Chapter Text
I haven’t been able to look at myself in the mirror since I tried to kill myself.
I’m different. I’m not the me I was before. I was strong. Confident. I didn’t give a fuck what people said to me; I kept my skin tough, presenting myself like someone with a heart of stone.
It isn’t the same when the whole town knows your weakness now. I’m weak. I’m a baby. I’m attention seeking. I’m fucking fake.
Yet Thomas stayed by my side.
His fingers stayed gentle against my skin when he touched me. Careful hands lifting my shirt up over my shoulders to help take off the binder that pressed my chest down tight, compressing for hours until it hurt.
He hadn’t smiled since I got back from the hospital, I noticed.
He was always gentle. When I was at my lowest, he helped wash my hair. Wash my back. His eyes stayed caring as they scanned my scarred body, a finger tracing the thick, raised mark bolting across my upper arm like lightning. I always flinched at his touches. I felt… insecure. Scared of myself. Scared of showing my body, being vulnerable to the shame of living in a body like my own. Yet… he barely batted an eye.
He saw me bare, yet he stayed.
He took care of me in my relapses. My darkest moments, so stupid and disgusting.
Why would he ever choose that path?
I looked in a mirror recently. In his bathroom. I stayed at his house for a couple days. It had been a few weeks since I was released from the hospital… I just- I couldn’t wait anymore. The curiosity of myself was eating me from the inside until it hurt. Thomas had kept me from seeing myself until now- but he knew I’d see eventually. He knew I’d see the marks etched into my thighs, my stomach, the stupid fat scars on the inside of my wrists that sunk deep and thick into my skin.
I look disgusting.