Skinny Love

Because of you

I'm so happy to be leaving that group. My mom is outside waiting for me in the car. I walk outside and she climbs out of the car. "Oh my god Brendon what happened to your eye?" I watch Dallon get into his car. "Was it those two boys again?" My mom asks. Dallon looks over at me before getting into his car. I wish she'd just let it go. So what. I get beat up at school. I'm fine. I mean I'm not really fine but I don't want to talk about it. "It's okay mom. They got in trouble," I lie. They never get in trouble. They are football players so you know what that means. They get away with everything.

I hop into the passenger seat of the car. I toss my backpack into the back seat. My mom gets back into the car. "Do you have any homework?" My mom asks. Why does she always have to question me about my homework? I'm almost eighteen and she treats me like a little kid. I do my homework just fine without her having to ask if I have any. "Yeah!" I say annoyed at her. "Hey don't get an attitude with me," she says. "I'm sorry."

The rest of the car ride is silent. I put on my headphones and look out the window wishing that I could leave this stupid town. I wish I could move out and never have to deal with my mom again or my counselor or out patient therapy. I don't need people telling me how to live my life.

We finally get home. I unbuckle my seatbelt and grab my backpack out of the back seat. I get out of the car and rush inside the house. "Brendon what are you doing?" My mom calls after me. "I'm going to my room to do my homework!" She always thinks I'm doing something bad up there. She's afraid I'm gonna go to the bathroom and purge. Too late for that. I already did that at school this morning. I close the door once I'm in my room. I go over to the dresser mirror and take off my sweatshirt and t-shirt. I pinch my stomach fat. Gross. I suck in my stomach and see my ribs poking out. Beautiful. I turn around and look at the mirror at my bony spine. I smile. My body's not perfect. My thighs still touch. My hands are fat. I have a ton of stomach fat but I'm getting closer to my perfect body again.

I put my t-shirt back on and walk over to my bed. I grab my binder out of my backpack and start doing homework. I have math and English homework. And let me just say that I suck at anything school related. I don't even know why I try. Oh that's right so I can graduate and move out instead of having to repeat a year. English is pretty simple. I just type the question into google to get my answer. No wonder I'm failing. And for math I just use the calculator on my phone to solve all the answers. I don't get why we have to memorize this stuff. In the real world we could just pull out our phone and calculate whatever needs to be calculated.

Right as I finish my homework my mom calls me downstairs for dinner. I shove my stuff back into my backpack, put my sweatshirt back on, and head downstairs.
"What's for dinner?" I ask. "I made us some spaghetti with garlic toast and a side salad," my mom answers. "I think I'm just gonna have a salad."

I grab a bowl of salad. I pick out the croutons and start eating. "You're not gonna use any salad dressing?" My mom asks. "Nah. I kinda get sick of ranch after a while." She shrugs her shoulders and continues eating her spaghetti. I finish up my salad. I get up to wash my bowl when my mom says, "I also made some brownies. You should have one. You didn't have much to eat." "No. I'm kinda full," I make up an excuse. "Come on just one brownie?" She asks. "For god sakes mom I'm recovering from an eating disorder! I'm not gonna eat a brownie and make myself fat again!" I yell. "Brendon sweetie you're not fat." Liar. She's my mother. She's supposed to say that to make me happy. But Ryan and Jon, they tell me the truth.

You see it's not they're job to keep me happy. They're jocks. They point out my flaws. And they bully me because of them. They are the inspiration for me to lose weight. My mom on the other hand wants me to get fat. "You're right. I'm sorry. It's just that I need to take it slowly," I tell her and that's true. You can't expect me to be cured after being in the hospital. You can hope I learned my lesson and am trying to get better but I'll never be cured. "It's fine. I understand. Just know that I'm doing this because I care."

Sure she cares. They all say they care but they don't. "Don't forget to take your meds," my mom reminds me. Oh yeah can't forget that. Because the pills really help. That was sarcasm if you couldn't tell. If it was up to me I wouldn't take any pills. I did perfectly fine without them. The pills just make me seem like a crazy person. I'm not crazy. And that's why I don't take the pills. Also they make you gain weight. I'll admit I got really sick when I got out of the hospital. Going from being on that much pills to taking none. Hopefully I won't have to do that again.

I go into the bathroom, open the medicine cabinet, and grab my sleeping pills. I toss the pills in the toilet and flush it. I walk out of the bathroom and run into my mom. I almost have a heart attack. I hope to god she didn't hear me flush the pills. "Going to bed now?" She asks. I nod my head. "Okay goodnight sweetie." "Night mom." I rush into my room. Oh my god that was close. I turn off my bedroom light and blindly find my way to my bed. I grab my phone off my bed, plug it into my charger, and make sure that my alarm clock is set for 5:00 am.

...

My alarm clock goes off, waking me up. I lazily roll over and turn it off. I get off my bed and stumble my way over to the light switch. I turn on the light and quickly shield my eyes from the bright light. I hate waking up early. Actually I hate waking up in general. I walk over to my dresser. I open the top drawer which has t-shirts in it. I pull out a blink-182 shirt and put it on. Then I grab the black pants that I wore yesterday off the floor and put those back on. I go to my closet and grab my Decaydance sweatshirt. It's about 3 sizes too big for me but the baggier the clothes the heavier I look. I put that on then go to the bathroom and get ready.

Once I'm done in the bathroom I go down stairs. Mom made biscuits and gravy. I don't worry about how much I eat at breakfast because I know I'm gonna purge when I get to school. I sit at the table. Mom makes sure I have everything I need. Just casual conversation as she makes sure I eat. Half a biscuit with gravy on it should satisfy her. I mean do you know how many calories are in this?

After I finish eating, I grab my backpack, and walk to school. I live about five minutes, walking distance, away from school. It's a pretty boring walk. I text my friend Tyler and tell him I'll be at school in about a half an hour. That gives me time to do what I need to do before he starts looking for me.

I get to the school entrance and open the door. Now hell starts. I walk past the front office, down the art hallway, and across from the alternative school. That is where the bathroom that no one uses is. I go in, enter the last stall, lock the door, then walk over to the toilet. I get down on my knees and breathe in the disgusting bathroom air. I bend over the toilet, stick my fingers down my throat, then quickly remove them as I throw up my breakfast into the toilet.

I exit the stall and go to the sink. I take off my backpack and pull out my toothbrush and toothpaste. I brush my teeth before heading back into society. I can't have my breath smelling like barf all day. I then exit the bathroom and make my way to my locker. I reach my locker and put in the combination. My locker door opens. I unzip my backpack to put my stuff away when thing one and thing two walk by.

They push me against my locker making me drop my backpack and all of its contents all over the floor. I lean down and try to pick up my stuff. Ryan kicks me and I fall to the floor. "Come on Ana fight back." Jon taunts me. "Yeah Ana fight me!" Ryan shouts as he kicks me again making me lose my breath. They call me Ana because it's short for anorexia. They think they're so mean by calling me that. It just makes me feel validated. They think I'm skinny. They think I look anorexic. Jon grabs me by the neck and picks me up calling me a faggot. Ryan spits in my face. Jon then then punches me in the stomach.

I double over in pain. "Fat pig!" Ryan hisses. They both walk away because a teacher is coming. I cry on the floor in pain. I look around at all my stuff on the floor when my tear filled eyes land on a crumpled up napkin. Written on it is someone's number saying "text me -Dallon"