bones Ω a.i Ω

4

I had gone back home that day and got my box. Hydroxycut, green tea pills, and laxatives laid there perfectly organized the way Ana and I want it.

The box now rests under the guest bed. I cut down food to a nothing and exercise to a full one hundred percent.

I go downstairs and Popeye's is strewn about the kitchen table. Jenna was out with some friends and my mother was no where to be found. Good. Two people who stress me out the most aren't present.

"Hey! Want some? There's plenty to go around." Luke spooned mashed potatoes into his mouth at a rapid pace.

Take one bite of that and it'll be the last thing you do.

"I'm okay. Thanks though."

Me: It's okay, Ana. I am in control.

Ana: You better be. That size 0 won't come from eating and laying around. You, my dear butterfly, will be perfect.

Me: You're right.

Ana: I know I am. Remember darling, starvation is perfection.

"Earth to Wiley?" Michael waved his hand in my face.

"Ashton." My mouth spoke before I could stop it. "Where is he?"

The guys shrugged and I felt a tap on my shoulder. "I'm right here...what's up?"

I took his arm and I drug him toward the front door. I closed it behind us and I took his hand in mine. We began to walk. It was silent for about ten minutes until Ashton spoke up.

"What did you need?" Ashton had removed his hand from mine. My face heated up at a rapid pace and I shoved my hands in my hoodie pocket.

"Remember when you said you knew what was going on with me? What...what exactly did you know?" Our walk was more of like a stroll. Slow.

"You would always go to the hospital. Your mom told me that you have some health issues. Some with your heart, kidney, liver, and trachea...maybe even your esophagus."

He's right. Ana said that this would happen but perfection comes with a price. And I'm willing to die even if it meant being skin and bones in my coffin.

"Yeah...that's what happened. That's why I was in the hospital so much." And because my parents sent me to the hospital because of the "disease". They also sent me to stay for a month with a pastor who constantly tried to cleanse my soul and remove the demons from me. There are demons....they just can't be removed.

He nodded as if he understood. I doubt he did. "What caused those things? Being in the hospital really took away your ability to live like a teenager. Did you even go to prom?"

I felt myself getting defensive. He doesn't know what it's like to constantly want to be perfect. He doesn't know how much my stomach yearns for food and how much I actually hate myself.

"I didn't need to go to prom. Prom isn't something that makes life life, Ashton."

"I was going to ask you, Wiley. I had a sign and everything and then I found out you went back to the hospital again and I finally gave up."

I pursed my lips and narrowed my brown eyes. I stopped and stood with my arms crossed over my chest. "I didn't ask to go to the hospital you know. I was forced to go because I was a minor then. Believe me, those hospital experiences gave me hell and nightmares. So you're very funny to think that it was really all my fault I went."

I sighed, trying to calm myself down. "Ash, I'm sorry but why do you even care? I'm not in the hospital anymore and I'm healthy now. Why are you bringing up stuff from almost five years ago?"