Colors (rewritten)

ASHLEY

Perfect. If I had to pick my mother's favourite word it would be perfect. She uses it in all her interviews especially when she's talking about her perfect husband, perfect family and of course, her perfect daughter.

I suppose everything is perfect for her, but only on paper because her daughter has far too many inner demons to be her 'perfect' little angel.

Here I am, Ashley Parker, the daughter of an award winning journalist and respected district attorney, on the floor of the school toilet with my fingers in my mouth as I try to force myself to throw up every last bit of food I unfortunately had to swallow at my mother's dinner party last night.

It's not an easy task but I'm motivated enough to go through with it and besides, I have done this so many times I'm practically a pro.

After I'm done, I get off the floor and start to make my way to the sinks so I can clean myself up.

"Wow, you are more messed up than I thought." Camila Sinclair's voice startles me. I thought I was alone but clearly you can't be too careful in the school bathroom.

"What are you doing in here?" I ask stupidly.

"Definitely not what you were doing." She replies, leaning against the wall. "So how do you feel?"

Her question surprises me. "What?"

She moves closer to me and stops when she's right infront of me. "How do you feel?" She repeats. "I'm assuming that this thing you do is so you can feel better about yourself, so you can feel beautiful and sexy." She takes out her handkerchief and as if she's not acting unusual enough, she raises it to my face and starts to wipe my mouth.

"Camilla....."

"It's why you do it, isn't it? You don't feel pretty when you have food inside of you so you would rather be sick than be ugly."

Her words make me very uncomfortable, mostly because she's being brutally honest and I don't like it. "I should go." I say quietly and start to remove her hand from my face but she violently grabs my chin before I can get away from her.

"You are pathetic and sick in the head. Your little friends won't tell this but I will, you can starve yourself and get pretty and skinny and whatever twisted version of beautiful you have in your little head, but you will always be ugly on the inside cause you are empty and I'm not just talking about your stomach."

I have known that Camila hates me and that she's very cruel but this is just too much, even for her.

"Don't cry," she finally let's go of me. "It's not like I told you something you didn't already know."

I hadn't even realized I was crying. I was too caught up in her malicious words to even feel the tears rolling down my face or the pain her fingers were causing whilest she gripping my chin.

She starts to leave but then stops abruptly. "By the way Mr Zukov said you and I are doing the buddy system together," she actually has the nerve to smile at me. "So see you around, buddy."

Camilla finally leaves me alone, giving the chance process everything she said to me and by process I mean break dot, crying on the toilet floor.

Camila's vicious words along with so many other things that make me so insecure are going on and on in my head. Like the first time I ever played spin the bottle and Derek Hughes refused to kiss me because I wasn't 'hot enough'. And the time Alex Davis, my first boyfriend and first lover, jokingly said I would never be as pretty as Max or as sexy as Tatiana and as smart as Mckayla.

But I didn't think it was funny and I certainly didn't take it as a joke, if anything I took it as a wake up call.

While there is nothing I can do to improve my lack of confidence or intelligence, I can make myself just as stunning as the rest of my friends. So what if I have to cut back some meals, well most of them. It's my body, thus my choice.

I wouldn't expect someone like Camila to understand. She's a natural beautiful, spoiled and entitled bitch. She has no business judging me, no one does because they don't know what it's like being me.

Feeling the need to feel good about myself, I quickly pop a bunch of pills into my mouth. Max wouldn't approve since she's got it in her head that I might be getting addicted, but given the shitty way I'm feeling, I don't give it much thought.

And I'm feeling better already, so good that I have forgotten about Camila and her vile words. I'm now distracted by the different writings on the walls of this particular toilet.

Along with people's names, there are some pretty vulgar words too. How come I have never noticed this before? Oh Max's name is there too, dribbled in a red marker it says, Max Genesis z a slut.

I frown, that's not very nice. Who writes this stuff?

"Ashley?" Am I imagining things or is that Kristen's voice?

"Oh where is she?" Yep, not imagining things. I would recognize Tatiana's thick accent anywhere. "Check all the toilets!"

After knocking on three doors Kristen finally finds me. From the looks of it she's quite taken aback by my appearance. Well, she's new so she probably didn't get the memo that one of us is messed up.

"Hi." I say.

Kristen quickly moves further into the small toilet. "Oh baby, what happened to you?" She asks as she kneels besides me. "Tatiana she's in here!" She shouts.

Tatiana comes quickly. "What the hell Ashley? You missed classes!"

I missed classes? How long have I been in here?

"Hours!" Tatiana snaps. "You have been in here for hours. What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Calm down Tatiana," Kristen intervenes. "I think she's sick."

"She's high!" Tatiana corrects her. "She cut classes so she could get high.Jesucristo, what were you thinking?"

"You are high?" Kristen asks in disbelief.

And I don't know if it's Kristen's disgusted reaction or the fact that Tatiana is shouting at me but I start to cry, breaking down once more.

Kristen surprises me by hugging me. "Hey," she says softly whilest holding me. "It's okay, we all have bad days. Just calm down." She starts to rub my back and for some reason it makes me cry harder.

Tatiana sighs. "What happened?" 

I can tell from the sound of her voice that she's still very upset with me and withholding information will only make it worse.

"Camila Sinclair." I whisper but they both hear me.

They are both quiet for a few seconds but then Tatiana says, "Kristen, stay here with her."

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to kill that bitch." She announces before leaving me in Kristen's arms.

"Okay then," Kristen mumbles to herself. "So it's just you and me huh."

I stay quiet, what's there to say? She's seen what a mess, why on earth would she want to be with me after all this?

"You know, this is the second time I have rescued you in the bathroom." She laughs a little. "We need to stop meeting like this."

Well at least she finds this amusing, I'm dying with embarrassment here.

"I'm sorry for whatever she did to you. I know what it's like to be bullied."

"What?" I finally say, lifting my head so I can look at her. "You were bullied?" The thought of her of being bullied upsets me way more than it should.

"Something like that." She says quietly. "I never had real friends so I was always an easy target."

Of all the things we could have in common, it had to be this? "I'm sorry." My voice cracks.

"It's okay. I have you guys now and I love you."

"Even me?" I don't know where that comes from, I think deep down I just want to know that she doesn't think I'm ugly or pathetic.

I'm rewarded by a sweet smile. "Especially you." She hugs me again. "I don't know what Camila said you but you are amazing and I love you. Always and forever." She adds.

I tightly hold onto her. "Always and forever." I agree with her. She's the best fix, way better than any magic pill.