If Only

The secret compartment.

I'm not gonna lie they helped me. I mean I'm eating so thats good. But I'm still not normal and life just gets too much. The day after when I went to school Mr.Brace asked me to stay after school to get caught up. Something was going on. He kept me up to date while I was in inpatient. Thinking of inpatient made me think of outpatient. Tomorrow was my first therapy session.

After math ended I went to my locker and collected my things leaving my razors at school. I walked to Mr. Braces classroom. He gestured for me to sit down at a desk. So I did and then he got right to the point. "Is Megan doing it again? Or the person that you don't know?" I shook my head no. He gave me the teacher look when they know you're lying. I looked down and nodded. He exhaled loudly. "How did you know?" He looked me in the eyes " Because I know you. You were closing in on yourself again. The shine in your eyes started to fade. I wasn't sure until today when I asked you a question in class and got no answer. You zoned out on me. You started to let the outside world blur." He took a breath and started again, "you cut yourself again didn't you?" How the fuck did he know? I shook my head again. And again he gave me the look. I nodded slowly. He sighed. "How'd you know this time ?" I asked exasperated with his attention. "If you look carefully you can see the outline of a bandage on your thigh and well I was looking for it. The second thing is you have a small spot of blood on your uniform pants above your knee which means it leaked through the bandage. And third I saw you pick up your blue make up bag the other day after school. Which if I do recall you said on my porch is where you kept everything." My mouth was hanging open. God damn my idiocy.

It ended with me giving Mr. Brace my razors and leaving school with my head down. I went home and told my mom I had to go to the store. I walked to the grocery store up the street and bought more razors and bandages. I took the razors out of the box and put them in my pockets along with the bandages. Just Incase they checked my bags. They ended up checking them. All that they found was some pencils and notebooks for school.

I decided to hide the razors where no one would find them. And I mean no one. I took a flash light from the kitchen when no one was looking and snuck it into my room. That night when everyone was asleep I took out the flashlight and went under my bed. I lifted up the second floor board from the edge of my bed. Inside we're old poems and short stories that I wrote when I was little. There was also pictures of grandma and I. The last one was taken a week before she died. I had completely forgot about this secret hiding place till aunt Ellen brought up grandma at the hospital. This was where I put everything that reminded me of grandma and that was too painful to look at because of the longing. I put my razors and bandages inside the hole and hid the flashlight in my desk.

The next day after school I went to outpatient. They weighed me and then I went to therapy. I had gained over a pound. I was starting to get really fat. I weighed 121.7 pounds. I went through the therapy session with fake smiles. And fake stories. By the end I was just ready to go home. And I remembered that it was Wednesday and I could see Samantha on Friday. That made me smile for real.

The rest of the week flew by and then it was Friday. I was so excited to see Samantha I could barely sit through school.