hoodie || nh au

Nine

I purged my breakfast today.

At least one thing you are able to do, Alex. Just continue doing this and you'll be skinny in no time.

I was feeling sick because of Miranda. I have the feeling something isn't right with me. I purge, I don't eat... I think my anorexia is coming back. I'm so scared of her. She is going to kill me. Anorexia tried me before but I will stop her this time but not until I reach my goal weight. I move out of the house. Luke is getting out of my way, just like Josh. I don't know about Niall. He didn't text me yesterday but he promised. Maybe he re-thought and realalized that it would ruin his image to text with a fat loser. The sky is covered in thick gray clouds today. It's probably going to rain later. The hoodie I'm wearing is dark blue with small black letters on the chest area: Fuck racism. Luke bought it for me the time he was in New York for a football game. I love this hoodie.

Suddenly I feel someone yank on my ponytail. I fall backwards. My head hits the ground and my sight gets blurry. I see Miranda standing over me. She bends down and rips me up on my feet with my hair. Tears brim at the edge of my eye. I cried a lot yesterday.

"I told you to leave your fingers off of him, didn't I?", she hisses.

I look past her and see Niall staring at us. Him and Sam watch everything. Sam said he'd help me whenever I needed him and now I need him. Miranda slaps me. She lets go of my hair. She pushes me down and leaves me laying on the floor. My sight is blurry from tears. I see a blurry Niall walk away from the scenery with Miranda by his side. Traitor.

*****

I lay down on the roof. Niall should come here. He knows I'm here when I'm sad and that is of course now because of the thing with Miranda and because he walked off without helping or looking after me.

It's sad enough that you need someone else, a third person, to say how skinny you are. Trust me, you are absolutly wrong because you look really fat.

It's 4 pm and I texted my parents that I'm staying out after school because of a "project". I take my phone out and look through my Instagram-Feed. It's filled with anorexic girls.

That's how we want to look like, isn't it, Alex?

I open my account and see the picture I posted yesterday. I take a picture of my legs and feet and the trees in the backround and put a black and white filter on it, as usual.

"Nobody dies a virgin, life fucks us all."
-> I hate them all.

I post it and lock my phone. It's pretty old but I don't need more than this. Even if I wanted one, my parents would be too poor to buy me one. Josh and I talked everything out at lunch today and we're okay again. Luke and I didn't talk until now. He's just ignoring me. I don't care. He should come to me whenever he's ready to tell me everything.

"Alex?", I hear someone asks.

I take my earphones out and turn Sex on fire off. This song makes me kinda happy. I sit up and turn to my right. Niall sits there. He has his face burried in his hands.

"Yeah?", I ask quietly.

He turns his head towards me.

"I'm sorry", he says.

He lays his hand in the back of my neck and pulls my face closer to his. He gives me a quick peck to my head. I push him away slightly with both of my hands.

He just felt how fat you are.

I turn my body to him, so I look directly at him. I give him a confussed look. Mainly because he kissed me and secondly because said he's sorry.

"I'm sorry for not helping you but it's I'm popular and you're...", he starts.

"A loser. A nerd. A fat whore. A nobody. A wannabe", I tell him.

He looks at me pretty shocked and then turns his body to me.

"How could you say that?"

"It's the truth", I exclaim.

It's very true. Believe it or not.

"What the heck? No! You're not fat and your certainly not a loser and defenitly not a whore!", he tells me.

Well, you're wrong Niall. Only I am right. Only I can help Alex become beautiful.

I shrug and pull my phone out. I open my photos and then my folder with screenshots. There are only hate comments. I used them to remind me of what other people thought of me when Ana was still present with me. Niall takes my phone from my hand. He reads some of the comments. His head constantly shakes in disaproval. I take my phone back and see him looking at me with sad eyes.

"You're nothing they say. If I could tell you what other people I know say about you, you'd not be anorexic. They tell me that they think you're beautiful, even with a few pounds more, they'd still like you. Sam told me he really thinks you're pretty. Miranda is jealous of you. She want to be just as skinny and beautiful as you. I can show you the proof."

Alex, you're not anorexic. You're on a diet. What is he talking about?

He gets out his phone and shows me his texts with Miranda. It's true but why do they hate on me? It's so unnecessary.

"But I just can't stop relapsing when I try. I see the pictures of me when I was fat when I was younger. It's just so bad."

You're still fat, so why even think back to the old photos? Just look in the mirror.

Why am I telling him this? I can trust him. He's going to keep it secret. I know it.

"Then hang off the pictures and hang up some of flowers or something. Flowers are beautiful", he says quite confussed.

"I'm on a diet, Niall. That's all. I am not sick. I am just on a diet because I think I could live healthier with a few pounds less."

"But I don't think you're okay", he says, "Your skinnier than ever and it scares me. You were the happiest girl in our Math class and three years ago it all started to crush."

I nod and turn my head away from him. He lays his hand on my knee. I push it off. Body contact isn't something I need now. All I need is someone to talk to me and help me with my life.

"My sister had anorexia, Alex", Niall starts.

"You have a sister?", I ask.

"Had."

Oh shit.

"I'm so sorry for your loss", I tell him.

"It's okay. Let me just tell you about her. So, she was three years older than me and she had anorexia. She did eat but when we didn't look, she purged everything out. Her body was getting really boney and only skin. It was horrible. Some day I woke up and walked into our shared bathroom and found her half-nacked body laying on the floor. She was so skinny. We called an ambulance. Two days later she died in the hospital. She died from undernutrition. I would never forgive myself, if you died from anorexia and I knew about it and didn't help you."

I am not anorexic. I am just on a diet. No one needs to help me. I am perfectly fine. But what if Ana is back?