She ran to drown out all the sorrows. The slap of her feet hitting the ground, the wind rushing past her in dim roar, her hair streaming behind her because as usual she forgot to put it up, it was all so comforting to her. Her legs were burning ever so slightly, a dim feeling that barely registered in her mind. Her breathing started out in an irregular beat, but soon fell into the rhythm of the heat, a rhythm as familiar as the bile forcing it’s way up her throat. She swallowed, the tingly sensation of being burned by acid leaving it’s mark. Her hands were still tense, but after a few minutes they relaxed, the same way all her grief managed to disappear. If only she could do the same…
“120,” She said proudly, after glancing at the scale. It was almost borderline-scary how obsessed she was getting with the numbers. All day, everyday. “1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ,6...64,” A comforting beat, always at the same tempo. A steady stride, a confident attitude, all that was required when she was lost in her world of music and motion. The world could blur away into nothingness when she really tried, when the rhythm carried her heart and soul away. And then the numbers on a scale, slowly going down in the same tempo, the same uneasing speed, were further proof of the power of numbers. She was proud of the numbers. The way they kept her world in line, if only for a moments, the way they confirmed that she really was small, tiny, adorable. Perfect...
She knew the symptoms, but not the cause. She knew her world was going down in a steady spiral, at the same rate as the numbers on the scale. Her world was narrowing, if only by an inch. It was becoming defined by whether she ate the morning, noon, or night, it was defined by the bile rising in her throat, by the worried looks in her friends eyes. She did the research, click the links, and struggled with the urge to think. In her mind’s eye, she could see it, little images of her past selves, before the 10lbs, 20lbs, the 50lbs, images of ghosts. It was heartbreaking to see herself fading, but she no longer cared. Her hands were frozen, no longer able to create complex rhythms on her snare, no longer able to create entire worlds with a flick of a pen. She grew dizzy on stage, stuttered through her lines, the lights making the edges of her vision go black…
“It’s poetry,” He said, glancing down at a piece of paper covered in scribbles. “You’ll like it,” She reached for the paper, the words swarming all over the place until they settled down, forming bits and pieces of sanity. Dancing on the edge of reality, dancing on the edge of gravity...Her eyes could barely make out the words, so messily scrawled were they, and her hands shook the paper way too much. But it was there. Pieces of sanity, relief, escape. A lifeline. She smiled, but didn’t say anything. She understood what he was handing her,his soul. See, all artwork was valuable to her, in the sense she used it to see and reflect people's hearts. But it was hard to reflect what was missing…
“An 1 an 2, an 3, an 4,” She heard the numbers, responded as was told, but still they was no heart, no life in it. Her steps were no longer as graceful, her head no longer held as high, the world was one giant blur...she could feel the edges escaping, unraveling…
“See, the key is to avoid over-thinking, I mean, you still have to have some level of intelligence, but if you search too hard, you’ll find no meaning to anything,” He laughed humorlessly. “Trust me, I would know,” She could tell he did know. There was something in his eyes, some remnant of pain that she could identify with. It was in his cynical laugh, his trampled-down idealized viewpoint of the world. He still believed there was hope, deep down inside…despite being proved over and over it wasn’t there...
She still found comfort in running, still used it to drown out her sorrows, but she could go only for a few minutes now. It wasn’t because of her weight(still at that dreaded 110 point), or the fact she could go a couple of days without eating and face almost no stomach pain if she really, really tried(she kept busy and focused on things outside of her body now), but because of the awful, ungodly fact that she couldn’t breath. She could hardly march a full drill now without getting out of breath, black dots dancing teasingly on the edges of her vision, she could hardly make the walk from the high school to the theatre without arriving panting, dizzy, and on the edge of panicking. She wasn’t used to being weak, she wasn’t used to being out-of-control, she didn’t like this sick, helpless feeling deep in her gut. It was too much, all it would take would be one tiny thing to set herself on edge…
Performance night. She traced her finger along the window, wishing the cold night air would take her away. She knew she should be getting ready, should have her facade in place by now, but her world was in shambles. 120. She was back at the beginning now, wondered at which point did she mess up at. Was it when she ate the pizza, sponsored by the theatre staff, and could feel it rising up her throat, burning it’s way to blissful heaven? Was it when she realized every bite was a sensory delight in and of itself, to say nothing of the conversation? Or was in when she realized she was hopelessly, head-over-heals in love with a cynical laugh and hopeless, yet hopeful eyes?...
She still had an hour to make her decision. She tittered on the edge, watched as car headlights flashed by and then idled away, and lifted her hands in the air. The wind blew through her hair, as magical and life-giving as the moisture gathering in the sky. Too much. She took a step backward, breathed a beat, and remembered the role she still had to play. Even if it was only as small as looking into someone’s eyes…
“There’s a storm coming,” He said. She said nothing, her eyes wide. Storms were her greatest fear, next to falling in l-, no, to falling into companionship. Her back was stiff, as she replayed a memory of last summer, of conquering her fear of drowning when she jumped into a nine foot deep pool. She was used to conquering fear, she should be. After all, she was only as fragile as she let herself be. “I am not afraid, I am going to be okay,” She mumbled to herself, not willing to let on as to how terrified she really was. With a flash, she remembered a similar conversation that took place last year with her...with her...her...she couldn’t think the words. Her breathing came faster as past and present became linked…
No. She wasn’t going to let herself fall again. She couldn’t afford to let herself become weak, as she once was, couldn’t afford to sink into the stumbling depression she once willingly joined. She couldn’t afford to think. With her eyes wide, she changed the topic of conversation into something more mundane, boring, less likely to trap her emotions. “I love curling with a mug of a tea and a book when I see lightning flash…”
There’s danger in over-thinking. With that thought in mind, she forced a haze to cover up her eyes. She stopped bringing in her lovely snacks, she stopped paying attention to the pain in her stomach, she slipped into a daze that conquered all confusion. After all, if you have no emotions you can think clearly, right?
Silence. Everytime they meet. She could feel it ringing in the air, could feel it in the way they both stood still and yet moved with such irresistible motion away from each other. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but three lefts do...
Turned out he was wrong. There was danger in simply thinking at all. She stepped out onto the road that crossed in front of the theatre(home of magical poetry and pizza, and memories that ate at her soul) and didn’t hear the screech of the tires in time. The last thing she saw before she was granted her wish to disappear was a pair of cold, hopeful eyes turned cynical staring down at her broken body in shock. Despair. Such gloryifing ugliness. At last she found her way to the heart of the matter. There was someone who cared about her after all.
“I don’t understand why she was so silent in the end,” He said, twisting his hands together in grief. “She was so magical, so full of life, and then it was like someone turned her off. Her eyes were cold, she turned away from me in...what seemed to be disgust...she was slowly disappearing again...just the way I found her,”
She was light at the end of a tunnel, she was warmth in a lifetime of despair, she was cold and yet she still cared…
She wanted a second chance now. Now that she could finally see how clearly he cared, she wanted it back. She wanted to claw at life until it gave her want she really wanted. Not disappearance, but a life. That’s what she secretly wanted. Why was the world being so cruel to her now…now after all she’s been through?
“I can’t seem to let her go now,” His words twisted and fumbled their way out of his mouth. “Forgive me, she haunts me still. I swear I can still feel her here, desperately clinging to life in that daring way she had...
It’s my fault. I was the one who hit her. I deserve whatever pain I receive…”
“Don’t let him do this,” She begged and pleaded. “He doesn’t deserve any more pain…please, please, I swear I won’t ever ask for anything ever again, just give him a chance. Don’t let him do this!”
He stood on the edge, lightning faintly seen in the distance. He wasn’t aware of how clearly aligned the past was with the present, of how she stood in the exact same position less than two months ago…
The math all added up in her head. The angle and amount of force needed were there, the determination was there, the amount of tiny neck bones that all snapped in unison. She wept and prayed the numbers weren’t proof enough...