Evergreen Everleigh - The Wattys 2020

Chapter Twenty-One - The Changing Point

**Trigger warning:**

There are references to self-harm and scenes of self-harm in this chapter. If this is something that you may find challenging, which I would entirely understand, I recommend you skip this chapter for your own well-being.

Chapter Twenty-One

The Changing Point 

My feet are blue from the night-time chill and my veins are obvious against the white tiles and my pale skins. Even my toenails have a slightly navy hue to them with only the shaving mirror string-light shining on the floor. Yet this is not what is causing my stomach to squeeze into knots. Instead, I am imagining the dough-like fat that is squeezing out between my toes. 

As my eyes travel up, I imagine that my calves look thicker somehow, the skin dimpled. 

Tears begin to slip down my face and I sit at the edge of the bath and place my face in my hands. Through the gaps in my fingers, I see the dress that I arrived at Freesia Fields in curled around my feet. When I had tried it on earlier that morning, it had clung to my thighs embarrassingly, the very seams bursting. 

I had been putting off acknowledging this hurt until this moment. I had gone about my day, swallowing back the disgust I felt as I forced myself to laugh at Yarrow's jokes and listening tentatively to Perennial read a book aloud at dinner. But I was just stalling the inevitable. 

This is a familiar pain, one I have felt before - many times. With every slight fluctuation.

I snatch up the dress and underneath, I find my book of Jayne Ellis' poetry. Moving without thinking, I pull out the jagged piece of wood I had tucked away there for safekeeping. 

Sitting with my back to the door, I pause to consider my skin. My arms are too obvious, far too obvious. I pull my t-shirt over my head and look down at my chest, seeing that the stark outline of my chest bones seems less clear. Running my fingers over my ribs as though they were piano keys, I look past my chest and to my stomach, to the rolls there that have begun to form. It seems right, to do this there somehow, over older, slowly healing scars.

I cut only two small lines, forcing myself to stop there, afraid that I will keep going and do as I did in my small ensuite bathroom at home. I press my fingers to the cuts. They are uneven, rough around the edges and painful. The wood made them too wide and the blood easily slips out between my fingers staining my underwear, so I press hard. 

I take a toilet roll and hold wades of paper to the cuts, holding my head back against the door and closing my eyes, I feel at peace - true peace - for the first time all day. I can award myself these five minutes and nothing more. No more indulgences. After this, I have to go back to life here at Freesia Fields as though it was not interrupted and my world was not shaking on its' very axis. 

I wish that I had my regular metal tin box that I kept in my bathroom at home. In it, like a safety blanket, I kept a supply of bandages, disinfectant, and cotton pads. Now, I stand and make do with tucking the sliver of wood back into the book cover and holding the paper to my stomach until the bleeding lessons. I tuck some spare paper in my pocket and pick up the dress, prepared to burn it at the next available opportunity, before getting dressed. 

As I pass the kitchen, I see a small light out on the landing of the fire escape. For a moment, I half expect to see Willow, but instead, leaning against the railing, holding a small torch, is Aloe. I pause for only a moment before I begin to walk faster, but instead she sees me, as though we are magnetically connected through my slap against her cheek, her green eyes meet my blue ones, as bright as a cat's. 

For a moment, we are at an impasse, but then she surprises me opens the door of the fire escape inviting me outside to her. It crosses my mind that she could be inviting me out there only the push me over the edge, but I suppress the thought as I join her on the landing. She is holding a cup of tea, swirling it with a silver teaspoon. 

"What are you doing up?" I ask, glancing down at my shirt to check for bloodstains. Her back is facing me, and in this light, her dark green paisley pajamas and her midnight black hair gives her an unearthly appearance and I wonder for a moment if she isn't just another of my hallucinations. No, it can't be, Aloe is alive. And we haven't spoken since she read my journal.

"Can't sleep," She says curtly and I turn to leave, knowing when I am unwanted and not intending to suffer any more of her attitudes. 

"Goodnight," I all but hiss, but before I can cross the threshold to the kitchen I feel a small wet plink on my toe. I can feel Aloe's gaze following the red droplets. 

I will not show my shame, so I pull out a tissue from my pocket and rub the blood from my stomach, lifting my shirt slightly. I stare back at her baldly, inviting her to insult me. 

"Are you going to hit me for seeing that too?" She asks, her tone cool at the nighttime air, leaning back against the railing with an eyebrow cocked. 

I can just about see a small smile curving her lip and at the memory of my palm against her cheek. I want to smile too. Very rarely had anything in my life ever felt that good.

"No, this was my fault. I let my guard down," I pause, thinking carefully about my next words. "I'm sorry for hitting you. A little sorry, anyway." 

Aloe's smile is definite now, and I think that I can feel a shift in the air between us. We will never be friends, or never even like each other, but for now, this is enough. A quiet, nighttime truce. 

"Goodnight," She says and turns around. Yet, before I move I watch her for a moment. I walk away, just as she takes her right hand and scratches the side of her stomach. When she raises her shirt, I see thin, white scar lines like a ladder on her skin.  Old, obviously. Maybe from years ago when she was little more than a child.

*

That night, in bed, I can't sleep, thinking of Aloe and the darkness that seems to follow her, even in her most fragile moments with Juniper. When Aloe eventually creeps into the room and past my bed, I can tell from her breathing that she is not asleep either. That night, we are both awake and both made similar by our choice of pain that we choose which we inflict upon ourselves. 

The next day dawns brightly. The light that floods the kitchen at breakfast looks as though it is filtered through water, like looking up from under a river. When I take my seat next to Perennial this morning, I watch the hands that flood to the centre of the table snatching slices of toast, scoops of beans, or boiled eggs from the heating basket. 

Everyone is chatting and chewing. Wister is reading a book which is propped against the orange juice jug, Teasel is spelling his name in beans and Willow is pouring tea for her and Aloe whilst cooing animatedly to Violet who is playing with a fork in the high chair next to Sweet Pea and Lady Lavender. 

I drop one hand from the table and touch my freshly made cuts through my shirt. They sting at this pressure and I close my eyes and try to remind myself of why I am here and I stand to gain.

Aloe may be only thirteen-years-old, but she may well become me in four years. But in four years' time, I don't intend to be here. I can't still be here. 

The sunlight hits me through the kitchen windows, burning my eyelids red and I open my eyes, taking in the eclectic group of people around me, most of which have been here for years and may well be for years to come. 

Opening my eyes, I try to avoid Perennial's widening eyes as I take two boiled eggs from the basket and set about cracking them open. I have always hated eggs, and so the meal feels like a punishment but fills my stomach. 

This sensation of 'full' follows me throughout the morning, but I hold onto the memory of every bite. 

Every moment I am uncomfortable and deeply unhappy. Yet whilst I feel as though I am punishing myself, I know in some forgotten part of my mind, that instead, I am trying to survive when all of my other methods have not worked. 

When I finish the first egg I look up and meet Lady Lavender's gaze. She gives me a small nod, which conveys more pride than I have ever felt from my own mother. 

For a small moment, I sit with the realisation that one nod felt better than all of the cuts on my arms and stomach combined.