It is six-thirty. I am six years old. Mummy is leaning against a wall in my room, her hair is taken up in a bun and so she can’t quite lean back on the wall, she keeps leaning back then forwards again. It’s making me worried. Daddy’s on the phone to a doctor.
I was running in the garden I slipped near to the patio. I must have hit my head because Daddy put a bag of peas over my eye and told me to go and lie down. Everything was covered in stars for a bit and now I can’t see out of one of my eyes.
Daddy says I’m fine, but I’m going to have a bruise on my eye, and it’s probably going to hurt a little bit for a week or so, I asked if that meant I had to take a bag of peas to school every day, Daddy said that I didn’t have to.
Mummy is whispering something to Daddy again. She’s angry with me; she thinks I did it on purpose. I would cry, but I think my eye hurts enough.
System A
Sophie Mandi Max Gwen Mercy Erin AVA Tracey Bridget My Isaac
It is two thirty. I am ten years old. I really don’t understand what’s happening in science at the minute. We are learning about insects, digging holes in the grass, putting a little cup, with a splash of something alcoholic at the bottom. The next morning, we are told, the cup will have some bugs in it. We’ve been told not to worry if some of those bugs are dead. I don’t think anyone of us would worry if all of the bugs were dead and I know some of the boys in my class would happily kill any that survived. I poured out the alcohol onto the grass, I hope that this means I don’t have to kill any of them. Why should we be able to kill bugs just because we want to look at them. It doesn’t work that way with people, and I don’t think it ever did. With people, we have to wait until they die before we start to look at how they work on the inside.
When Mum was ill they said that she was ill, in the same way that I can get a cold, but that she was ill on the inside. I wonder if when someone cuts open my Mum head, after she’s finished living, I wonder if they could find the broken part, learn how it works and then maybe fix me. I doubt it works that well, but, I still wish it did.
System A
Sophie Mandi Max Gwen Mercy Erin AVA Tracey Bridget My Isaac
It is five minutes past one. I am fourteen years old. The temptation to not eat today was pretty strong. I’d taken to drinking hot drinks in the school lunch break instead of going to lunch, so this was one of the first things I cut out of my life. This went along with diet fizzy drinks, rice cakes, skimmed milk.
It’s harder than I first thought it would be. I still have to weigh myself every morning- I’m not ready to lose that yet. Still it doesn’t feel good to look at the scales and see a number which is steadily increasing. It feels like falling.
I do, however, feel slightly happier in myself. I’m not as sharp as I used to be, I don’t have the same extremes of sense that not eating gave me but I have energy. I have some sort of purpose to relate to food too. I’m terrified I’m going to over do it, that I’m going to get huge again. I think I can try to make this normal again.
The main thing I’m noticing though is that now I am making myself eat, now I can do that without crying, the need to hurt myself in a different way has come back. I want to physically be in pain too. I didn’t realise that in not eating I also stopped cutting myself and now I recognise that I know that it’s going to come back into my life, and I suppose that due to the time span, it’s going to be pretty bad. It’s going to be hard to quit both. Eventually Sam will need me better. He wants a thin girl, not an emaciated one. He wants a girl with smooth skin, I can’t be her, but at least I can give the scars a chance to fade.
Maybe he only likes me when someone else is hurting me. God, it’s so hard to tell what he needs some of the time. I’d do all of it, I’d do anything. If I ever had him though, the hellish nature of this would be intensified; the fear of losing him would be so great. I don’t even really want to think about that.
I wonder if this is how my mother thinks.
System A
Sophie Mandi Max Gwen Mercy Erin AVA Tracey Bridget My Isaac
It is six thirty. I am sixteen years old. The dreams continued through the rest of the night. I had odd, confusing dreams. None of which were as haunting as the piece of paper though.
In one dream I injected myself over and over with a tiny needle, until I lost all movement and feeling in my arms and legs. In another I was with a boy, one created by the restless night-side of my brain. He leant over me, told me he loved me. Then I heard music, a guitar, one note played repeating itself. I left the boy and followed the note only to find David sitting cross-legged on the floor, his hands in his lap. He glanced up at me but didn’t say a word.
I don’t believe that dreams ‘mean’ anything as such but I know that won’t stop me from thinking about them all day. I feel betrayed by my mind. I want to know why I didn’t dream of Sam, what the note said, why I am still afraid this morning. I can only assume that I am going mad. That these twisting alleys in my dreams are displaying the real me, unclear for the whole world to see.
I run my hands through my hair and try to clear my head. I have to be ready for the day, no matter what the night chooses the throw in my face. I have to be strong.
I shiver slightly. Sam. David. Who am I going to betray? Who am I going to class as less important? Who am I going to regret and who am I going to lie to? How the hell can I chose something like this?
System A
Sophie Mandi Max Gwen Mercy Erin AVA Tracey Bridget My Isaac
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