Fragile Bones

Chapter Thirty-Seven

I crept out of my bed in the morning as quietly as I could. Asher was sleeping on the ground, only because my dad had barged in at one point to give him pajamas and wasn't happy to find him on the bed. It was just lucky he hadn't been kissing me at the moment because my dad would've probably tossed him right out the window.

Thinking about Asher brought a smile to my lips, and I reached up to touch them. It felt so surreal. To think that there was a time where I was sure he hated me was an ancient idea at this point. Although I had no idea why he liked me, and I figured I never would, it brought me happiness in a time where I didn't have a lot.

I glanced at Ashers sleeping form, where he was lying on his back and looked like his dream was perturbing him. His eyebrows were slightly furrowed, and he shifted pretty often. I considered waking him up, but after looking at the time to see it was still pretty early, I let him sleep.

Apparently my internal alarm clock hated me though, but since I was already up I figured there was no point in falling back asleep. I probably wouldn't be able to at this point anyways. My stomach was churning with anxiety at the thought of what would be happening today. Last night, Asher had coaxed me and relaxed me enough so I was able to rest, but there was no way that would happen now. Last evening had a whole night between it and my departure, but now it was only a couple hours, at most.

I anxiously walked in small circles around my room, running my hands over my face. This was ridiculous. I needed to find something to do with my hands or I would go crazy. I carefully stepped over to the bathroom and flicked the light on, closing the door behind me. I turned on the faucet and squeezed some toothpaste onto my toothbrush, my foot tapping apprehensively on the tiled floor. Scrubbing my teeth, I tried to avoid looking at myself in the mirror. As always, it didn't work for long.

I slowly lowered the toothbrush from my mouth and peered into my reflections eyes. To say that I saw much different with myself would be a lie. I expected to come face to face with someone who I could see something visibly wrong with. Maybe I would've been more motivated to leave all I knew to go to the clinic today. Instead, I saw what I usually saw. Someone who still needed to work on herself more. Still, the day that I had just about had a breakdown replayed in my mind, when I had seen myself differently than all the other times. Where I actually saw myself as skinny, sickly skinny even.

I stared closer at myself, really trying to examine myself from head to toe. As much as I hated other people looking at my body, I hated looking at it more. Turning to the side, I lifted up my shirt to look at my stomach. My eye caught something next to the toilet, and there sat my scale. My parents had apparently not thought to take it out of here before they sent me to bed. I dropped my shirt back over my stomach and padded over to it, and bent down to scoop it up. I set it on the floor, and stood in front of it for a second.

After a beat, I stood upon it, watching the numbers as they blinked and twitched while trying to discover my weight. Last time I had checked, I was four pounds heavier than my last weigh in. Now, I was five pounds heavier than that. Hastily, I got off of it, and it an outburst of anguish, kicked it so it hit the wall pretty hard.

How was it possible cheese and meat and crackers had pushed my weight up more? It wasn't even that much.

A knock on the door made me leap five feet in the air, and I nervously looked towards it.

"Sweetheart, what are you doing? Are you okay?" There was a small window next to my shower, and I quickly debated climbing out of it. It was pretty small though, so I probably wouldn't fit even if I tried.

Unluckily for me, I hadn't locked the door, and in came Asher, in all his sleepy, disheveled glory. He looked at me for a second, then at the faucet that was still running, and finally to the scale that had left a very obvious black mark on the wall. Instead of commenting on it immediately, he walked over to me and kissed me, grabbing my waist.