Intertwined

Chapter 3

I wake up to someone picking me up. I open my eyes to see Camila's brown eyes watching me. The sky is now a bursting with the bright orange and yellow light of morning. We must have been here all night. The exhaustion takes over again so I close my eyes and allow Camila to carry me all the way back to my room.

"Lauren, wake up." A voice says while they try to get me to wake up by shaking me. I open my eyes and look around. My parents are at my bedside and the girls are scattered around the room. All worried eyes on me. 

"What?" I say softly while stretching a bit. 

"We already signed the discharge papers for you. We're going home, come on." My dad says. Soon enough, I'm walking out the doors of the hospital and into the bright light of the sun shining above me. The sky has some clouds here and there and there's dew on the fresh cut grass surrounding the hospital building.

As I got in my parents' car and waved goodbye to the girls, who were getting into another car. I couldn't help but feel an overwhelming sense of mixed emotions. I feel like crying but I also feel like screaming at the top of my lungs and punching walls, breaking down in destruction. I feel happy that no one found out that I starved on purpose and that I cut. But then I feel sad because of that voices in my head telling me that no one cares and that I should just kill myself because there is no point in my life. I want to run and run, on and on until I can forget it all and leave my problems behind. But then I want to lay in bed all day and leave the world behind as I live a life in my mind; my body seeming to be dead but in my mind I am in a war zone, trying to win this battle with myself.

We pull up to the hotel my parents are staying at, since they flew out here to LA to see me. I get out and walk with them up to their hotel room. "You're gonna stay with us just for today. We want to spend some time with you before we leave for Miami tomorrow morning." My mom says. She grabs my hand and gives it a small, reassuring squeeze. We walk hand in hand all the way to their room. My dad unlocks the door and we walk in. I let go of my mom's hand and excuse myself to go to the bathroom. I lock the bathroom door and slide down the walk with my back. I pull my knees close to my chest and lay my head on my arms that are sitting on my knees. The tears finally fall freely. I make no attempt to wipe them off. I just keep silently crying. 

I stand up after a few minutes and look in the mirror. My eyes are red and puffy, and my face is red and has tear stains all over it. Then my eyes make their way down...

Just looking at my stomach makes me sick. I lift up my sweater and undershirt and pinch at my fat. I'm disgusting. No wonder no one likes me. I'm fat and ugly. My face makes me cringe when I look up to see it again. I quickly wash my face to wipe any traces of me crying. My eyes are still red and puffy but I can avoid anyone seeing my eyes for a while.

When I step out of the bathroom, my mom's voice calls out to me from the small kitchen in this hotel room, "LAUREN, COME EAT BREAKFAST!" I internally groaned and slowly walked to the kitchen. I still am very low on energy so I can't really walk very fast unless I want to be drowned in exhaustion from pushing myself too hard. I sat down at the small, round table and analyzed what's in front of me. Eggs, two pieces of toast, and a glass of orange juice. At least it's not that much.  I started to poke my fork at the eggs and then put a small piece in my mouth. I chewed on that piece for what seemed like a long time. Then an idea popped into my head. Surely you know that I don't want these calories and I don't want to get fatter. I ate it all within five minutes and then drank the whole glass of orange juice. Then I asked my mom if she has a change of clothes for me because I've been in the same clothes for a day. She told me, "I thought you'd want to change so I stopped by your guys' house and the girls told me where they put the key. I got you this. I didn't know what you'd want to wear so I just got something simple. We can stop by the house later if you want and you can change into something different ." She handed me the clothes while she was talking. It was a simple white shirt with a cardigan and black jeans with white vans. "Mom, these are perfect. Don't worry about it. Thanks. I'm gonna go shower."

"Okay sweetie."

I walked as fast I could, ignoring the sharp pain in my side and exhaustion as I speed walked to the bathroom. As soon as I got in there. I lock the door and turned on the shower which would block out the sounds of what I'm about to do. I dropped to my knees before the toilet and took a deep breath before shoving two fingers down my throat. Half of the food I just ate comes out and I just shoved my fingers down my throat again and again until the rest of it came out. But just in case some of it was still in my stomach, I forced myself to purge again. This time my throat burned from stomach acid I was throwing up. I stood up and flushed the toilet, then stripped down and got into the shower. I stood there letting the warm water soak my hair and stream down my back. I looked down to my cuts and scars. My demons suddenly started to scream.

Cut

You're so FAT!

Kill yourself

No one cares about you

 I couldn't handle it. Not today. I got out of the shower, the water still running, and reached for the clothes I just had on. I reached into my secret sweater pocket and grabbed the blade. I got back in the shower. The feeling of the cold blade on my bare skin brought goosebumps to my body. Then suddenly, without even being able to control my actions, I start to slash at both my arms. Switching the blade between both hands and slashing at my skin. I don't care if I cut deep. I don't care if I die. When I could finally control myself, I looked down at my arms again and saw that they were covered in blood. I couldn't see any bare skin. It was all damaged, bleeding flesh. Only the back of my arms had undamaged skin. The cuts cover both my forearms, from the wrist up to my elbow. I turn around to face the water, washing off my arms. The water below me turns into a bright red color. Once I finish up, I step out of the shower and clean up my cuts since little beads of blood were still coming out. I put on my clothes once they stopped bleeding. The cardigan kept rubbing against my cuts which made me wince slightly. I wrapped up the blade in a small piece of toilet paper and put it in a pocket on the inside of my cardigan. Taking one last look around me to make sure all is cleaned and there is no trace of anything I did, I walk out of the bathroom and out into the kitchen where my parents were.

"Hey honey, we were thinking that maybe we could go to the park for a little while. You could call the girls and invite them too. What do you think?" My mom asks me.

"Yeah, sure." I reply nonchalantly.

I grab my phone off the counter and make my way into the bedroom as the phone rings in my ear. Soon enough, we were at the park with the girls. My parents decided to go take a walk together, leaving us to do whatever young people do these days. Ally suggested that we hang out in the field next to the playground and we all agreed. I went an sat down under a tree while Dinah and Normani played in the playground and Ally sat on a bench nearby laughing at them. Camila walks over to me and sits down. 

"How're you feeling?" She asks.

"Fine" I reply automatically. 

"Come on Lauren, really? You and I both know that's not true. Talk to me, you can trust me. I'm here for you Laur." Her concern causes me to pull at my sleeves. All the attention she is giving me is starting to make me self-conscious.

"Really, I'm fine."

"Please talk to me Laur. I know you aren't fine. Please just let me in."

I sighed and gave in once again. Either way, she was there last night when I told her about me losing myself and all that other crap I said. "I don't know how much longer I can take this Camz. It hurts. I can't handle living anymore."

"I'll be here for you when you need me Laur. Trust me. I'm here for you." She pulls me into her arms. Her arm wraps around my waist and I put my head on her shoulder. I don't know if I should tell her. It might risk everything I've worked for. Everything I've built up.

"Promise you won't tell ANYONE what I'm about to tell you."

She takes a moment to think about it. Her eyes search mine. After a minute she whispers, "I promise." I look around to see to see if the coast is clear, then I slowly look down at my sleeve. Camila's eyes look down at the sleeve as well. I bring my shaky hand to the bottom of the sleeve and slowly pull it up to my elbow. Then I do the same for the other arm. I hear Camila gasp.

"Lauren..."