Egos and Sides (In highschool) --Discontinued--

Chapter 25: Better... Worse?

"How are you feeling?" Mike stared at me across the table, aggressively stabbing a fork into his eggs.

"I'm...good." I kept my gaze from his.

He sighed. "Are you sure?"

To get him off my back, I took an obnoxiously loud slurp of my choccy milk. I followed it up with a big bite of my apple, then a huge mouthful of eggs. "There! I'm eating, happy?" I garbled through a mouthful of food.

He gave a small smile. "I'll get off your back, you've been doing really good."

He's right. After that whole ordeal with my eating habits, Mike has been spending more time trying to get me to eat right and take better care of myself. Limiting my exercise time, getting a balanced diet...etc, etc.

It'd been easy so far. Besides one thing, the intrusive thoughts. They came on suddenly and stayed like an unreachable itch. Puke it all up, they said. Starve, they whispered. You'll never be pretty if you keep eating like that. They'll never want you around. It made me want to ball up to cry, to go back to my old ways.

Luckily, the further I went down the right path, the less the thoughts occurred. I could tell Bing and the others were proud of me. So was Mike. I was proud of myself as well.

If I stayed strong, I could get past this completely. If... If everything went smoothly. I was aware of my sensitive ego and will power would be cracked if I heard one negative thing about my body.

 I was walking on a tightrope, and so far I was lucky enough to stay on it. All I had to do was get across.

"How are you gettin' to school today?" Was he my brother or my father? Guess I'll never know.

I rolled my eyes. "Remy's coming to get me today."

"If he wasn't gay, I'd think you two were dating."

"SHUT. THE-FUCK-UP." I checked my phone. It was almost time to go. I wolfed down the rest of my meal.

After hastily stacking my plate in the sink. I slung my backpack on and rushed out.

Less then ten minutes later, I was in the car, staring over at Remy.

For once, in weeks, he wasn't wearing the shades I figured became a part of him.

Without the sunglasses, you could tell the poor boy was sleep deprived. But you could also

"Remy... sweety, are you okay?" I reminded myself of my slightly over-bearing brother.

"Yeah. I- I'm fine. I got to get a couple of hours of sleep last night."

Hours? I bit my cheek to keep myself from lecturing him.

"How are you, sis?"

"I'm... better..."

"Hmm."

"Hmm."

We rode on in silence.

Once we got to school, I kept to myself. Staying far from people made me feel a little bit better, like the tightrope I was walking on was short, and the coil was a bit thicker.

That is, until, I clashed head-on with one Mary Ham.

"Oh, sorry Mary," I said, glancing up to see if I inflicted any damage.

No damage, but a sneer. "Watch. Where. You're going!"

I met her gaze. "Yeah. Okay." The undertone of sarcasm should have been barely detectable.