A New Beginning

I don’t know why I did it. I think it was just curiosity. Through friends I only conversed with through electronics, I had been exposed to a destructive lifestyle and a disgusting habit that I was unable to break away from. Willingly, I fled from the simple life I knew; the oblivious girl I once was truly was gone, even though I pretended that she still resided in my untouchable body. While continuing to act the same, nobody noticed I changed; nobody was there to tell me that I was blindly stumbling in the wrong direction. A life of deceit, of manipulation, and of lies was the new life I chose to enter. I didn’t realize until it was too late that it was myself I caused the most harm to rather than my pathetic puppets. For years I was convinced that I was shredding and shattering others’ simple lives and leaving them with permanent emotional scarring. Harshly hurting them seemed to be the only way to make sure I wasn’t forgotten or left behind; I used their fear of me to pressure them into staying with me. Basically, I had them all helplessly dangling on their own unbreakable strings; only I held the strength to cut them loose. It didn’t bother me, though, to know what I was doing to such young, innocent people. At least I didn’t think it did. Unconsciously, though, I was slowly falling deep into a hole that I would be unable to claw and climb my way out of; I was losing my precious sanity and turning into a malicious monster.

Over the years that I paraded about carrying the power to destroy, anger filtered into my veins through invisible holes on the edges of my heart that I constantly tried to patch up. I held a grudge against all who had hurt me and planned for a deviant revenge.

After many hours upon hours of brainstorming ideas, I stood silently in front of my body-length mirror. Through the darkness of my spacious room I could still see my hollow green eyes blankly staring back at me. I felt no anger, no sadness… I felt nothing. Swiftly, I flicked on my energy-saving light bulb; usually that light made my bedroom bright like daylight, but that night the entire world was dull to me. With cold, shaky hands I swiped black eyeliner across the area where my eyelashes should have sprouted out and caked on my powder foundation which always was multiple shades darker than my skin tone; they didn’t make strong enough foundation for skin as pale as mine. I took a small, fragile step back to examine my petite body for a last time. I compared what I saw then to what I saw summers ago, back when happiness existed in me. My hair, which used to be brilliant shades of brown and blonde had lost its shine and melted into one, plain color. Eyes that used to sparkle with a bright, French green resembled the empty eyes of a patient with Parkinson’s disease and had faded into a shade of grey. No smile, smirk, or frown inched onto my lips, much to my dismay; I had hoped for a sign of emotion to change my mind. No tan lines existed on my body, for I had never burned or tanned my precious pale skin. My recent lack of appetite was obvious when I glanced down at my slim stomach. When my eyes looked up and down my arms and legs, they always stopped at the patches of red, fading scars. The memories of how they were carved into my limbs speedily flashed through my mind: the brilliant metallic shine catching my eye, the reflection of my wondrous face, the movement of my arm as I roughly swipe the sharp metal across my skin, the glistening blood leaking out of my body and slowly dripping down, and the panicked swabbing.

Suddenly, I turned around and snatched my favourite outfit off of my furry black rug and hurriedly dressed myself. I tiptoed silently on the hardwood floor down the hallway and into my mother’s bathroom. With the door closed, I turned on the tap to cover the sound of my rummaging through the medicine cabinet. Once I found what I was searching for, I hid the bottle in my pocket, washed my hands, hunted in the fridge for yogurt, and then fled for the computer room.

As the computer blinked between different pictures, starting up, I stuffed a number of pills into every spoonful of yogurt I digested. Relaxed, I signed onto Skype and sent a request to have a video conversation with a new friend of mine. We talked and laughed, as we always did, for an hour before he ended the chat with his promise that if anything was ever wrong I could call him and he would make me happy again, and I said my final goodbye.

I wasn’t surprised to find myself in the emergency room at the hospital that night. Being forced to drink a cup of charcoal is extremely unpleasant, though, I must say, as is vomiting multiple times afterwards. Carrying new hope, I expected to stay at the hospital for as short a time as possible. Sitting in a cold, cramped ambulance on the highway to a psych ward in Courtenay, I realized the stupidity of my actions, though. With half my belongings that I brought along with me being taken away, I didn’t know what to do with myself until morning, so I began to look for anything to keep me entertained and separate me from all the other maniacs in the ward. Spotted, the phone sat, unused, by the office. Memorized before my phone was stolen from my bruised hands, I dialled the number of my friend. Three times I had to hear the annoying ring of a phone before his answering machine cheerily spoke to me. I didn’t leave a message, and he never talked to me after that day.

I’ll never forget his promise, though, that that if anything was ever wrong, to call him right away, and he would make me happy.