Skinny Boy ✔

Chapter 58: avoiding the trap called "isolation"

"Does anyone wanna share about their struggles, experiences, or anything they wanna get off their chest that happened since our last meeting?" Mandy always said something along the lines of this every time we came to a close with our "lesson." Every time, without fail, someone said something. It didn't help that we'd all been given journals after our first lessons that we were allowed to either keep at the center and use only for note-taking, or take home and use for personal reasons as well. So, as you could imagine, there was little-to-nothing that was forgotten and couldn't be brought back to memory. That gave plenty of opportunity for the chatty girls in the group to refresh and keep talking. 

Seriously. Do they ever run out of stuff to talk about? 

Up to that point, I'd never taken my journal home. I didn't see the point in it, after all. I didn't take notes, either; not unless Mandy was looking at me, anyway. 

But for some reason, the chaos and newness of all the things that happened in the past week had me on edge. I was a can of beans ready to be spilled after tipping off the edge, and this was my chance to talk to someone without them breathing their worry down my neck. 

So I raised my hand. 

"Nathan," Mandy smiled. "What's this week been like for you?" 

Louis looked at me with attentive eyes. 

Suddenly, I wasn't sure what it was I wanted to say in the first place. "It's been..." I thought for a moment, trying to find a way to summarize all the events over the past seven days. "It's been crazy." I nodded and reemphasized, "Yeah, it's been crazy." 

"How so?" Mandy asked. 

"Well," I trailed off. Where am I supposed to start? "I have this friend, Garret. We're really close. Were really close; like brothers." I dared to looked up from my fidgeting hands, and caught sight of most of the room listening, looking, nodding along with what I said, like they knew exactly what I was talking about. 

I took a breath to steady my emotions, then continued. "I also had a friend, Henry, she was like a sister to me. But then I started going off the rails a little bit. And they tried to help me; they knew something was wrong with me before I did. But instead of taking their help, I pushed them away, and I hurt Garret. Like really hurt him." I laughed in disbelief of myself. "I punched him in the face because he wouldn't leave me alone." I shook my head, mentally scolding myself for my own stupidity. Louis looked frozen in a state of shock. "That was a few months ago. Well, recently, I decided to reconcile, and went and saw him. He accepted me with open arms. That's Garret for you," I let out a breath of a laugh, thinking of the almost unrealistic generosity of my friend. 

"Did you give him some insight about what was going on with, you know, what you're struggling with?" asked a girl named Autumn. She was the oldest of the group, and just so happened to be one of the most mature. She always asked questions, hoping to spark more conversation. I had no trouble allowing myself to fall into this trap. 

"Yeah, I kind of explained the dysmorphia, and what that was like," I scratched at the back of my hand. "He understood, and forgave me, actually."

"Well that's good," another girl piped up.

"Yeah," I replied.

Autumn narrowed her gaze. "You don't sound so enthusiastic."

I sighed, "I just keep feeling like I don't deserve his forgiveness. Like, I've been nothing but mean to him, and he just forgets everything I did!" 

A few of the girls nodded along like they knew exactly what I was talking about. 

"Nobody else thinks you don't deserve forgiveness, Nathan," Autumn said. "I think you're just being hard on yourself."