Away!

Chapter 62

Tris
I pull my jacket closer around me. My fingers tremble and I feel cold. I still finish my laps. I don't want to stop now. I keep on going and going and going. I want to be strong and most of the times I manage to be strong. No one knows how I feel, I don't even know how I feel. I feel somewhat foolish. All these things happened to me and the one thing I can't bare with is a boy leaving me. Where is the logic? I don't see it. I don't know how to bring logic into my life anymore anyways. I try to tell myself that what I am doing can't be healthy but I just can't stop. I keep pulling myself down. Deeper and deeper and I don't want that. I really don't. I run even faster and then arrive at the house panting a few minutes later. When I open the door everyone is waiting for me at the dinner table. „Sorry guys." i quickly say. „I decided to take the long route. You can start, I'll just go and take a shower."
Mar nods and eyes me worriedly, I think I can expect one of her visits in my room now.
On the way I up I empty a water bottle I just grabbed from the floor. I don't even feel hungry right now. I take a quick shower and throw on some comfy clothes before i walk back down again.
The food is already on the table now. I quickly sit next to Lynn and Shauna starts giving out the food. „Not so much for me." i say and try a smile. „I don't feel so good." Shauna nods but still puts quite a lot of food on my plate. Oh well...
the others start talking about this and that while I drift into my own world. I go through the things I learned at Uni today in my head.
„Tris!" Chris's yell wakes me up from my trance. „What? Oh sorry. I drifted off. What were you saying?"
Out of the corner of my eye I can see Mar raising her eyebrow at Uri. „I am fine guys." Zeke frowns. „Are you sure though?"
I groan. „I am grown up to decide that for myself I think..." I jump up and turn to leave. „You have to eat!" Shauna yells. „You can eat my ass!" I yell back and storm upstairs. I bang open my door. „I don't need that! I can take care of my own. I don't need them! I throw myself on my bed. What is their problem? I am okay. I am okay! I know I am. I would know if something was wrong with me... I mean I did loose some weight but other than that nothing is wrong. They should be happy... I could be doing drugs or something like that...
I look down on me. I am still  in a healthy range of weight. I am. I am.
I climb down from my bed and walk over to my mirror. I look at my reflection. Somehow I can't really see myself. I see a stranger although I know that it must be me. Or parallel universes exists and I am staring at another me. A version of me that is sickly pale, that is as thin as a stick, whose cheekbones point outwards and whose cheeks are hollow. I shake my head. That can't be me.
The sad eyes stare back at me, taunting me for how stupid I am. Can't even recognize yourself in the mirror. Of course it's you. You are broken, lost. The voice telling me this isn't unfriendly, it's the real me. But how can I stop it? What can I do? I let my head hang, I can't do anything. I am nothing. I can't even control my own body, my own thoughts. My body is closing around me, not more than just a prison of flesh that restrains me. We are helpless against our own mind. If our body gives up, we can train and try to become healthy again, and sometimes, sometimes, it works, but from our minds we can't flee, we can't shut off our brain. Even when we are sleeping we still think. Who knows? Maybe there even is some sort of thinking after death... How are we supposed to tell? A version of thinking we can't imagine, something, like our thinking, that we can't control. It's all about control. All about what you do with your body. Death can be peaceful but you can't just think of yourself and death. You have to think of yourself and death and your family, your friends, the ones you love and the ones that love you. If your own life doesn't have any worth you keep on living for the ones you love until, some day, maybe you are living for yourself again.
I sink back on to my bed and burry my head in my hands. My mind is racing, i can't turn it off. Pictures of him pierce my mind and with that my heart, my being. I open my mind to a silent cry and feel all those feelings wreck my heart. It clenches and I feel suffocated. I press one hand to my chest and let myself fall backwards. I crawl under my blanket, like a wounded animal. Pain makes the animal part of us show. I press a pillow to my chest and silently cry into it. I am done with this. I don't want this anymore. None of this.
Suddenly I feel a hand on my back. „Tris..." A quite voice says. It's Chris. I don't want to talk right now. I just want to lay here. All alone. Die alone.
„I know you are hurting. I get it." I shake my head. „No you don't." My voice is muffled by the pillow and the blanket. She is quiet for a few seconds and then says, „No, I guess no one from us does. I mean after all we are still with the ones we love and Lynn... well she is Lynn." I nod. „You all keep saying I have to keep strong and that it will go away, but what if it doesn't? What if there will forever be this hole in my heart? I don't think I could survive that..." „you know... you study medicine. Why not use that knowledge on yourself? If there is a sickness that someone has and you know that with a 100% possibility it will go away, but it will take a longer time. At some point when this person takes its medicine and nothing changes he wonders why, he will come to talk to you and you are going to tell him that it needs time. That he has to be patient. So you have to follow my advice now. Be patient. Not every medicine works immediately. Give yourself time to heal."
I stare at her and let my mind roam around the things she said. She is right... I know she is, but it's just so hard. So hard to understand it.
I sigh and lay my head against her shoulder. „Thanks, i needed that. I guess you are right. I need more time. But what am I supposed to do while I use that time? I can't just let the sorrow eat me from inside."
She nods and squeezes my shoulder. „Honestly, I think you are doing quiet well... you can throw yourself into your work and into sports as well, but just... stay healthy." she gives me a meaningful look and I nod. She knows that I struggled with the beginnings of an eating disorder a few years ago.
„And now come and eat. We left you something." she takes my hand in hers and pulls me from my bed. I wipe my eyes and then follow her.
Chris is right.
I can't let this ruin me forever.
I can heal.
I will heal.