Chapter Six: Goodbye

TRIGGER WARNING: GRAPHIC DETAILS OF EATING DISORDERS

After we'd changed for PE, Miss Waters asked me if I was sure I wanted to do PE. I said that yes, I was very sure, and desperately hoped that underneath my hoodie and baggy tracksuit bottoms, it wasn't too obvious that my BMI had dropped to 11.7.

The boys did rugby, and the girls did cross-country, which I thought was annoying. Jane actually ran the during cross-country, but Sam and I always walked. We were usually with two other girls as well, but Sapphire had a seizure before school, and the other girl was presumably ill.

"What's your BMI?" Sam asked me.

"Almost 12," I said, truthfully. I was so sick of lying, and there really wasn't a point to it anymore. I just felt nothing, ever. The safety blanket that anorexia once was to me, became a suffocating sheet of ice, isolation and illness.

"You mean like, just under 13?"

"I mean, 11.7."

"That's - that's really not okay." Sam sounded utterly mortified, but I felt nothing. I was in a world of fuzziness and depersonalisation.

"But I am okay, Sam."

"Oh, and I'm sure Jane's okay too?"

"Yeah. Well, no. She's addicted to cocaine. Her heart is probably fucked. I'm worried about her."

"What was the three fingers about?" she quizzed.

"Three day fast."

"F**k."

"What?"

"You're actually gonna die."

"Huh?" I stopped and sat on the uneven ground. The world was spinning. The usual sharpness of my senses was diminishing. It was blurry. But not scary - weirdly comforting.

"Get up," she said.

I did, and clung onto her as my head pounded and black stars overtook my vision. "Let's keep walking," I said.

"No! We're going back."

"C'mon, Sam. Just walk. It's not - it's, it's not that hard.

"Jesus f*****g Christ. You can't even talk right."

"F**k you!" I screamed. Then slapped myself in the face. 

"Stop," Sam whispered, and pulled my body into hers. I just shook uncontrollably, and tried to feel safe, but I didn't. I just wanted to crawl into the earth and never come back.

"Wait," I said, and pulled away, though I still held her arm for balance. I saw what looked like a body on the ground in the near distance.

I ran, and a rush of adrenaline hit me, but everything became a blur. I recall Jane, on the floor, face down. I felt for her pulse, listened to her breathing. Both unnaturally fast. I wondered how long she'd been there. I told Sam to stay with her, and I ran back to the teachers - although my vision was blurred, I followed the voices of the boys' rugby going on. I struggled to make the teachers understand. They sat me down, ran off to help Jane.

I heard John say: "Riley's anorexic." At the uttering of those words, I felt a massive surge of anger. He betrayed me.

Then, he said something else, but all I heard was "let the anorexic b***h die!"

I knew that 999 was called, but I wasn't sure who for. Jane was carried back by Miss Waters, and Sam was by her side. The springy grass that I was sitting on was hard, and I felt the dull ache of my bruised coccyx.

Jane actually ate food that was offered to her. Some people had brought out their lunches, and everyone hung about to watch the freak show. She seemed fine. Well, not fine, but better. John was actually crying. I'd never seen him cry before, but what I did see were concerned faces, and food wafting in front of my face occasionally. The school first aiders were beside themselves.

How do you make someone better who doesn't want to get better?

Jane talked, she told them everything about me.

"Don't listen to her." I said. Although I was not really sure who this was to. "She's a f*****g junkie."

"Please eat something," Sam begged. She held my hand.

"F*****g make me!" I yelled. I came to the conclusion I was possessed by Anorexia Nervosa.  

What started out as control, sure as hell did not end up with me being in control. She controlled my every move. She was the blood in my veins, the brain in my skull, the voices in my head: overwhelmingly loud. Louder than everyone else that wouldn't shut the f**k up. I wanted it all to end. There was no way out anymore.

"For crying out loud," I said, "don't try and save someone who doesn't want saving."

But they did try. They tried very hard. The paramedics were very insistent that I was not going to die, and even when I yelled at them and tried to get them to go away, it didn't work at all. 

I wasn't actually sure what happened to Jane. I didn't know if she even got admitted to hospital. She seemed pretty happy about recovery. 

Recovery got a big, fat, middle finger from me, which was actually a small, broken, blue-nailed goodbye.