Une Fleure Fanée

Week 9 Part 7 (Saturday)

***lilly***

     I wake up at four-thirty in the morning instead of five. I notice the blanket fort and that all the kids are sleeping. The whole thing last night was a wreck. I can't believe I told them. Why did you tell them, Lilliana? They're going to let something slip in conversation and you'll need to go to the hospital to become fat again.

     I wanna cry, but I don't want to wake them up. I quietly exit the fort with my phone and look at the blanket fort. It looks so whimsical, and yet, a dark secret engulfs the pale pink fort. My first instinct is to cut myself, punish myself while gaining the needed emotional release. But I couldn't cover up my cuts with anything. So I just look over the edge of the building.

     Jump, Lilliana. Nobody and nothing is stopping you. You won't have to perform your straitjacket solo and you won't disappoint Ms. Abby anymore. You won't disappoint your mother or your friends. You won't have to keep being a horrible dancer. You'll finally be happy.

     "Can't sleep either, eh?" I hear a small whisper behind me right as I'm about to put a foot on the ledge.

     I jump in my skin before whipping around to see Brady. I slowly walk over to him and he just embraces me into a hug. I break down, again, collapsing into Brady. He lifts me and moves me over to a chair away from the fort, him sitting close by.

     "Can I ask you a couple more questions?" Brady asks me, and I nod.

     "Why did you do this to yourself? You were perfect before this... whole fiasco," he asks and the amount of guilt I feel is tremendous.

    How could I do this to my friends? I start crying again but I have to answer her question. You're doing this for Ms. Abby, Lilliana. Your friends are only pretending to care about you.

     "Ms. Abby," I mumble and Brady's face goes flat, but doesn't say anything, urging me to go on.

     "She always pinched my stomach fat ever since Mommy Dearest and then she kept commenting on my stomach and my feet, and I thought if I lost some weight she- she would stop it and I would be a better dancer," I whisper the last couple of words and I bring my knees to my chest.

     "She's wrong. You're a great dancer and you don't need to do this to yourself," Brady tells me and I feel even worse.

     "I can't just stop, though. My brain, these- urges, I guess, tell me to do this stuff. I have to follow them or else they call me bad things," I try my best to explain to the teenager.

    "What do they tell you?" Brady asks me and I shut down, shaking my head no.

     "I don't want to tell you. It would hurt you too much," I plead to him, and luckily, he doesn't make me tell him anymore.

     "Okay, we don't have to talk about that anymore. But Elliana did mention something about a bad experience with a straitjacket. Can you tell me any more about that?" he asks me and I shake my head no, starting to shake, my breath constricting at the memory of the hospital.

***brady***

     She was about to jump, wasn't she? No, that's crazy. She wouldn't do that. At least she's in a chair now. Having a panic attack, but she's not on the edge of a building that would kill her instantly if she even just accidentally fell.

      I walk over to her and put a hand on her ribcage. It's expanding, so she is breathing, and she's not having an allergic reaction or anything.

      "Lilly, in through your nose, out through your mouth. I know the straitjacket is scary for you. I know whatever happened must have been scary. I'm here, and at the competition, everybody will be there if you need anything. Okay?" I remind her, and she calms down a bit.