Calliope

My name is Calliope

My name is Calliope. I am 17 years old and I am a ballet dancer and I do figure skating. I live in Oslo, Norway, but I am from Toronto Canada. I go to a high school for English speakers as I am still struggling with Norwegian. We moved here when I was 11 years old with my parents' best friends, who's son also happens to be my best friend. Matt and I have been going strong since 2001!

I have a lot of things to do usually because of dance, but I'm a good student. Except for Norwegian class... I can't get it right. But luckly I have a best friend in school who's from Michigan, and has the craziest sense of fashion. Her name is Marina. She wants to be a makeup artist and she speaks fluent Norwegian as her mom was born and raised in Stavanger (Norway). I don't understand why she's not studying in a normal high school, but it's better for me as she helps me with my exams and homework. She's the only reason I haven't failed yet.

Besides all of this, I suffer from a serious mental illness... it's hard to even write it down.I'm anorexic.

Okay let's start from the beginning.

My usual daily routine is, waking up at 6am, showering, dressing up and applying makeup, having breakfast and going to school. After school I go straight to practice. Luckly, my ballet studio is in the ice rink, so I only have to go to one place. I get home around 8pm, have dinner, study, and go to bed. It's a pretty simple routine, specially since a few things have been added and taken out. Now I pretty much get ready and go to school without breakfast, which my mom always makes a fuss about, but I just yell the usual "I'm late" and she lets me off the hook. At night, we all have dinner together, so between meal time and studying I just spend a good amount of time in the bathroom. Surprisingly, my parents haven't noticed. I'm not an only child, I have an older sister named Lisa who's already off in college in Sweden, which is good for me as I know she would notice what I'm doing, and I would't be able to argue with her. It's impossible. I miss her sometimes, but another good aspect of her being gone is that my parents have more time for me, as my skating and dancing career need a lot of support and time.

You might think I'm way too aware of my anorexia and bulemia to actually be those, but it wasn't always like that. See, back at the beginning of my sophmore year is when I started acting up, but it as very unconsciously.

----September 5th 2018---

"Are you gonna eat that?" Matt looks at me with sparkles in his eyes. Today, we are at his favorite fast food restaurant celebrating the fact that we are officially sophmores, and we're only 2 years away from graduation. It has been hell moving from one country to another so suddenly, but it has been a wild ride together, and I wouldn't have done it with anyone else.

I give him my fries cause I know he doesn't like them anywhere else, only here. He eats them loudly but happily. Next to me, Marina is struggling with her burger. Today, she's wearing a green striped shirt with a brown vest full of pins, some blue skinny jeans and knee high brown boots. On her beautifully long straight blond hair, she has a brown fedora, and blue and red extensions are falling from it to pretend she actually wants to dye her hair. She says she doesn't, but I could totally see her doing it in a few years. Maybe for graduation. Her makeup is this very wild eyeliner style, and on her cheeks she has drawn hearts with eyeliner and eyeshadow.

Next to Matt, there's Alex. Just like me and Marina, Matt and Alex became instant best friends when moving here, so the 4 of us just starting hanging out together. The only thing is, Alex has a very obvious crush on me. I mean, I'm not ungrateful that someone likes me, it's just weird as we are really good friends. He is kind of tall, not like Matt who's really really tall, but tall enough. He has kind of short but a bit long brown hair, and he doesn't put much effort on his outifts. They are always like how a guy would wear. Nothing special.

Matt, as I said, is very tall, he has short black hair, and likes to dress very casual, just like Alex, but I know for a fact that Matt puts effort on his outfits. It's that kind of "I don't care but I actually do" kind of style. Just like both boys' hair. They're kind of alike in a way, but not really.

I ate my nuggets and drank my ice tea. I don't eat the fries cause they are full of grease, and too much of that disgusts me. I have no problem with nuggets though. This restaurant (which is called "The Lighthouse") is our usual hangout spot. Marina's aunt owns it, so we get free food pretty much all the time. I would ask for a salad, but there isn't any, and since the beginning of time, Marina's aunt has promised me she would make one and name it after me, but nothing ever happened. I try to eat as little fried food as I can, because of my career. Believe it or not, even if I'm 17, I get paid for the figure skating competitions and ballet shows I go to. I also have a pretty big amount of followers on Instagram, as I post many dance videos. Because it's the first day of school, I don't have practice. I actually don't have for the whole first week, which is a relief, as I know this year will be full of everything and I need to get ready for it.

After eating we all head home in Matt's car. Matt and I are next door neighbours but the others live elsewhere. We arrive home around 6pm, I call Lisa, and I go to bed.

I forgot about dinner that night. Nobody, not even me, noticed.