Page 306 of Eternal
Now they hang on my head like dead wires around my face. My scalp hurts. The comb they give us in the house doesn’t even go through half an inch before it snaps.
So, I keep doing these braids hoping it will help.
I’m hungry too.
I hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before. There wasn’t much. Christian said I was taking more than my share again. “A girl like you should be shrinking, not eating.”
Guess I’m doing a good job, then.
My jeans barely stay on. My hoodie is big enough to cover my wrists, the bruises, the pain. I wrap my arms tight around my body and try not to move.
Movement makes the hunger louder.
I’d taken half a pill from the bathroom cabinet once again.
Sometimes I feel like he and her both know I take them. It might be a sick new game for them. Not like they’d be mad when they force me to take them to abuse my body while I’m out of here.
I don’t know what it was to be honest. I didn't care. The silence it gave me was enough.
The cold and quiet part of the school, near the dumpsters, that’s where I sit now.
No one goes there. No classmates to avoid, no teachers pretending not to notice.
And in my pocket, I had my old MP3 player. Silver, scuffed, and barely hanging on. One side of the earbuds cuts in and out.
If I move too fast, the music stutters or freezes.
I stole it from a thrift store two towns over.
I could’ve bought it with the money I stole from a woman’s purse on the train. But I was putting that money aside. Plus, she never even looked back.
I keep the cash I take hidden inside an old tampon box under my bed.
Christian and his stupid wife never check those.
I’m saving it. Bit by bit. For a bike.
Not a new one, just one that works.
I’ve wanted one since I was a kid seeing Vik’s dad and Alexei take theirs. When I thought Mama would get me one. Before I understood that wanting things never made them real.
The files on it are old and half-corrupted, but they play. They were already loaded when I took it.Radiohead. Mostly older stuff.
I listen to it on repeat. Over and over.
I used to tell people my mom loved them. Like it made my taste more legitimate.
But she loved a lot of things.
Booze. Needles. Men who left her when she was having her crises. Things that eat you alive.
So maybe loving anything too hard is just a slow way to die.
I’m tracing a crack in the sidewalk with my eyes when someone walks up and I tense. Ready to lie or run.
“You always sit here?”
I look up. And it’s a boy from math class.
