The Bikini Syndrome | WATTYS2019

» thirty-nine: a change in the tide

During the next meeting with Dr. Inho, Holly kept trying to muster the courage to tell her about her real feelings, her real situation.

I feel guilty and resentful.

I think I might be bulimic, but I don't know.

I'm tired and sad and guilty and jealous.

I want to feel normal again. I want to be normal again.

But Holly had become far too good over the last few months at bottling everything in. And the problem with that, she realized, was that now it was impossible to let anything out. It was like she'd locked all the secrets inside her throat, and somehow forgotten where she'd put the key.

The words wouldn't come out no matter how much Holly internally practiced saying them.

"How are you feeling lately?" Dr. Inho was saying.

"Fine," Outer Holly said.

No, I'm not! I think I need help, screamed Inner Holly.

"Are the medications I'm giving you helpful? Are the nightmares persisting?"

"They're okay. I only have nightmares sometimes."

At least part of that statement was the truth.

Except, all your pills are going down the toilet. As are the contents of my stomach.

"What kind of nightmares do you have?"

At this, both Inner Holly and Outer Holly went silent. Neither wanted to talk about them. It was bad enough that she experienced them every night. Reliving them in the daytime was the last thing she wanted to do.

"Okay," Dr. Inho said, changing tack. "We don't have to talk about them. But can you do something for me? Can you maybe keep a journal of notepad by your bedside and write down a few words every morning describing your nightmares or how you feel during and after them? You don't have to be super detailed. Just one or two words is fine too. Sometimes, it's easier to write about things than talk about them. Vocalizing something seems to make it feel more real, and far more scary."

Holly nodded. She could do that. Writing it down didn't seem so bad.

Dr. Inho smiled. "So just bring that with you when we meet next time. What about school? How's that going?"

"Good," Outer Holly said.

I only fainted once, Inner Holly added.

"And the court case?"

"I don't really know. The lawyers handle a lot of that."

That was the truth. Holly didn't know what she was expecting when she pressed charges, but she had thought it would something more Judge Judy-esque. In reality, a lot of the legal proceedings took place in stuffy offices with her parents, their lawyer, and a bunch of legal documents. She didn't ever see a judge or jury or an audience.

"What kind of outcome are you hoping for?"

"I hope...that justice is served," Holly said. Then she felt embarrassed. She sounded like a five year old. "I don't meant I want him to go to jail or anything like that, and I'm not expecting Superman to come down from the sky and zap him or anything. I just hope that he won't be able to do anything else to other girls. I hope that he'll be able to understand, if just a little, what he's done to me and other girls, and won't do anything like that ever again."

Dr. Inho nodded, looking pleased. "That's a very mature standpoint. I think you're justified in wanting to seek justice, but I'm also glad to see that you're able to give him that second chance."

Holly started. She hadn't thought about what she'd said that way.

"Is that bad? Shouldn't I be wanting revenge or something?" Holly blurted out. Back came the guilt, like a tsunami of emotion rushing at her heart.

"No, no, it's not. Think about it this way: it means you're kind, and are able to recognize that he is human, and has made mistakes. And you believe that he can change for the better."

Or it just means I'm weak, Inner Holly thought angrily.

As if reading her mind, Dr. Inho put down her clipboard and said simply, "You have every right to feel angry at him. You also have every right to want him punished, because what happened wasn't your fault. But you have to be careful not to let those feelings control you, or what you do. Before you know it, you'll trap yourself in those feelings, and instead of making you feel better, they'll make you feel worse. You'll start blaming and resenting yourself, and that's when he's actually violated you."

Before Holly knew it, her eyes were watering and her vision had gotten blurry. It was like she'd been waiting for those words, without even knowing it. When someone understood you, they freed you from the burdens of your own mind, Holly realized.

If she'd known it was this easy, she wouldn't have pretended for so long.

Everything she'd been wanting to say suddenly spilled out of her, jumbled and in pieces.

"I saw Rohan two nights ago. And there were these girls. I was trying to help them, but one of them called me an anorexic freak. But she's wrong, because I'm not anorexic. But I think I do have a problem. I mean, I've lost a lot of weight recently, so maybe she was commenting on that, but still, that's so rude! I mean, sometimes I throw up. But I'm really careful, and I don't do it a lot. Just enough that I don't get fatter. Because I was fat before. That's why I was so easily tricked. I was fat and weak. And now I'm all better. I was even able to stand up to Rohan."

This babble continued for a bit, until Holly realized she probably wasn't making sense, and decided to shut up.

Dr. Inho has been writing furiously on her clipboard, but she stopped when Holly did.

"How did you feel when you saw Rohan?" she asked carefully.

"I was a little scared at first. But I was also angry and tired of feeling the way I did."

"And what was that?"

"Like I was some of crazy fraud who was jealous and resentful of her friends. I was also tired of being scared all the time, and just...hating myself all the time."

It wasn't until Holly said the words aloud that she realized those were her real feelings. In her own mind, she'd never been able to pinpoint her emotions precisely or slap labels onto them. It was just a jumbled mess of feelings.

But it was true.

She had hated herself.

She thought back to that conversation with Sadie on the beach months ago, when the gorgeous blonde had said something about learning to love yourself before you could love others.

It hadn't made much sense at the moment, because Holly hadn't thought much of her lack of self-confidence. But the encounter with Rohan had let her low self-esteem fester until it became self-hate.

"Do you still feel that way?" Dr. Inho gently prompted.

Holly remained silent for a long while. "I don't know," she finally said. "But I want to change that. I'm tired of living the way I have."