Eighty-two Pieces (NaNoWriMo 2013)

Chapter 1

Hi! I'm writing this for NaNoWriMo (you can tell by the title) and I wanted to upload it too so I could get feedback or whatever, so yeah. I just want to point out that it is not based on personal experiences or anything, and any events with real life stories is completely a coincidence and I am not copying anything which has happened. I am basing some bits of the story on things which have  happened to me, but this story is not a story about me.

Chapter 1

Breathing is no longer worth the effort of expanding my lungs. Living is no longer worth the effort of keeping me alive.

I am cold. Correction: I am always cold. It is June, everyone is walking around in shorts and t-shirts, making plans to go to the beach, having house parties and enjoying the summer sun. As for me, I’m sat on my garden wall (my favourite spot) contemplating the nutrition values of a granola bar: ninety-nine calories… ninety-nine calories which do not belong on my body. Effortlessly, I break it up into tiny fragments and leave it for the birds to eat. I am pathetic.

The ability to see past calories is long gone, well at least for me it has. “Would you like an apple?” fifty to sixty calories - do I want it? “No thanks, I’m not hungry, I’ve just eaten,” I lie. I always lie. Lie, liar, lying. Having insomnia doesn’t help things either, except for the fact that I am burning considerably more calories than someone who can sleep properly. There go my obsessive thoughts again. Psychiatrists would be all over that - “explain to us why that thought occurred,” “why did you directly go to that?” “Can you not think of a different reason as to why insomnia is affecting you?”

Oh my, how is insomnia not affecting me? I can’t operate properly any more, and even if I could, I’d probably choose not to. Understandably, if I did get more sleep, I would be less tired, but it doesn’t mean I would feel awake. Ha, I can’t even walk up a flight of stairs without feeling dizzy, so why they expect me to think straight I do not know.

It’s a miracle I’m still in the top quarter for results and grades. The fact that I’m fourteen apparently makes no difference whatsoever, I have to achieve the best possible - better than anyone else. My whole entire life seems to be a competition: who’s the skinniest, who’s the smartest, who’s the best dressed, who’s the prettiest etc. etc. etc. We blame society, but we are society; we moulded it into the mess it’s in now.

My mother is a useless woman. She does not have the slightest bit of concern to me. I used to care about it, but now I’ve lost the will to even consider her opinion. She’s probably worked out that I’m starving myself, cutting myself, hating myself but I know she doesn’t care. No one cares. That’s a lie. I know people who care - Ivy, Coral and Austin. They mean the world to me. They have such cool and quirky names compared to me. I’ve always envied that. I’m Esther Winter for goodness’ sake, while they’re Ivy Quern, Coral Meraud and Austin Neptune. They’ve spotted that something is wrong with me though - that’s why I’ve been seeing psychiatrists. If it was up to me, I wouldn’t go to anyone - I don’t need help. What’s the point in recovering from something I don’t have? Apparently I’m anorexic. What a laugh. Maybe I was a couple of years ago, when I was ill. That was an interesting time period. I reckon I’ve ruined my life already with this ‘disorder’.

In other news, I’m tired (what’s new?). I’m always tired (thank you insomnia). Whenever I get into my bed in a failing attempt to get to sleep, I always get distracted. Distracted by what? L-i-g-h-t. Even if there’s a slight glow, it will keep me up for hours. The way I put it, is that my room has to be as dark as my soul. Now that’s a seriously dark place. So dark, you can’t see a way out.

That was deep. I do that a lot - talk deep I mean. Coral says I’m letting my inner soul out through speech and communicating with the wider world. Personally, I think I’m just going crazy. Coral likes to see the positives in everything, or the scientific explanation to something gone wrong. Ivy likes to take action when events happen - or think of a philosophical answer to something gone wrong. Coral and Ivy get along, despite their different thought trains. We all get along. Austin and I get along especially well. In year seven our whole year were convinced we were going out - we weren’t. A couple of years ago Austin came out as bisexual, but even so, it would be pretty unlikely that we’d have gone out. Bless, Austin was so scared about how much we’d judge him if he came out, but we had already suspected something - we just didn’t know if he was being camp. It didn’t change anything, it never will.

I’ve never been in a proper relationship. Not that I need to, I’m perfectly happy being single - relationships only end up in a mess anyway. To be quite honest, I doubt anyone would want to even have a relationship with me anyway. How a fat, disgusting, ugly monster would ever appeal to anyone I do not know.

Tap, tap, tap. My feet do this too often. It used to be a controlled action - another pathetic attempt to burn more calories. Now it’s a force of habit - something I can’t actually control. Like my thoughts. Not to mention the voices. Gosh, don’t even get me started - the psychiatrists are constantly questioning about the voices’ welfare - almost as if it’s more important than my actual welfare. I don’t blame them; the voices control me, so it’s probably just as well they check on them to make sure they’re doing ‘okay’.

To clarify things a little, here is a list of my diagnosis so far: anorexia, depression, social anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, psychosis and suicidal risks. Obviously, the last one (i.e. suicidal risks) isn’t an actual disorder; they just have to note it down. Don’t question why, because no one really knows.

That’s a lie; I know one of the causes. The main factor is more than likely my childhood. It was a mess - my whole childhood was wrecked by my own family and I will never forgive them - never. Amusingly, they don’t even care that I’m suffering with a disorder which is eating me away - literally.

Sometimes, and only occasionally, I wish I was normal - disorder free, loving life and living it to the full. But then I remember that it’s meant that people stay away from me - I am too delicate, fragile for them to handle. They will just shatter me and I will break into a million fragments. All I will be is one pound pieces. All eighty-two pieces of them.