Beautiful things - jaylor story (peace book 4)

lunch

-ellies pov-

Math class passes by both too slow and too fast at the same time. I want the school day to pass by quickly because it means I can go to dance class. It's the first dance class I have done since I landed in the hospital, up until now I've only done private lesions so I'm happy to get back to an actual class.

But it passing quickly means that its growing closer to lunch time which is nerve wreaking because it's the first time I'm going to eat lunch at school without one of my parents. I'm going to be sitting with Lauren and Katie in the cafeteria and that makes me nervous.

I know that this is the step I need to take to get my life back, but it's hard to accept that I can't mess it up and throw away the food. I could try but I know that they will figure it out by what the scale shows so there is no escaping it. The thing that will happen if I fuck up is that they will send me back to hospital for a longer period of time than last time. They wanted to give me a chance to recover from home and I'm not going to mess with that.

Being in the hospital was horrible, and I actually felt like it was doing more harm than good. If you place a group of anorexic and bulimic patients in the same ward it's not a healing environment in my eyes. I picked up on tricks from the other patients and for me it was more destructive than helpful.

** flashback *** TRIGGER WARNING SELF HARM

My mom is with the rest of the parents in a family support group so it's just me and a few more patients in the lounge room. There is a staff by the door, but she is too buzzy reading a book and we are talking silently so she doesn't hear us.

"so I'm getting out of this place asap. I've been drinking tons of water to make my weight go up so I can go out and not have the same weight. There is no way I'm doing outpatient. I'm just going to get out of section and do my own thing again" another patient Gilliana tells me and I nod.

Another patient, Fiona, agrees "yeah, it's so annoying why can't they just leave us alone. It's hard enough to cope with being a teenager these days and now they take this away from me too. Fuck them. And it's so hard to find something sharp here too, they take everything away" she says, and I get curious.

"something sharp?" I ask and furrow my eyebrows "sometimes I forget how young you are Ellie. I cut, it helps with relief because it gives me something visual to show where it hurts. I need something when they stick me in a treatment program" Fiona is 17 years old and have been in and out of treatment for years, since she was 10 years old. She makes sure the nurse isn't looking and pull up her sleeve to show some scars. "Normally I do it on the puller part of the inside of my thigh so no one can see it"

I'm the youngest patient here on the ward, which was intimidating in the beginning, but I am considered mature for my age, so I get along with them fine thankfully. It's nice to have someone other than my mom to talk with, she doesn't get what it's like for me.

"i've never tried that. Does it really help?" I mutter and she nods and sigh "sometimes. But the more you do it the less it helps. But at this point I'm desperate" she says and shrugs.

They also talk about all the ways they hide food from their parents or the nurses. They are experts at this, and it makes me both intrigued and uncomfortable at the same time. It's a relief to know that there are ways to get around my parents and treatments teams watchful eyes, but also I don't want to keep coming back here. It's confusing and I don't know how to handle this.

** end of flashback **

It's time for lunch and I grab my lunchbox and head with Lauren and Katie to a table in the cafeteria. I have hardly ever gotten lunch at school because my mom says it's better to pack a lunch, so she knows I get stuff I like and its nutritious. It's not a secret that cafeteria food isn't the best, even though this is a private school and its nicer than public school.