Then he turns and takes the stairs, leaving me there, bleeding metaphorically.
I reel from the effect of his words. Each one of them is like a stab to the throat.
I was wondering what price I’d have to pay this time, and here’s my answer.
It’s worse than being called disgusting. This is like breaking me from the inside out with no chance of healing.
He was once my knight, my anchor, my warm shoulder. Now, he’s the villain coming after my life.
Now, he’s the master of that suffocating fog that’s slowly wrapping its tentacles around my throat and cutting off my air supply.
His back is all I see as he ascends the stairs.
And I know, I just know that he’s saying goodbye for the very last time.
19
Kimberly
The following three days pass in a daze. It’s like they’re happening, but they’re not.
Not really.
I told Elsa I’m down with the flu and skipped today.
Truth is, I’m down with myself.
It’s one of those times where everything is too much. The air, the sounds, the people.
All of it.
I stare at the empty crisp bags surrounding me and wipe the salt from my lips.
Technically, it’s called a food breakdown, where you eat everything and anything in sight. Not my M&M’s and pistachio gelato, though. Those are sacred and I didn’t want to ruin them in this unholy site.
So after I dropped Kir at Henry’s house for a sleepover, I went to the grocery store and got all the crisps and the cola – not diet. Then I went to McDonald’s and ordered the biggest menus of burgers and French fries. I finished the shopping journey by buying more pastries and cake than I could carry. Lots of damn cake. I shoved them all down my throat in no particular order. I just ate and ate and ate until my jaw hurt and my stomach protested, but I didn’t stop.
Even after the puking, I brought my stash with me to the toilet and continued eating and eating and fucking eating as if the food will somehow sew the hole inside me.
It didn’t.
So I drank half a bottle of tequila and had a Xanax pill – or was it two?
I lost count after I vomited everything I ate. The alcohol was definitely after the vomiting, because it sits on an empty stomach like pure, burning acid.
This time, I didn’t have to stick a finger in my throat. It’s as if my body is rejecting food because it’s become a foreign entity.
I lay my head on the closed toilet after I finish emptying my stomach for the second time. My gaze keeps filtering to the glinting metal amongst the mess. There isn’t any energy in me to stand and freshen up anymore. I just want to stay here and…disappear.
That’s it, disappear. How hard would it be?
The ironic part is, it’s not even because of what happened with Xan – or didn’t happen.
I can survive that, his rejection and his complete closing off. What I can’t survive is the hope I had that night, the feeling of finally having a purpose.
For my entire life, I’ve struggled with that, with finding a place and someone I can bare myself to.
Xander gave me that. He saw me, and unlike what I’ve always feared, he didn’t hate what he saw.