Chapter 234 : Judgment

“I was admitted to Apple gate house at the age 16 and put directly on bed rest.  I was put into room three, it’s now known as dream. I was admitted because my weight had dropped to 64lbs and my organs were beginning to shut down. I had infections in my hip bones where clothes rubbed the skin away and about forty odd stitches in my arms that I added to nearly every day. I was going to die; hell back then I wanted to die.

 It sounded so impossible, just an insane idea that Esmee had been as anorexic as to claim a place in the same room where I now lived. It seemed so wrong to think of her opening her own skin to feed an addiction of blood. Esmee deserved better and should have had it. At sixteen she should have been prom queen with handsome boys falling at her feet. She should have got all A’s and won at her chosen sport as her proud parents watched her with tissues in their pockets. She should have left school with all her GCSE’s and got the job of her dreams before Emmet had come riding on the back of a white horse and stole her heart as they rode into the sunset happily ever after.

 “You say that you can’t get better, I’m just trying to show you that you can,” Esmee said softly as my eyes stared out into the black sea my body hurting for her. I wanted to change what happened, fix it so she had never hurt.

 “Are you scarred?” The question left my lips before I had time to pull it back in, but for some reason it mattered. Esmee had never worn short sleeves all through the summer and I had always just assumed that underneath those sleeves, healthy pale skin covered her arms but was she hiding something bigger? Did they look like a map of lost battles?  Did they look like mine?

 “You think I like wearing sleeves that hook over my thumbs in the middle of summer?”

 I felt for her arm under the blanket and traced my fingers over the fabric pressing down concentrating on the skin underneath and sure enough the bumps and pits where there. Not the smooth perfect skin like she should have had but Scar tissue. Numb white patches of skin starved of feelings and color. Her arms where nothing like the glorious bright and determined women I had always seen her as, my Esmee didn’t cut to survive. She just did.

 

“I can feel them through your Jumper,” I confirmed swallowing heard as a pain stabbed me somewhere in the stomach. I wanted a reason why she would do this. I wanted to ask her, but inside I knew in reality there was never a reason for self-harm. She like me just had too and there was nothing else to say about it, however she must have been in pain - Intolerable pain. My body stiffened as my tummy gave a warning sign that it was about to reject whatever was inside of it. I could live with Esmee’s scars, but not with her pain.

“It’s all right Mi. I’m not like I used to be.”

 

“You don’t do it anymore?”


Esmee went silent for a few minutes as she stared out over the waves and tried to work out weather to tell me the truth or to lie. Her silence in reality said it all. She wouldn’t have hesitated to tell me if she had stopped.

 “I try really hard not to and …” Esmee stopped again a sigh escaping from her lips as she pulled herself closer to me and took one of my hands in both of hers under the blankets. “I was going to lie to you then, I was going to tell you that I was fine, but you deserve more than that. I honestly went nearly three years without hurting myself, but, the day we took you out for your birthday, I cut myself that night and to be even more honest there were times in those three years where I nearly gave in as well.”  

 

I had almost wished she had lied. It was a terrible thing to think but it was true. It wasn’t for my benefit that my whole body prayed that she had stopped it was for her. I knew that the cuts on her where nothing to what happened to you from the inside out when the fever set in. I knew exactly what then need to cut was like and I had never once fort not to do it. I know what it was like to have your body stuck somewhere twisted halfway between being dead and being alive. To have ghosts in your lungs and too much blood to fit in your over spilling veins. To think of Esmee experiencing just half of that torture made my body go cold all over.

 

“You should take me back now Esmee, you should take me back to the unit and you should go home.”  I finally confirmed to her after I found no comforting words to say. She was not meant to feel pain and I sure as hell couldn’t make it any better. I got to my feet and started running away from her in the opposite direction from her car even though I told her to take me home. The unit wasn’t really where I wanted to be. The moon lit sea was calling me to play with it. If I swam for a while, in the end I could swim for eternity. Maybe if I even tried hard enough I could take Esmee’s torture with me too.

 

“Mi where are you going, the cars the other way and you know that.” Esmee called behind me sighing deeply and for a moment I considered stopping but still the waves called…

 

“Mi please don’t make me chase you down. I will if I have to but I don’t want to,” Esmee called again.  A big part of me wanted to stop. Her voice was almost as sweet sounding as the crashing waves but I wasn’t sure if I did go back how I was going to look into her eyes and not see torture in them.

 Esmee caught up to me without much trouble after a few more seconds of running and hooked her arms around mine holding me still. I didn’t fight against her. Out of the sea or her I hadn’t really cared who won the fight I just couldn’t stay where I was.

 

“I understand why I’m not meant to tell patients a little more clearly now. They will judge you as well as the rest of the world.”