"Eve? Can I talk to you for a second, love?" Mum placed a hand on my shoulder and leaned over me as I scribbled down the last expanded equation on the sheet. Mr Fieldson had set us four sheets of homework to complete over the Christmas break, and even after spending five days on it so far, I had only just managed to finish half of the first set of questions. This should've been somewhat understandable, since he had insisted on giving us all A LEVEL COURSEWORK instead of the year eight worksheets that were on the KS3 curriculum, but he had so kindly told us that whoever failed to finish all four sheets would be getting themselves an hour and a half's detention. Usually I wasn't a bad student. I got mostly A's and B's in exams, I wasn't that cheeky(well, most of the time...) and I got on well with my fellow students, but Maths was the exception. And when my recent test score arrived in the form of an ominous letter on the doormat a few weeks ago, Mum had said that as I'd only managed to score 12 marks out of 50, I'd have to have extra tutoring until my grades got reasonably high again. Fun.
I leaned back in my chair with a sigh of relief as I finished the question."Done! Now, what did you want to talk to me about?" She clasped her hands together, and I knew what was coming. She only did that when she had something serious to say. "Eve, I'm sorry, but you need to get more exercise. You can't just sit around the house all day and expect to always be a healthy weight. Besides, after the incident with the chicken yesterday, I think you need a break from all this unnecessary worrying." I stared at her, disbelieved outrage written all over my face. I didn't want to have OCD, and that didn't mean that my anxiety was unnecessary or optional. She knew that I constantly had an unwanted voice in my head telling me things I didn't want to hear. All of a sudden, I felt incredibly frightened. Because if something went wrong, if something went terribly wrong with my head, then I knew that she wouldn't be there to help me pull myself back up again.
Pushing the thoughts out, I opened my mouth and answered, "First, you know that I'm not overweight. I don't eat that unhealthily and I don't need to lose any. And why would exercising for half an hour help with mental compulsions that are really hard to ignore?" Her gaze raked up and down my frame, trying to remember how much I weighed. I shifted uncomfortably, feeling like an animal for sale at a country fair. "Eve, you're 51 kilo-" I cut her off, even more annoyed with her than I was before. "You know that 51kg is healthy, Mum! I don't eat three cakes and a packet of crisps every day, or something! I'm not like Amy!"Amy Stammerings was the outcast of our year. She always sat alone on the steps leading to the music department at break and lunch, eating a never-ending amount of cakes, crisps and pizza. Her piggy, deep-set eyes would glaze over when anyone made a snarky comment about her being at least 90 kilograms, and she waddled around the corridors not talking to anyone or trying in her lessons. I talked to her now and again, more out of pity for her than friendliness, but she was so rude and surly that I'd recently stopped trying to be friendly. Now, Mum rolled her eyes at me. "You're nothing like Amy. I'm just saying that you should get some exercise." I sighed and trudged up the stairs to my room. "Fine. I'll go running for half an hour. But this is a one-off!"
Please don't let it be dark, please don't let it be dark, please don't let it be dark... I groaned as I peeked out of my bedroom window that faced the street, the inky velvet sky confirming my worried suspicions. I was fine with the dark in general, but it was going out at night that was the issue here. I'd heard numerous stories about girls who got publicly victimized on isolated night streets, being shouted at, harassed or, in the worst cases, forced into doing things that they didn't consent to. Taking a deep breath, I swallowed my fears, pulled on two jumpers and stepped out into the frozen abyss of the night.
It's no use. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. My throat was already sandpaper-dry, my lungs were heaving uncontrollably,my legs were ready to buckle under my feet, my head was pulsating with a hot, dull ache of exhaustion- and I'd only been running for eight minutes. I knew that I needed to get more exercise, but I hadn't realized how unfit I had become. Unfit? Um,why don't you try fat? "I am not fat! I'm just, ahem, generous!" I said out loud ,my trainer-encased feet slapping onto the tarmac. A passing old lady shuffling by gave me a frightened look, as if she thought that I would suddenly go savage and try to attack her. Oh, sure you aren't. And you're also not a flying cat. Of course you're not 'generous', as you put it. You're slightly more than generous, my dear... At the very back of my head, I knew that what the voice was saying wasn't true. But my stomach hadn't been exactly flat lately, and my thighs looked quite thick... Eve, stop it. Don't listen to them. You know that thighs have to be thick to hold you up. And teenage girls' stomachs aren't supposed to be flat. It's just your body type. I tried to keep my breathing steady as I swerved round the corner and ran up the hill again. "Concentrate. Breathe," I told myself firmly, trying not to look at my feet. "Breathe. In, out. In, out. Only ten more minutes left. You can do this." I had sort of got used to the exhausting sensation, and I felt calmer than I had in a long while.
They say that hope tends to rear its glittering head when you least expect it to. But they also sometimes say the same thing about bad luck, and unfortunately, I experienced the latter. Just as I ran up the road lined with maple trees, I caught sight of a gang of about five boys riding their bikes down the hill towards me. They looked as if they were about fourteen, and as they neared, for some unexplainable reason (at the time) my heart sped up again, and not because of the cardio. When they were about seven meters away, the tallest of the five slowed down, opened his mouth and yelled at me, "Go on love, keep going!" My mouth dropped open, unable to believe what he'd just said. The others shrieked with laughter, and began to join in on the catcalling. "Getting fit, are we?! Look at her ass! Can I join you? I'm in need of some exercise too!" My fingers comprehended what they were saying faster than my brain did, and the middle one flipped up at them, twitching with anger. "Ooh, getting angry, are we? The little slut," a smaller cretin crowed at me, his comrades laughing even harder. Seething with rage, my inner feminist took over and I screamed at them without thinking. "You bastards!" This, apparently hilarious insult made them back off slightly, and they whizzed away from me down the hill, cackling with evil laughter. I stood and watched them go, breathing raggedly as white-hot anger coursed through my limbs. Suddenly overcome with a huge rush of infuriated adrenaline, I sprinted up the hill, their insults ricocheting round and round my head. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. It's your own fault anyway,you know. You should've paid more attention to what you were wearing before you went out. They just couldn't help themselves. I slumped down on the pavement, too tired to fight them anymore. "Okay. You're right," I whispered as an exhausted tear made a trail down my pale cheek.
I didn't know how much more of this I could take.
Hello!
This chapter is slightly based on real life experiences. Have any of you ever experienced something like this? If you feel comfortable doing so, please feel free to share your story in the comments.
FeistyPebble x
YOU ARE READING
Eve(-1)
Jugendliteratur*COMPLETED AND EDITING* You can't often tell when you're internally breaking. Most of the time, you don't want to hear it. You say you're fine and hold your head high, trying to camouflage your pain and the approaching storm. But what do you do when...
