Lost In Your Footsteps

Step One

~Andrew~

The warmth that enveloped me beneath the downfall of the water running from the showerhead became my favorite part of the day. The slow-motion feeling of being able to think and breathe calmly was unreal and new to me, the novelty of it never-fading no matter how many times I did it. I scrutinized as beads of water ran down my skin.

Mrs.Jones told me to come back down to the dining room once I was squeaky clean so she could talk to me. I know Keaton couldn't have told her what I told him since I was with him all evening even during dinner so I would have seen him say something. I don't even know why I fucking told him. Does he even believe me?

Honestly, I'm nervous to know what she could want to talk about. Shaking my head under the pressure of the water, I threw the thoughts to the back of my mind willing myself not to overthink. Overthinking is what almost made me miss out on the opportunity to have showers and a bed to momentarily call my own. Overthinking almost made me run away from these things I've come to enjoy, even if they were simple mundane tasks.

Finishing up in the bathroom I wrapped the towel across my chest and stepped out of the cloudy room, quickly grabbing my change of clothes and running back into the warm steam. A fog blurred the view of my body in the mirror making it look disfigured. The blurred reflection of myself making me look far more appealing. 

No scars...

Just clean skin, and a body that didn't make me want to throw up and cry and tear at to get out of no matter how much I tried to free myself of the physical prison I was born in. A figure that I couldn't recognize as my own thanks to the disfigured face I guessed to be staring back at me. Breathing in for 4 and out for 4, I locked the bathroom door behind me, taking the towel off of my body to wipe across the mirror. 

Looking back at me, was disgust. Scars, dark splotches, and bruising was sprawled out everywhere I examined. Dips in my skin that would only remind me of my past no matter where I ran, some put there by myself and some placed there by complete strangers. My hands traced some older scars, dipping into the different shapes knowing that these in front of me were only the ones I could see. Some were obscured from my brown emotionless orbs. 

I observed my hands travel from my torso, up to my chest, and around the back of my shoulders, feeling unnatural dips between each of my shoulder blades that I knew stretched across my back. The tips of my fingers started to burn on my skin, making my stomach twist and turn. Bile rose in the back of my throat, the urge to throw up just by looking at my body becoming more and more apparent.

Tearing my eyes away from the mirror, I threw on my change of clothes that were once Keatons, a red shirt that said 'Whaled It' above the picture of a whale, and loose black shorts made of something too soft to be cheap.

A light knock echoed into the bathroom, startling me.

"ShiT-" My foot slipped on the slippery bathroom floor for a second before my hand steadied my body using the edge of the bathroom counter to save myself.

"Andrew, you good?" Keaton's voice resonated through the door. Instead of verbally answering, I unlocked the door and opened it for him to see me in all my miserable glory, too tired to smile at the moment. He smiled nonetheless, the action not quite meeting his forest eyes, before turning around and beginning to grab his things for his shower. 

Removing my towel from the sauna in the bathroom, I hung it over the door to let it properly dry as Mrs.Jones showed me. I'd made a habit of doing it in the past week and a half and Mrs.Jones told me that's the most progress she's seen in a boy my age considering she's been trying to get her own son to do it all his life and he still manages to ball it up somewhere to become moldy and gross. I giggled remembering that strange compliment.