Castles crumbling (Taylor Swift's little sister)

They see right through me, I see right through me

The treatment center had decided that you were ready and could go two days a week to school all day (Tuesday and Thursday), that meant that you would be going on the mornings to school, and your mom would pick you up just three days a week (Monday, Wednesday and Friday) to go to the afternoon program. It was a big step for you, but you were determined to make it work. You felt good around your friends but sometimes you felt awkward around bigger social groups, you often found yourself thinking about if they were comparing your body to before and now and about why you missed school. Since you were absent for a long-time last year and now for a shorter period of time but still didn't go to school for almost 2 months, you were slowly becoming quieter around people, often feeling left out. You were definitely not the usual bright and shiny Lizzie that everyone once knew.

Tuesday was going to be the first time in a while that you were going to be all day at school. The day before, on Monday, the doctors of the treatment center made it very clear that you still had an exercise restriction and couldn't participate in any sports or activities that implied any kind of movement and/or exercise. Thankfully, all classes that involved exercising such as P.E and dance were scheduled on the afternoons after lunch and, since you were going to the afternoon program, you weren't there. You had P.E on Mondays and Wednesdays and dance on Wednesdays, so when the treatment center told you to go to school the whole day for two days a week, you were sure that you didn't have to deal with having to tell the teacher or your classmates that you couldn't exercise, because you were going to be at the treatment center anyway. You aspired to be cleared for exercise when you were going every day for the whole day.

On Tuesday you went to school, had morning snack and lunch following the meal plan and felt proud of yourself, you were doing good. After lunch, you were heading to your classroom with your friends, when they stopped you.

- "Oh Lizzie, we forgot to tell you, but Miss Rick (the dance teacher) changed hours with Mr. Zeen (the Spanish teacher) and now we have dance class on Tuesdays after lunch instead of Spanish. We have Spanish on Wednesdays after lunch" Erin said.

You instantly panicked. You couldn't dance. You hated when people noticed and knew about your eating disorder (even though it was pretty well known that you were sick, since every time you needed to leave early or when you were at the hospital, or absent; you would say that you had heart problems, which was true to some extent, what you didn't say was why you had heart problems).

With the swap that the teachers agreed on, everything changed. You had to face the fact that you couldn't dance like the other girls in your classroom, Erin and Lou knew about this, but you didn't want to tell anyone else about it. What if they thought that you were lazy? What if they asked more about it and you couldn't lie about it?

- "You, okay?" Lou asked.

- "Yeah, why?" You replied after zoning out.

- "I don't know, Erin talked about the swap between dance and Spanish and your face instantly changed" Lou shrugged.

- "It's fine. Let's go" you said trying to put it off.

Lou grabbed your arm: - "It's because you can't exercise, right?"

You blushed and felt your face turning red. This was so embarrassing. Even after all this time, you feared that your friends were going to think that you were not sick enough to be banned from exercising, to be missing school or to be on a meal plan.

- "No shame, Liz. It's us. You can go to the library, and we can talk with Miss Rick, tell her that you can't dance. I'm sure that she will be understanding" Erin said.

You thought about it for a second, then spoke:

- "I know it's you guys, I don't care about you. It's the others that worry me. What they might think.... And thank you, but this is a conversation I'd like to have with Miss Rick myself...." You stopped for a second and gave it a thought: - "We go, I dance, and we say nothing"