Mean Girls Missing

22

TRIGGER WARNING: THIS CHAPTER FEATURES SELF-HARM AND SUICIDAL TENDENCIES!!! READ AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION!!!

June 2

12:32 am

Stephanie

I used the last of the toothpaste scrubbing the inside of my mouth. I brushed my teeth three times before I could exhale through my mouth without feeling the vomit rise with it. On top of that, I showered twice for at least an hour each time, and spent the entirety scraping skin off my body with soap. The loofah was wet with blood by the time I deemed myself clean.

I just couldn't clean the feel of Arnie's fingers against my body. It stuck against me like Velcro.

Sammi tried to make me feel better. She went into the kitchen and made chocolate chip peanut butter cookies from scratch because they were my favorite. I couldn't make myself eat. She put Mac Miller in the CD player because I usually get off my feet and dance. My feet wouldn't budge.

She finished putting her hair in a bun. "Steph, I'm sorry. I wish I could make it better."

"Yeah, me too." I replied earnestly.

She sighed. "Look, I'm ready to turn in. You going to be okay?"

Not really. "Yeah."

"Okay," Sammi smiled at me. "It won't be like this forever, Steph. It gets better."

When? When was this going to get better? Last time I checked, we had been stuck down here for nearly three months and I was starting to lose hope. At this point, was anyone even looking for us?

They already forgot about us. Here one minute, gone the next. We weren't important anymore.

That was a hard pill to swallow. How did I go from being the most popular to a nobody? I felt the same way now that I did when I was living with my parents, which was the main reason I hopped on the college bandwagon with Sammi just so I could escape them. I didn't know what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Hell, I didn't know what I wanted to do with my day. It was an opportunity to leave so I took it. Sue me.

Sammi fell asleep fast. Within thirty minutes I heard her soft snores in the space of silence. I flopped from back to belly and couldn't fit comfort in my bed. I dragged myself off the squeaky mattress. Taking the CD player in one hand, I fumbled in the darkness to collect the albums all over the ground. I didn't know which was which but I could decide once I was in the living room with a lamp.

"What should I listen to?" I wondered aloud as I sorted through the different CDs.

Mac Miller was always a good choice, but since Sammi already tried that route and it didn't work, I set him to the side. Country music would only make me feel worse so that was out. I narrowed it down to two but decided to go with the less-Stephanie approach to change things up.

I set the disc in the player and pressed play. Soft music drowned out my noiseless world. I closed my eyes and let it take me away.

I know what you think in the morning when the sun shines on the ground and shows what you have done.

It shows where your mind has gone and you swear to your parents that it will never happen again.

I mumbled the lyrics to myself after they had evaporated in the air. I wasn't ready for them to be said and disappear just as quickly. I wanted them to linger around me. They were my form of comfort.

"It will never happen again," I repeated. "It will never happen again."

Freshman year was the worst.