair of black heels and my hair done down. She opens up excited and let's me in after giving me a huge hug. She was so kind and sweet, she had a heart of a child.

As we went to her room, we start getting ready and gossip the entire time like in movies, with bringing up her Jacob every now and then in the conversation.
"So what do you think about Leo?" She asks me as she tries to hook us up togather because "it just made sense" since we're becoming like a group us four, but making me realize that she actually doesn't know I already know him, and with the sweet safe atmosphere and all the help she's giving me wanted me to tell her everything, which I did but hiding part of the truth.

"Actually I already know Leo, we were in middle school togather" I confess, "What? REALLY?!" She says before adding "why didn't you say sooooooo but wait how, you didn't know him when he first transferred", "oh he changed so much and grew lol I hardly recognized" I say back. She starts hyping me up about him and that he's a "nice guy", and that I should become "closer friends" with him.
"I don't know if we're just friends Maggie" I say letting it out, "What do you mean?" She asks me as she starts to smile while her eyes basically sparkled at the sound of that sentence.
"He kissed me" I say covering my face, "WHAT?! AHHHHH OMG WINTER LETSSS GOOO" she says as she jumped up and down pulling me around.
"OH SO HE DOES LOVE YOU JACOB WAS TALKING FACTS" she says after she tells me to tell her all about it, and I do cutting out the parts that are ED related.

We finish everything and we go to wear our dresses. "Nope na'a you won't be wearing that" she says as she pulls the dress from my hand."what do you mean I'm not weari- oh my" I say, as she pulls out the diamond dress from behind.
"I knew you wanted it so I just had to" she says making me almost cry but give her a giant hug before letting go.