Short Stories II

Noelle

'Dear Snowie,

It's Christmas! It snows a lot here, it's been going on for hours on end. I just wanna feel it, ya know? Carolina rarely has snow, but this is crazy! It's already hit inches... like we used to only get little flakes every now and then outside our dorm. Anyways, I'm doing alright. I wanted to send you a letter because they took my phone and pretty much everything I own besides a coloring book, so I'm going to old lengths to talk to you. But everyone else in the group can hear from you, because I'm not writing four letters in one night for people who don't really care. I have a lot of time, but not that much, ya know what I mean?

Anyways, Denver is scary man. I've been here for what, three days? I can't even keep track anymore. The days just drag on, but it seems like the number in total is always bigger than I thought. It's like I'm in a time vortex or something, ha... I won't go into detail or anything, but it's been one hell of a week. I still don't even understand why I'm here. They tubed me without anesthetics or anything... and god, it sucked. The left side of my face feels like it's melting when I'm sleeping, and I'm eating perfectly well. They think I need this just because I know how bad apple juice is for you, it's so odd.

But besides all of that, I miss you. I did this to myself, ya know? Ah, sorry, I'm getting teared up, but I need you to know that you will always be more important than my fitness goals. They diagnosed me with binge/purge type Anorexia, so I guess it is pretty serious. I know it'll take time and everything, but I'm gonna get outta here for you. I miss those dewy blue eyes, and god that smile of yours. It's like the snowfall's first flake landing on someone's nose, it's that little. But that kind, and that fragile, and I know that. I need you to know that I wake up to that smile in my mind, and sleep to those eyes in my heart. They call it an eating disorder, maybe it is. But whatever's wrong with me is something I can fix up.

I mean, I've already lost everything... I'm not willing to lose you to. Not because of this... not something I did to myself. My doctors think I'll be here for months Snow, it's just, I don't even know. I'm confused but I'm also terrified, and I'm content but also angry. What I do know though, is that I miss the way you push back my dark hair before you kiss me, and those cheesy Pinterest projects we'd do in the middle of the night. I miss you.

Love, Noelle.

-----

"Jesus..." Snowie breathed, falling back into her puffy comforter. 

She held the stiff paper near to her heart, watching the ceiling fan spiral. One, two, three, four... The fan just kept spinning and spinning like Snowie's thought patterns, in order but much to rapid to acknowledge. Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven...

She'd lost count by eleven. Tears began to bud at the inner morsel of her clear eyes, but stalled in stillness by the ceiling wind. Snowie sighed a long breath as she crinkled the notepad sheet in her pale hands, feeling unable to steer her thoughts away from Noelle. She tried, really tried. But Noelle was to big in her little world to ignore.

Snowie took a shallow breath as icy tears trailed her soft face. Why didn't I see it?

"Oh god, how did I not see it?" It was so obvious. Her eating disorder, it was right there in front of Snowie, but she didn't take as much as a glance to it until Noelle was gone, and all that was left was her hollowed shell.

Her eyes settled on a pivotal crevice of the ceiling, noticing the shifting shadows of the fan. The ceiling was dryly cracked, so she always found creme dust in her hair after a night's rest.

Her rigid bones that would ground into her own padded body was painful to sleep to, let alone her scattered breath at night. It didn't matter if she slept the entire night alongside her skeletal fragmentation, because Noelle still awoke with the same pivotal expression. One of not only distaste, but emptiness. There was nothing for her to offer. 

Everything reminded Snowie of her. The loose ceiling panels would crumble enough to be spotted in Noelle's scalp, where she finally noticed her balding. She'd just exhale her fragile breath and look at Snowie with those hollowed, course eyes. The tiny transparent light in Noelle's eyes had diminished into a deep abyss, much to far to be seen again.

But it was there. Her laundry was still piled against the bathtub because it became a last priority to her, and the ceiling paste still crumbled away onto our bed sheets.