City Secrets

Chapter 2

Welcome lovely readers!

WARNING: The story might start up a little slow but be patient, some twists and turns ahead.

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The image of bright burning flame shatters my dreams and I wipe the dust from my sleepy eyes, wincing at the sunlight thst pierces through my skull as it setts the steady throb of my headache into a gallop.

I feel vomit clawing up my throat and swing my body out of the bed dashing for the bathroom down the hall. Before I know what is happening, as my sleepy mind is still foggy, my fists hit the chipped tiles and I retch into the gaping porcelain mouth of the toilet. After a few minutes or so the retching turns to dry heaving as my body has nothing more to give and I am left feeling empty, hollow.

My throat is raw from my own stomach acids and tears form at the corners of my eyes by the time that my body sags to the floor. I press my cheek to the cool tiles, seeking refuge from the pain that pumps through my veins like blood.

A cold sweat coats my frail frame like a second skin and yet I take comfort in the familiar shivers trailing up and down my spine as they usually signal the end of my initial bout of sickness.

I begin every morning ever since my eleventh birthday with my little ritual of spitting up the whole contents of my stomach and then shivering on the unforgiving icy floor. I have tried everything from starving myself to popping pills for every issue imaginable and yet the nausea persists, demanding that I simply accept its presence in my life and get on with it.

I know my mother hears every single sob and cry of pain as the sound travels easily through the thin walls, yet no help ever comes, So why do I keep hoping that my mom will come to my rescue? Once again time proves that she won't offer a single word of comfort, as she never acknowledges anything that happens before 10 in the morning.

I pick my sore body up off of the floor and turn the water in the shower on, waiting for it to heat up whilst stripping to watch my slim body in the cracked mirror. Slips of washed out material flutter to the floor, leaving me naked and vulnerable to my own judgemental gaze. Blue green eyes scan over the pale expanse of my torso, and I trail my index finger over the unsightly ridges of the ribs that jut out from my body as if trying to burst from my skin.

Malnourished.

That is the word I choose to describe my body, the description that suits best, a malnourished bag of bones. I've never craved beauty as most of the other girls in my school. I have a first-hand account of what it does to a person, I've experienced the rotting thing that beauty leaves in its wake, But would it be that awful if I could fill out a nice pair of jeans or have anything other than the torso of a fourteen-year-old boy? I stand, entranced by the poor sight until the mirror mists over before I finally turn to enter the shower.

I step directly into the column of scalding water in hope that it would melt me away, I wish that I could spill down the drain and flow with the water and suds of soap, but my skin only sizzles and my hand shoots out, I turn the tap freezing cold to relieve some pain, after a few seconds of standing in the cool stream of water the sting has totally disappeared.

I wonder if my behaviour would brand me as suicidal, and if anybody did know about my deepest darkest fantasies, would they jump to action or choose to sit back and watch me fade from existence? Most days my money leans toward the latter... Okay that's enough depression for one day.

I busy myself with scrubbing my favourite scented wash onto my skin, pausing to cup my small br**sts in my hands and then proceeding to drop them in disappointment, Well, nothing has changed in that department.