When Holly woke up, she had a massive sense of deja vu.
The ceiling above her was a speckled white, and the harsh fluorescent lighting was casting a halo above her mom's head.
"Hey," she murmured sleepily at her mom's bobbing head.
Her mom sat back into a chair, and Holly sat up. She was in the nurse's office, and the curtain was drawn around her little berth to give them a semblance of privacy. She still knew that whatever she said was probably going to be heard by the school's busybody nurses.
"Holly, I just got a phone call from the nurse that you fainted!" her mom was exclaiming. She looked disheveled and flushed, and Holly glanced at the clock on the far wall. Her mom had probably just dropped Ava off at school not long ago, so that made sense.
"I'm fine," Holly said airily. She tried to laugh, but it just came out sounding false, like some kind of pre-recorded, practiced laugh track. "It's probably because I didn't eat breakfast this morning."
Her mom frowned, gave her a stern look, then sighed. "I keep telling you, sweetie, to wake up earlier! You can't be skipping breakfast - you're as skinny as stick!"
Holly rolled her eyes and huffed. "It was just one time, Mom. Stop making a big deal out of it."
After reassuring her mom that she was fine, her mom finally left, and Holly lay back down. She didn't really want to go back to class and hear what other people were saying.
Seriously, you couldn't faint elsewhere? her inner voice taunted her nastily.
Holly sighed.
She'd gotten scary good at pretending these last few months, sometimes she even convinced herself that everything was normal.
But after her mom had discovered that Holly wasn't taking her pills, she realized that she couldn't keep going the way she was. The way she had been acting was slowly isolating her from her friends and family, and she could tell that everyone was getting worried.
She didn't want to be the reason they were worried.
She didn't want to be a burden.
Because she knew that it wasn't that her family and her friends didn't care. It was that caring grew tiring for a person who didn't seem to be getting better.
So Holly had slowly gathered the resolve to shove everything underneath the surface.
It had been surprisingly easy. She couldn't exactly will everything back to normal, but when she acted normal, she could pretend everything was normal.
It had gotten even easier after Sadie had left. It was like some kind of invisible weight had been lifted off her. Holly felt awful at first for feeling relief. But she couldn't deny the silent, and steady pressure she'd felt every time she spoke to Sadie, every time Sadie came and sat down for dinner. Like somehow Holly was responsible for what had happened and what would happen regarding Rohan.
After half an hour later, Holly swung her legs over the side of the futon. She felt a light-headed, which would definitely make Calculus fifth period a lot of fun. But she was determined not to let this happen a second time.
She'd just have to be more careful.
---
It wasn't like Holly was really starving herself.
At least, that's what she told herself later that night, when she was having some quality face time with the toilet.
It became a sort of routine action now for her, like brushing her teeth or taking off her makeup. Holly still made sure she ate, but sometimes...sometimes she quite seem to hold everything down.
Throwing it up made her feel better.
And when she looked at her own body in the mirror afterwards, she felt a dark sense of triumph. She was destroying the body that Rohan had violated. In that sense, she was destroying her weaker herself, that had been so easily swayed, so easily tricked and hurt.
Holly turned off the running water in the tub, but only after she'd flushed the toilet. She filled her toes in and sank gently into the warm water, watching the water ripple out around her.
The marks left from Rohan had long since faded, though there were spots where her skin had turned discolored or dry and damaged and never seemed to quite heal. Except for those, it was like nothing had ever happened to Holly.
The court case was proceeding as well, though it was mostly handled by lawyers.
She hadn't seen Rohan for months, except in her nightmares.
So why...why did Holly still feel so unsettled?
This was as neat of a wrap-up for the situation as anyone could hope for.
Toweling herself dry, Holly was digging through her dressers for her favorite flannel pajamas when she found the teal bikini Zara had bought for her, crumpled up in the back of the drawer, hidden behind some bras and socks with their pairs.
Hit by a sudden wave of emotion, Holly pulled it out and decided to try it on. The fabric felt cool on Holly's skin as she slipped it over her thighs. She turned around in the mirror, making silly poses, pretending she were some kind of magazine model. It was fun for a while, but she couldn't ignore that the bikini felt a bit...loose.
But that was good thing, wasn't it?
Holly smiled, but in the mirror, it looked more like a grimace.
She was skinnier now. She definitely was. But why wasn't she happy? Or rather, why wasn't she feeling anything at all? It all seemed kind of disappointing now, in retrospect.
She quickly changed out of the bikini and into an old t-shirt and shorts.
It was 11pm on a school night, and Holly knew her parents weren't going to let her go anywhere. So for the first time in her life, she snuck out. It wasn't as hard as she though it might be. Her parents were already in their room, probably preparing for bed. She slipped through the back door, thankful it was a sliding one.
She stepped into a ratty pair of tennis shoes from sixth grade that still fit her and without even thinking about it, started running towards the beach. She probably hadn't been there for months now. It wasn't as if she'd frequented it often, even before (that was how she'd started referring to her life now, in befores and afters) but as a Californian, it was hard to avoid the sea. Now, Holly felt like she hadn't seen it in forever. It wasn't as if she'd made a conscious decision to not go to the beach. But she didn't exactly go out of her way to see it either.
The air moved briskly around her as she jogged, as if it was busy and had places to be. But unlike the last time, where it felt like it was moving past her, leaving her behind, tonight, it seemed to move with her. As she got closer to the beach, the familiar smell of salt stung her nose. Finally, she passed from that last, cracked piece of sidewalk to the gritty-not-gravel-not-sand to the shell-infested, glass-littered land to the stretch of shore where the sea kissed the sand.
Holly kicked off her shoes and sat in the sand, her hands sinking into the ground behind her. She felt the sand slip between her toes, and snuggle into the crevices. To think she'd been on this very beach months earlier, and to think this serene place witnessed the beginnings of her struggle.
It was a different piece of shore from where Tiki Torches was — she wasn't that brave or ready yet. But it was still a well-populated, well-lit stretch of beach, right off the pier. She could see tourists strolling along the pier, and the tinkle of laughter and wine glasses wasn't far off. For some people, happy hour lasted well into the night.
The water gently rolled up to the shore, and Holly scooted until she was sitting in it. She laid down, letting the water wash over her feet, then her ankles, then her knees, all the way up to the her waist. Then it retreated back into the immense ocean.
She wondered if she'd let herself get too carried away. It wasn't as if she was really hurting herself though. She didn't skip any meals or anything. They just...didn't all come out the right way, was all.
And her jeans no longer felt tight around the stomach or thigh area anymore. That was a relief.
But today was the first time she had fainted.
In a way, it kind of scared her. She wanted to be okay. She wanted to be better. But she didn't know what she wanted to get better from.
Hello, hello!
What did you think of this chapter? What do you think Holly should do next? And, if you had a friend in Holly's situation, what would you do?
I did something a little different here by combining two chapters together, but I'm hoping the flow wasn't too awkward. But I felt that while one chapter could stand alone, it would be better for us to see two chapters so we could see a little more of what Holly is thinking.
I'm also starting to feel like TBS is wrapping up soon. LOL, I'm a bit of a pantser when it comes to writing, so I only know a little more than what you guys know. But I just have this sense that things are coming to a close, so hang on tight, y'all!
P.S - did you guys notice the new cover? It's not the most favorite thing I've ever made, but I like the feeling/mood it gives TBS!