TW: slight mention of eating disorder
Do you ever get that gut feeling inside of you when you stare at yourself for too long in the mirror and begin questioning why you look like this and not like some superstar model?
I guess you could say I felt like that.
Wait. Scratch that.
I definitely felt like that.
I was 16 when the dreadful time of my life came to a start. I was not your average looking teenager, no. In fact, I was quite rather overweight and wore thick glasses definitely too big for my face and the absolute bane of my existence; the braces.
They made me look ten times worse than I already did. I blame my dad for giving me his crooked teeth.
It was the beginning of the school year and the same four girls would just endlessly pick on me as if I was nothing but a toy for them to play with any chance they got.
High school life really sucked.
Anyway, my disorder started as soon as their vile words hit me right in the chest and I came to the sudden realisation 'I really am not good enough, am I?'
Their words felt like huge boulders, travelling down from a tall cliff, damaging the ground on its way down as it finally collapses completely when it hits the flat earth at the end leaving a large dent or 'wound' in this case.
It was like this everyday. I would usually skip breakfast, perhaps having water on the way out but nothing more. Then have an extremely small portion of salad that they would serve at the canteens and not eat when I got home. I remember telling my mother I would take my plate upstairs but instead, ended up throwing away the whole thing.
Look, I know what you're going to say. Nailea why did you throw away your food? It's all wasted!!
Obviously at that time my mind didn't exactly care for the food, I was only focused on trying to lose weight.
But I'm not like that now.
I'm not exactly back to normal but I do eat a lot more than when everything started so I think that's improvement.
I'm not the same kid I was 4 years ago.
I stare at myself in the mirror and take a deep breath as I take myself in.
My figure isn't as bad now, you can just ever so slightly see my ribs but I know I will get fitter. My collarbone is also still quite hollow and my arms are very thin.
My boobs are barely there, just hardly at a B cup. Although, I have been blessed with a nicely shaped arse.
I'm also not short which is a plus for me. I stand tall at around 5'7, with long wavy almost dirty blonde hair and brown eyes.
Just as I tugged my shirt down to fit, I heard a soft knock on my bedroom door.
"Come in!" I say, and the door opened revealing my beautiful mother.
She's a little shorter than me, probably 5'5 and her grey hairs are starting to show. But she never admits it and ends up dying it back to brown.
I got my blonde hair from my dad, I never like him at all. He was my main reason that I even stopped eating in the first place. Always telling me to stop eating because I'm 'growing too fast in the stomach area'.
I was closest with my uncle, who died fighting for his country. Just before he passed away, he gave me this silver heart necklace which had a few words engraved around the edges saying 'para siempre'. Now, I wasn't exactly fluent in Spanish but my uncle and my mother were raised in Mexico so I'm technically half Latina. It means 'forever'.
He died when I was 12, used to work in the armed forces and one day they just came to tell us he's no longer alive.
But it's okay, I use dark humour to lighten the mood. Very good coping mechanism if you ask me.
My mum smiles as she looks at me. "Just came up to tell you your dinner's downstairs, poppet. I'll be in my room if you need anything."
She closes the door and makes her way back to her room, my heart breaks for her. The woman can barely stand and yet still manages to make our dinner. I have helped multiple times but my mum says she likes being active and cooking distracts her.
I sigh as I pick up my hoodie off the floor and slide it on over my tank top paired with leggings and walk out of my room to go downstairs.
I see a certain brunette's hair flowing down the edge of my couch like a river in the living room on her phone. As soon as she hears me coming, her head turns towards me and she grins really creepily.
Uh oh.
She jumps off the couch so quickly as it burned her, then charges towards me and jumps to cling on me like a fucking koala and topples is both over on the floor.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Rayne Rivers. Who unfortunately is my best friend.
"Fuck. You're such an idiot." I groaned then push her off of me as we both stand up. "Are you gonna tell me why the hell you just attacked me?" I ask.
"I don't know I guess I just missed you babes." She shrugs and walks back round to the couch and sits on it motioning for me to come too literally acting as if she didn't just almost kill me.
This bitch is so dramatic. We saw each other twenty minutes ago.
I roll my eyes and grab my food and we eat while watching our favourite tv show: brooklyn nine nine. Jake peralta owns my heart.
************
I'm currently sitting at a cafe with Ray, debating on what I should order. Everything looks like it's worth thousands of calories.
Rayne looks around bored out of her mind because she, literally just a few days ago, broke up with her boyfriend of 2 months and already wants a rebound. I mean, totally not judging her. She's the only girl on this earth I have ever been able to tolerate. Go girlboss.
I was just about to get up to go order for the two of us when I feel a tense hand wrap around my wrist preventing me to do so.
I look at her my eyebrows furrowed in confusion as I stare at her. "What's wrong? I need to go get our coffees and cookie otherwise we'll be late to school."
She has a pointed look on her face, and she turns to me looking all worried. "Don't make it obvious, or he'll know we're staring. But guess who the fuck just walked in with a girl on his arm."
I squint my eyes and scan the room until I see who she's talking about.
I sigh, "Ray I thought you were over him. We talked about this. You need to get laid or you'll be pining over him for the rest of your life and he'll already be moving on." I rub her arm to reassure her she'll be okay.
"Sort of like he's moved on already you mean?" She gives a sour look towards the couple, who are practically chewing each other's faces off in a booth in the corner of the cafe.
I scrunch my face up in disgust. "Look, let me go order and you wait here until I'm back. Don't do anything stupid." I turn to walk away and hear a small mutter something along this lines of 'I'm gonna kill that asshole'.
I place my order at the front and pay by card then wait on the side for the coffee to be made.
I really want some ice cream right now. I just got a sudden craving for cookie dough.
Me and Rayne should go to get-
"AHHH! YOU PSYCHO BITCH!"
My head turns towards wherever the sound was coming from and I see Rayne standing in front of their booth and pulling the ginger girl by her hair, letting her collapse onto the floor.
Everyone in the cafe stares and come closer to see what the commotion is about. Some even taking out phones to record.
Oh for fucks sake, Rayne.
I grab the bag and speed walk towards her and quickly say sorry to the girl before dragging Rayne by her arm outside the shop.
"I fucking told you to stay put! You're an actual child Ray." I shook my head at her.
"I'm sorry! Just seeing that asshole again made me wanna punch him so bad." She says, and crosses her arms.
I sigh and wrap my free arm around her. "Well next time, tell me so we can do it together."
She grins and we both laugh then walk to campus.
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AUTHOR NOTE
Hello! First chapter is finally up, woohoo!
I just wanna say if you're this far in the book I'm really grateful so thank you for giving this a chance :)
Next chapter will be in a few days, this was mainly just an introductory chapter for you to get to know the main lead properly and her best friend.
Any thoughts? How do you find Rayne?
Until then,
Rue x