Chapter 04

Arielle Nelson

After last night I don't think I will ever touch another cup of alcohol again, even though it was good with this headache I have right now it is not appreciated. Knowing that my mother left to work I made my way to the kitchen to look for some pain killers. I retrieved a glass cup from the cabinet and poured some water. I placed the two blue pills on my tongue and took a sip of water. I headed back to my room where I got settled back into the covers of my bed where sleep overtook my body again.

☻ ☹

"Hey, Arielle do you want to hang out with me and Heather today?" David asked through my phone.

"No thanks David I'm feeling under the weather today I'll see you guys tomorrow at school have fun, bye." Before he can let out another word I hung up.

I knew it was rude but I was not in the mood to go somewhere with them to have them kiss in front of me, I'm not ready to see that yet. It's been over two hours since I took the pain killers and my headache was almost completely gone. I decided to deal with the pain and got my little mint case from my bag and took one pill out and drank it with my leftover water from earlier today.

As I settled the cup down on my nightstand there was a loud knock on the door since they probably figured out the doorbell didn't work. I kept the blanket wrapped around me and walked to the door where I looked through the peephole. I saw the figure shift a little before I got a good look at his face.

Jake

He knocked again as I opened the door softly and looked at Jake. "Hey Arielle, how are you?" Jake asked smiling widely as he took in my appearance."What are you doing here? It's like 11 in the morning." I told him. "Arielle it's 4 in the afternoon and I brought you food for a late lunch since I had a feeling you haven't eaten yet." He said pointing down to the bag of food.

"Are you going to invite me in?" He asked speaking again. "I just ate a sandwich," I said lying smoothly and opening the door widely so he can enter.

"Again? Don't you get tired of eating that?" He asked looking around trying to figure out where the kitchen is located. "Sometimes but I don't know how to cook much so that's one of my easy choices to go to," I said speaking the truth to the second part I never learned how to cook.

"I can teach you sometime." He offered as he walked into my kitchen. "Um yeah for sure," I said like that's going to happen anytime soon I replied mentally. "Okay, so I brought you some homemade grilled chicken with fry rice and vegetables. I made all of this myself." He spoke proudly. I looked at the food through the clear glass container it did look good but I want to be near my goal not away from it.

"Aren't you going to eat it now I'm sure you ate a while ago and this will taste better than the sandwich you ate." He said. I "smiled" up at him. "Thank you," I said.

"There goes that smile." He said bitterly but I can tell he didn't mean to say that, he played it off. He grabbed a spoon from the bag and opened the containers and settled the spoon in the mixed rice. "Open wide." He said moving the spoon closer mouth.

"I have two hands I can feed myse-" the food was shoved into my mouth.

I saw him look at me with wide eyes. "Chew." He commanded.

The rice tickled my taste bugs it does taste good I'll give him props but my body.

My body

I spit out the food in the sink that was nearby and turned to look at Jake to see him crossing his arms with a raised eyebrow. "What the hell is wrong with you? You can't just go around shoving food into people's mouths. That is wrong." I shouted at him.

"You don't eat." He stated. I opened my mouth to talk but he raised his hand and stopped me. "Eating a cheese sandwich was a lie that other sandwich you "ate" was a lie everything is a complete lie when it comes to you eating food." He spoke loudly.

"That's a complete lie. I love food." I yelled grabbing the spoon and harshly shoving the rice in my mouth.

Forcing myself to chew it

"See!" I said after I swallowed the rice nodding my head.

"Yeah, you love food so much," Jake said nodding his head slowly.

"That's why you take these right." He said pulling out my plastic zip-lock bag with my pills inside it from his coat. "These are the same pills my mom prescribes to her patients at her clinic to lose weight," He said.

"Those are not mine," I spoke shaking my head. "They were in your car." He said.

"I'm holding them for a close friend okay and why were you looking through my things?" I said angrily. "I found them when I dropped my phone in your car last night when I had to settle you in the car. My hand just happened to find them when I looking for my phone."

"Well they are not mine and I would be glad if you gave them to me so I can give them to my friend," I told him holding out my hand.

"Is your friend your stomach?" Jake joked humorlessly looking at me angrily.

"Listen you have no right to accuse me of anything Jake." I spat at him. "Just give me the damn pills so I can give them back to my friend," I said loudly reaching to grab them but he was too quick and moved out the way. I saw him opening the bag and tipped the ziplock bag over, I was too late because next thing I know he turned on the garbage disposal switch that is located right next to the sink. He turned on the water tab and turned around when I looked at him I saw red.

"Are you fücking stupid, I told you those were for a friend why couldn't you just listen to me. Since I first bumped into you, you believed it was all a lie, about me eating or about me smiling and I don't even know why. Why do you keep bothering me?" I continued to shout at him.

"I just don't want you to go through what happened to my sister. Do you want to end up 6 feet under the ground? You act like your all fine with your friends and to your mom but in reality, you are broken, you want to be perfect but news flash no one is perfect in this world we all try to be and you not eating to achieve a look is not the way to go. If you ask me I strongly believe you look stunning the way you were last year and the other years before, especially when you smiled with real smiles, not fake ones you do nowadays."

"I've seen it all, I've seen those pills before, I regret not finding them sooner when I found my sister on the bathroom floor laying down lifeless there was nothing to do to save her it was too late," Jake said speaking harshly, he then turned his head to look out the kitchens window he avoided making eye contact with me.

"Life is a beautiful thing, you were created as you are and you should love being who you are. There can only be one of every person, one of you, one of me, don't try to change that and be someone your not." Jake said still not looking at me. I kept quiet, what was I supposed to say I'll eat because you told me what happened to your sister that was not going to happen. It was harsh to think that but I can't change what I'm doing.

"I'm going to go now, and I don't want to see any of that anymore because next time I will tell someone." He said.

"I'll stay as long as I can to help you get healthy again, that's a promise I'm making to you and to myself," Jake said softly and left.

☻ ☹

What am I going to do with all this food? I thought as I looked down at all the glass containers on the counter.

After knowing I wasn't going to eat the food, I packed up all the food and placed them in the refrigerator for my mother to eat later when she comes back from work. I walked to my room and sat on my bed and thought about Jake's words that kept circling around in my head, "I regret not finding them sooner when I found my sister in the bathroom floor laying down lifeless nothing to do to save her."

Will that be me one day?

Will I end up on the bathroom floor because of the look I want to have?

I stood up and walked to the mirror that hung behind my door and stared at my body. "If you ask me I strongly believe you look stunning the way you were last year and the other years before, especially when you smiled with real smiles, not fake ones you do nowadays."

I lifted up my shirt and stared at my stomach and tried to see my real body image, not the one my mind tends to see. I closed my eyes and a large sigh passed through my lips.

How did I let this continue for so long, ever since that accident last summer, where peoples true colors came out and scared me, where now their thoughts are all I care about and it is what makes me do the things I do and the choices I make.

☻ ☹

Hours have passed since my encounter with Jake but I would lie if I told you I stopped thinking about his words and what he told me.

His words kept repeating like a song on replay.

My mom still hasn't arrived yet from her job so I'm still alone with only my thoughts to entertain me.

Fun

I walked to the kitchen and grabbed a cup and filled it with ice-cold water from the pitcher in the refrigerator on the second shelf. I looked above and saw the glass containers that held the cooked food.

It won't hurt to try right?

Just a few small bites

Or just one

I grabbed the containers and brought them to the microwave where I pushed in 2 minutes. Not too cold nor too hot. After grabbing a fork and a knife and the containers I walked to the kitchen table and sat down and undid the cap of each container.

I grabbed a piece of chicken and swiftly chopped it up into smaller pieces then it was before. I brought the fork up and leveled it with my mouth.

Three

Two

One

Right before the chicken came in contact with my mouth I heard my phone go off. I dropped my fork and ran to my room.

Incoming call from- Heather The Hoe

Read my phone screen. I cleared my throat and picked up. "Hey, Heather, what's up?"

"Hey Arielle there's this huge party Tony is throwing down by the bay and everyone is coming are you in? It's going to be very fun and you don't want to miss out." She spoke through the phone.

"Heather,-" I began.

"Arielle this is our last year in high school, we have to make memories," "I'll go just text me the address and I'll meet you guys there I have to go get ready," I finally said and hung up quickly. I walked to the kitchen again and sat down at the table and picked up my fork and chicken again. I counted down to zero and this time I made it.

I finally made my first step.

Authors Note

She finally took her first step. I know I say this a lot but I think everyone should love yourself how they are born even though it's not easy due to our society today picking out our flaws and creating a picture of what we should look like.

And that's what I'm trying to do, I'm trying to love myself. I struggle with my body weight and my outside appearance, it's something I've been struggling since I was very young. I was told from a young age over and over that I was overweight and needed to watch my weight. I was given these looks when my hand went to reach for another chip from the bowl to snack on. I was compared to other girls. They told me that no one will want me if I ruin my body by eating over and over again. I know deep down they were trying to watch out for me, but the way they told me and the looks I got from them really did hurt me and did impact my life.

I thought skipping a few meals within a day will help me but it didn't especially have a family that likes to have dinner all together and looking at how much you eat. If I serve myself too little food they will tell me to eat more because I didn't eat anything but I will say no, now if I ate too much they will say you ate a lot today. They want me to wear tighter clothes since I'm getting older and since I got used to wearing very loose baggy tops and then when I do wear tighter tops they start pointing out my flaws.

My stomach
When I sit down I do get rolls

My acne
That's located on my face

My thighs
Which do have light stretch marks

There were days when my parents went out to work and they asked me "what did you eat" when they called me and I will make up a lie "oh I ate cereal" or something like that and I will go as far as making it seem like I did eat that by wetting a bowl and a spoon and putting it in the dishwasher.

They put it in my head that I have to be skinny that I have to eat right. I'm starting to work out again at home and it's working a bit. My weight is not my problem anymore it's just my stomach and thighs now. I went from being one chubby girl to being a good weight for me and yeah sometimes I gain a few pounds but that can all be lost. I now weigh 110 healthy pounds and now I'm working out my stomach and thighs to get them toned.

So I know it can be tough but hang on in there. And I'm telling you guys now it's not easy to feel confident and I'm still trying to feel confident in my body. I'm trying and that's all that I can do for now.

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ShamlessChels