Alex PoV:

I limp into my room, trying not to make much noise so my two roommates, Becky and Georgia, won't get too worried or suspicious when they see me. I flop onto my bed and close my eyes almost as soon as my head hits the pillow.

--

"Alex, come on." I hear Georgia's voice and feel someone shaking me. "Get up!"

I groan and roll over, falling off the bed. I hear laughter and glare at my roommate.

"I. Hate. You." I say through gritted teeth, as I pull myself off the floor.

When I've finally managed to stand up, I walk over to my dresser and pull out the first outfit I see, a pair of overalls with a long sleeve, pastel blue shirt. As I walk into the bathroom, I grab my stuff out of the dresser. When I open the closet door, I notice Georgia's labelled everything. Again. I shake my head and pull out my tub of toiletries. I don't wear a lot of makeup, but I have concealer and foundation.

I sigh as I strip my clothing, revealing my various cuts and bruises covering my thighs, wrists, ankles, all up and down my legs and stomach. I carefully rub concealer over each and everyone because you can never be too cautious. Then I apply some under my eye so you can't see the heavy, dark bags, and I begin to put on foundation just because my face looks so ugly I can't even.

Then I start pulling on a chest binder over my head, guy day, I think as I squeeze into the compression tank. I pull on my pastel shirt and pull up the overalls, buckling them at the shoulders. Next I pick up a black hairbrush and start to drag it through my short, straight, blonde hair. I hate my hair. On girl days, it's always too short and on guy days, it's always too long-there never seems to be an in-between.

"Alex! Are you coming or not?" I hear Georgia's voice shout from the other side of the door. I sigh. I'm not sure what I'm doing anymore, if I'm being totally honest with myself. I'm not sure if I want to go to breakfast with them or not, but I guess they're kind of expecting me too, so I take a breath and open the bathroom door, quickly slipping my feet into a pair of boots before following Georgia out the door to the hallway, where we find Becky already waiting for us.

As we walk to the Waffle Shop on campus, there isn't much conversation between the three of us-we just stay within our own minds, not really thinking about anything, but not really not thinking of anything. You know?

When we arrive, we have to wait in a ten minute line because it's around 9am and every college student who has time, money, and good taste is lining up for the delicious strawberry waffles or chocolate chip pancakes, or even just the whipped cream brought them here. Nonetheless, whatever the reason, there were about twenty people standing in line in front of us; I figured about five different parties, give or take a few.

Off course the whole time, I've been focusing mainly on making sure nobody notices my slight limp or the awkward twitches of my arms. Not only was I afraid of being judged, but I didn't want to worry Becky and Georgia because in all honesty, they meant more to me than I'd like to admit anyone ever did. I hated keeping this secret from them, but I don't want to worry them, or be a burden or worse, scare them away. No, there was no way I was ever letting them know my secrets, no matter how much I hated keeping them from them, there was no way they could know. None.

I yawned, realizing for the first time how tired I was; tired enough I could probably fall asleep on my roommates at any second, though I held myself back.

When we finally got seated, Georgia and Beck and I started deciding what we'd want to eat. I settled on the smallest, cheapest meal: a single pancake with bacon and sausage and I got a water to drink. Not even $5 somehow. Good thing, though, cause I knew I wouldn't end up eating anything.