Table for 6

Part 12

"Catarina! Catarina, come back here. We're being serious!" I could hear Kathy and Katiniss yelling behind me. But I didn't want to talk about anything right now.

I ran into the girls bathroom and sat on one of the toilets. I made sure that the stall door was locked before I let the tears stream down my face. I cried really hard for about a minute, until I heard the bathroom door creak open.

"Catarina? Are you in here? We just want to talk to you. This is important." I could only hear Katiniss' voice, as she wearily tried to lure me out of my stall. Then Kathy spoke up.

"Catarina? If you do not get your butt out of that stall right now, I will personally come and drag you out of it." Those kind of things didn't usually come out of Kathy's mouth. I had never heard that sharpness in her voice before. She sounded so angry.

But so was I.

It seemed like everything always worked out for everyone else. All of my friends had their own problems, but mine were unfixable. My depression was getting worse and worse. It made me feel so alone because no one knew about it.

Well, that is for Ryan, who was surely going to have the whole school knowing by next lunch. Joy.

Each and every night I had a bigger drive to end it all. I could only think about the better things that would happen to me if I left this world. I could picture myself seeing Jason again, and feeling so happy, that part of my heart had been found. That just made me even more upset. Knowing that I wasn't there with him.

Before I could even think about it, I took out my earrings, and stabbed them into my skin. At first I felt pain, but it slowly faded.

I continued this until I had tiny punctures all over my skin and was red from all the blood. Then, I stuck two fingers as far down my throat as I possibly could, and threw up into the toilet. There was a burning sensation in my mouth as I puked for the fifth time. Now I understand why all my friends did this. It felt good.

Who was I kidding? I didn't have any friends. Just people who wanted to vent their problems off to someone who they thought was perfect. I'm about as far away from perfect as you can get.

Do you know how hard being perfect is? So hard that I was diagnosed with depression from it. Of course Jason was a huge part in my depression, but I was now an only child. My parents needed something to be proud of, so it felt like everything went on my shoulders.

Yes, I had to make every school sports team, have over 90% in every subject. And yes, I had to be that person to make the others feel better. I was forced to do everything. And what did I get in return? Nothing.

If I was lucky, dad would attend at least one of my sports games to tell me how I could do better. Or my mom would congratulate me on a test. But mumbled about how I should have aced it.

'You can do better.You can always do better.'

Not anymore, I thought as I puked for the tenth time.

I could still faintly hear the calls and threats that were still being thrown at me from the two girls.

That was when I sensed the lock on the stall door unhitch. The last thing I could remember seeing, were Kathy and Katiniss staring at me with horrified faces. Then I passed out onto the floor.