‘She likes writing, and taking photographs.’
‘Ok!’ Tiff runs from the table and over to Oliver’s bed, which has now been screened off by a wooden room separator.
‘Tiff you can’t leave your dinner.’ Amanda calls after her; Tiff runs back over to the table, picks up the plate of food, and takes it back over to the bed with her.
‘Sorry.’ Oliver smiles sheepishly.
‘That’s ok.’ Amanda sighs, ‘This girl, how old is she?’
‘Eighteen.’
‘She was bullied at school?
‘Yeah extensively, honestly Amanda some of the things that they did to her – and she didn’t have a safe place to hide from it, the bullying followed her into her home.’
‘What you mean her parents?’ Amanda’s eyes widen.
‘No, I mean they had a role I suppose, but mainly just that they weren’t there for her, but they didn’t ever bully her. They never set out to hurt her.’ He sighs deeply thinking of River’s relationship with her parents, which although it wasn’t terrible, could have been a lot better. ‘No, I meant that the bullying from school followed her home.’
‘Do you mean Cyberbullying?’
‘Yeah, she was receiving hundreds of emails each week.’
‘Poor kid,’
‘I still can’t handle some of the stuff they did to her,’ Oliver forces himself to continue, even though his eyes are welling up, and he hates to let his sister see him to vulnerable, ‘it was just terrible.’
‘Like what?’
‘I can’t.’ He shakes his head, ‘She told me all of it in confidence, and I won’t betray that.’
‘But she won’t ever know you’ve told me.’ Amanda replies.
‘That doesn’t matter, I’ll know.’ Oliver replies, ‘I promised her I’d keep it to myself, so that’s what I’ll do.’
‘Ok.’ Amanda nods knowing not to push it, ‘Do you think it’s helping her? Spending time with you I mean.’
‘Yeah I really do, at first I wasn’t so sure it was making a difference, but now I can see that it is, she’s starting to heal.’
‘Ok then, just promise me you won’t get too close. I know you have a big heart, and you like to save people, but there are lines that can’t be crossed, and sometimes your goodness can blur those lines, so just – promise you won’t get too close.’
‘I won’t.’ He promises, thought he isn’t sure anymore what too close is, and if he’s already crossed the line.
Chapter Eleven
Letter 6
I think this is probably the part of the story you’ve been waiting for, because however much I try to deny it, I know that how I look speaks loudly about how things ended, about a part of the story I’ve been scared to write, but I can’t avoid it any longer, I have to get it out because this is where it started, and I feel like I can tell you now.
It wasn’t intentional or pre-planned, it wasn’t something that I thought about for a long time, and you might think that I did plan it, but I didn’t. I didn’t just wake up one morning and decide I wasn’t going to eat; there was nothing sudden about it. I think more than anything it was gradual, I know that it’s true to say that I wanted to lose weight, my exercise and my need to make my mother proud, is I think enough evidence of that fact. I would look at myself in the mirror and feel disgusted with myself, all I could see as I looked was rolls of fat, and I realize now that it was just my mind playing tricks on me, and I’d like to reassure you, because I know you’ll be worried, that even though I still have issues with food, I don’t see myself that way anymore. I can finally see myself how I really am, too skinny with bones poking through my skin. I’m mixed in how I feel about that, I don’t think it’s entirely a good thing that I see myself that way now, because even though I hated how I looked when I thought I was fat, nothing much has changed, the image I see of myself has changed sure, but how I feel about myself has remained firmly in place, because now that I can see how I really look, now I see what I’ve done to myself, I am almost more disgusted with myself than before.
Anyway like I was saying, it wasn’t intentional. After what happened at the dance I withdrew from everyone, I was already hugely cut off from those around me, but now I took it to the next level. I didn’t really have many people who would have noticed, but I stopped talking. Not entirely, not at first, I still spoke a little bit of course, when I had to but for the most part I stayed silent, I didn’t want anyone to see how far I was falling, and so I stayed away from them, choosing to avoid any human contact. Nobody around me asked me any questions about my sudden withdrawal, so it turned out it was incredibly easy to slip into silence.
It wasn’t just speaking that I stopped though; I also stopped eating at home. I couldn’t stand to sit there at the silent dinner table, because my mother had become angry at me again, mostly because I was refusing to tell her about the dance, she thought I was withholding the details of my nice night, to punish her for changing my grades, so she decided not to reward that kind of behavior, by freezing me out as well. She was even angrier that I had ruined my dress by sitting in the shower for hours, until the specially dyed fabric ran and became faded, and if that wasn’t enough I had dyed my hair bright red. I wasn’t the daughter she wanted, she couldn’t understand what was going on with me and instead of asking me if I was ok she chose to believe I was just acting out to get back at her.
I realize that I could have tried to tell her, I could have told her or my dad that I needed help, but admitting that you’re unable to cope isn’t easy, especially in my family. I would have needed to admit I was falling apart, admit to them that I couldn’t cope, and my mother had already decided I couldn’t cope with school, what would her response be if I told her that wasn’t all I was failing at. It was easier to just stop talking, but in doing so it made dinners at my house impossible, so I didn’t ever eat at home.
I remember that I used to feel so angry, because there were so many glaringly obvious signs that I wasn’t ok, and yet neither of my parents asked me if I needed help. They sat in their own bubble and pretended nothing had changed, that we were still a perfectly functioning family. I couldn’t sit there at the table and have them ignore me like that. So I took the easy option, and removed myself from the situation.
At school things had become much worse after the dance, it seemed like Jasper’s efforts to humiliate me, had renewed peoples interest in tearing me down. I was constantly being laughed at, stared at or shouted at in the halls, there was no safe place for me in that building. I couldn’t handle it anymore, each comment made me pull a little further away, so I stopped eating at school, in fact most days I didn’t turn up to school at all, I’d just wander round the city, exploring until I ached all over from walking. I would go to the pond in the park and try to escape my thoughts, or I would ride around on the subway for hour after hour. I’d do anything to avoid going home, and anything to avoid going to school.
While I was out in the city I didn’t think about eating, it didn’t even occur to me to stop and eat something, I just kept myself constantly moving, constantly busy, only stopping when I was at the pond, that was the only place I could be still, the only place I allowed myself to relax. I think that my mind knew I needed that one safe space, or I’d lose myself entirely, so I had that one spot where I could almost forget, almost.
I thought, well maybe I didn’t really think, but I certainly hoped that once I was out of school, because I really only went every now and then after the dance, just when I knew there was a test or something, just one or two sporadic days when my parents received calls, from concerned teachers or the irate new principal, other than that I wasn’t in school at all, so I’d hoped that people would forget about me, give up on me, but somehow even in my absence they wanted to torment me. The messages kept coming daily, more of them than before, and I still couldn’t stop myself looking at them, even though it would have been so easy to just change my email address, get a new phone number, and switch s
chools. If I’d done that I may have been able to pull myself back up a bit, get back to some semblance of normal, but I didn’t do any of the sensible things. Instead I took my phone with me everywhere I went, flinching as a new text or email arrived, then reading them over and over, like I had some sick need, because that’s what it was really, I didn’t want to read them, but I found myself needing to read them, needing to know what was being written. I couldn’t handle the thought of this stuff being out there, those words flying through the air about me, people forming these opinions of me, and me being the only one who didn’t know what was being said, that was something I couldn’t handle. I rationalized it, telling myself I needed to be prepared in case I ran into a kid from school, I told myself I couldn’t be out of the loop. In truth it just became too hard to look away, like when you’re driving and you see a car crash, some morbid fascination sets in and you just have to look, it was like that with me, I just had to look.
Everything was spiraling out of my control, I thought that leaving school would be a way of controlling the messages, but it wasn’t, the saying out of sight out of mind had never been more wrong, and then it hit me one day, I was walking down the street and suddenly spotted a street vendor, trying to sell hotdogs to the passers-by, I just stopped moving in the middle of the crowd, people around me were not pleased by that, they started bumping into me and getting annoyed, telling me to move and shoving me aside, but I didn’t move, I couldn’t, because it was at that moment when I suddenly realized that I hadn’t eaten a meal in over a week. I’d been drinking lemon water and cucumber water at the gym, I’d had a few pieces of fruit each day, but other than those tiny amounts of sustenance, I’d had nothing to eat, and as I realized this I just knew I could finally control something, it just clicked for me. To me it felt better than just being able to control something, because as I looked at my reflection in the window of a nearby store, I figured out that I could control the way I looked, I could shrink into invisibility, and the thought was more than a little appealing to me.
Over the next few days I developed a mantra that I would repeat to myself. Don’t eat that, don’t eat that, don’t eat that either, I remember pacing up and down over and over again, whispering the words over and over, whenever I felt like I needed to eat something, it was like I was testing myself, testing if I could have the will power to stay away from food, it was stupid.
Whenever I felt like I really couldn’t go without food any longer, I would grab an apple or a carrot, something small and healthy with only a few calories, it was my new goal to eat just enough, enough to keep me going, enough to stop me from collapsing, enough to trick myself into believing I was in control. I wasn’t though was I? I didn’t have one little bit of control over myself.
I feel stupid wondering this, but as I was writing the above just now, I couldn’t help but wonder, are you proud of me? That I can now admit that I wasn’t in control back then, are you proud that I can admit that I was so stupid doing what I was doing, and that I really do want to work on getting better. I’m still not entirely sure if I understand why, but I really want to make you proud of me. I guess it’s something that most people want, someone to be proud of them, for me it’s you, because you matter, what you think of me matters.
Is that weird? It’s probably weird right? I’m sorry if it’s weird for you to read that, please tell me if it’s too weird, or if I’m crossing some line or something.
Still I can’t take it back now, or at least I could technically take it back, because it’s a letter, paper and ink, I could scribble out that part, I could tear this up and write it fresh, take out all the stuff that makes me look foolish. Here’s the thing though, I’ve never done that in any of my letters to you. I know you probably think that I would have rewritten some of these letters, struggled over what to tell you and what to hold back, debated over the wording of my story, leaving it for a few days to consider every part of it, then going back over it with a scrutinizing eye, but I don’t.
I want to make sure that you know how I write these, because I feel like it’s important. I haven’t even struggled over what to tell you, I write these letters in one sitting, always, I’ve never taken time out to rethink any of it. I don’t struggle about what to write, somehow I just know exactly what to put down on the paper, and I don’t ever worry about you judging me, because I know that you wouldn’t ever do that. What I tell is always the whole story, and I have never taken any of it back, I have never wanted to rewrite any section of these letters. I don’t ever feel like I have to, because I know that I can trust you with the truth. I like feeling like I can be completely honest with you. I want you to know me; I want you to understand me.
I guess what I’m saying, what I’ve been trying to say for a while, but haven’t been able to say out loud, I think it’s easier to write it down, so here it is.
I want your help.
Chapter Twelve
Session 6
Oliver is feeling incredibly anxious as he walks the busy halls, with River’s treasured notebook in one hand, and his niece happily holding onto his other hand. He wasn’t sure how River was going to react to him bringing Tiff with him, because he hadn’t been able to check with her first, and now that left him worrying that River would start panicking, as she so often did around new people. The only thing that was keeping him from worrying too much was the fact that Tiff was just a kid, so there was a chance that River would be ok around her. Still there was a niggling worry he couldn’t shift.
‘Tiff, just remember that she’s not very well ok, so don’t be too – overactive ok?’ He looks down at his niece, who is contentedly ignoring him as she swings the present she’d made for River in her hand.
Through his nerves Oliver smiles down at Tiff, he can’t help but smile as she continues to ignore him. They round the corner and he pauses just briefly, before opening the door and entering River’s room, holding his breath slightly.
River is up out of her bed and pacing the floor, his heart plunges, she’s already feeling anxious about something. Another quick scan of the situation, and he can see the letter she is clutching in her hand. At first his only emotion is shock, he hadn’t expected another letter yet, he’d only received one the day before, and he hadn’t ever been given two in a row before. The shock quickly fades as she turns around, her pale face looking concerned and her hands shaking a bit.
‘I need you to read this; I think well it explains a lot.’ River hands him the letter, and it’s only then that she notices Tiff. ‘Who’s this?’ River takes a small step backwards, her eyes going between Oliver and the little girl.
‘I’m Tiffany but everyone calls me Tiff, Oliver is my silly uncle.’
‘Your silly uncle, what makes him silly?’ River forces the words out, but she takes another small step back.
‘Well my uncle Tim doesn’t like to play games with me, he doesn’t like to dress up or anything fun like that, but Uncle Oliver does, he even wears my butterfly wings, they’re pink and have glitter.’
‘Wow, that’s cute.’ River smiles slightly at Oliver, who is looking embarrassed, shaking his head slowly, ‘Oliver can I talk to you?’
‘Yeah,’ He nods. ‘Tiff we’ll just be in the hall ok, wait here.’
‘Ok Uncle Oliver.’ Tiff twirls around then scrambles up onto the bed, as River and Oliver step out into the hall; they stop just outside the door, River folding her arms over her chest.
‘Look I’m sorry about bringing her; my sister didn’t have anyone to watch her.’ Oliver whispers, not wanting to be overheard by anyone.
‘Why didn’t you tell me she was coming, you should have warned me – I don’t like being surprised by visitors, I thought it was just you coming.’ River matches his whispered tone, but hers isn’t as soft as his was, her emotions play out in hushed tones.
‘I know I should have told you, I just didn’t get a chance.’ He puts his hand on her arm, but she shakes him off.
‘Don’t lie to me!’
She’s still whispering but louder now, angrier. Her eyes flash with anger.
‘I’m not.’
‘Yes you are, you have my phone number, you text me every night, how much effort would it have taken to tell me, none that’s how much.’ She shakes her head, her eyes shining with tears, ‘You could have told the truth but you chose not to, and then you stand there and lie to me about why you didn’t tell me.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I thought that you were the one person I could trust.’
‘I am, River please you can trust me. I should have told you, I know that now.’
‘Then why didn’t you.’ She demands, staring at him.
‘Because – because I was scared you’d say you’d rather we didn’t come, that I should just take Tiff out for the day, or stay at home. I wanted to see you, and I thought that if I told you she was coming, you wouldn’t want us to come.’ Oliver holds her gaze, ‘It was stupid. I don’t blame you for being angry.’
‘It wasn’t your choice, if I didn’t want you bringing your niece here, you should have respected that, but you didn’t even give me the chance to tell you what I thought. For the record I wouldn’t have told you to stay away.’ She shakes her head, rolling her eyes at him, and then tearfully speaks again, ‘I have issues but I’m not scared of children.’
‘I’m sorry.’ He closes his eyes briefly, ‘Do you want us to leave?’ His eyes open and meet hers; a flicker of worry crosses her face, but it’s gone as quickly as it came, leaving only her anger.
‘No, you’re here now.’ She breaths out steadily, ‘and I don’t want her to think I’m angry at her.’
‘Do you forgive me then?’ He looks at her hopefully, a playful smile creeping onto his face, hoping to lighten the mood.
‘I’m not that easy to earn forgiveness from, you can’t just lie to me like that, I’ve never lied to you, and I’ve never kept anything from you.’
‘Oh so I suppose I know everything about you, there isn’t anything I don’t know, so this letter is blank is it?’ It was the wrong thing to say, he knows it’s the wrong thing to say, but it slipped out, he’d apologized several times and she wouldn’t let it go, he thought she was overreacting, even though he knows he’s in the wrong. As soon as the words are out he regrets them, because he’s supposed to be the professional, he’s supposed to understand that she can’t handle being lied to, he’s supposed to treat her with patience and compassion, but the lines are blurred, he can’t just see her as a patient, and it’s easy to let out what he’s really thinking, even when he knows he should hold back, she’s too easy to talk to.
How I Got Here Page 10
