Icarus

6

"You know, Dr. Jaeger, older brother Joshua has brought something to my attention, the pest," I muse, pulling my feet up under me.

"What's that?" The sun hovers right about the horizon outside her window. Lethargy seems to drag everything, weighing and slowing time down.

"You only hear the negative of my life. These stories are just the highlights; they're what stand out the most. There were several good moments, too, ones where I felt I was truly a part of their friend group." I swallow and look down at my hands before continuing. "The good thoughts just get devoured by all the bad ones."

"I know," she says wisely, as usual. "The only reason you recognize these are low moments is because you have the high ones to compare them to."

"Wow. Somebody get that on a throw pillow ASAP," I say, trying to lighten some of the tension before I have to drag it all out again.

"It already is. Right there." She points to the couch on the other side of the office. "A patient cross stitched it for me after I suggested she try it as a hobby."

"It complements the aura of sagacity you have going."

"Sagacity? SAT word, much?"

"Just because my social life was hell didn't mean my grades had to be."

"I guess that's as good a pastime as any."

"Makes the parents happy, too."

"You have a story for me today?" And just like that, Jaeger has shifted the mood of the room to one of anxiety again, getting to the point. I have a very big story today. Not the climax, actually, but a very big plot point in the rising action of my high school career.

I clutch my journal for support, tracing the designs pressed into the leather.

↢ ↣

The summer before my junior year, I dropped into a depression. It could have been the diet pills affecting my moods even though Amelia swore they wouldn't. It could've been the lack of food making me sad. For all I know, it could've been the subconscious stress of being friends with them and making sure every step, every breath was perfect. I didn't get out of bed for days at a time, not to go to work at the local fancy restaurant, not to see the friends whose attention I'd previously craved, not even to shower or eat.

Joshua peeked into my room every morning to make sure I was still breathing, but I was always in the same position, staring at the ceiling. The peanut butter and jelly sandwiches he made me sat untouched on the vanity until he dropped the next one off and took it away. I never even thanked him. My parents thought I was hanging out with my friends all the time. They didn't even question the fact that they thought I was never home.

My soccer friends stopped checking on me earlier in the spring, thinking me content with my newfound gang. Amelia couldn't care less if anyone other than herself was breathing, and her minions followed suit. It was in her nature to be self-centered. Even Carter's relentless stream of insincere apology texts stopped.

I laid there, not thinking, not eating, barely drinking. No one was home, so I didn't have to worry about answering questions. Mom and Dad were on a date with some rich family from work. I was fairly certain Josh was binging Netflix at one of his friends' houses. I was alone. One night at the end of June, something in my head decided it had had enough of laying in its own filth. I mechanically got up and walked to the bathroom. I pulled my shirt over my head and threw it to the floor when I caught sight of myself in the mirror.

I braced my arms on the counter with my shirt off. The image I saw wasn't real; it felt like looking at one of those holographic bookmarks where in one perspective it looks one way, but the object shifts when you move the bookmark. In one perspective, I saw myself as I really was: emaciated, hollow. My cheekbones protruded from my face. My hip bones jutted out unflatteringly. In the other, I saw what my brain believed, what Amelia and the others had conditioned me to believe: I was comically large, resembling the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Pounds upon pounds hung off of my body, weighing on my body and sagging. I couldn't lift my arms for how much skin clung to them. I could feel my knees shaking, straining to hold my torso up. My feet sunk into the tile. Everything was quicksand, and my own weight was pulling against me, dragging me down to whatever fate awaited me.