Skin and Bones

I stare into my own eyes. They seem empty. I can’t see any emotion behind them.
And that’s a good thing. If I can’t even see my own pain, then other people can’t possibly see it.

I look at my cheek. The gash has healed a bit. It’s stopped bleeding, and it actually doesn’t look that bad.

I lower my eyes and stare at my chin – the second one. I stare at the flesh that hangs below my actual chin. It’s not supposed to be there. I’m too fat. I need to be thinner – for Gerard.

I look down at my shirt. The Misfits skull stares back at me – an empty look in its dark holes.
I’m gonna look at my stomach. I’m gonna do what Gerard taught me, and I’m gonna see how thin I really am. I’m gonna see it.
Right?

I grab a hold of the hem of my oversized shirt and curl it up. At the first sight of pale skin, I avert my eyes. I stare at the bathroom-wall behind me through the mirror. I stare at one white tile in particular – the broken one. My dad did that. Instead of punching me, he punched the wall. The tile broke, but his hand didn’t – his knuckles just got bruised.
I take a deep breath and look back down at my stomach. I need to do this – for Gerard.

I lift my shirt up.
I bite my lip and try to keep my throat from tightening. I keep swallowing to keep down the rising bile.

The skin of my stomach is bulging. Waves and waves of fat is lining my stomach – folding my skin. My belly-button is nothing but a thin line surrounded by fat.

I look away. I look away from the mirror and out the open bathroom window. I let go of my shirt and let it cover my stomach.
I keep biting my lip and swallow so many times that I run out of saliva.

The white clouds outside are so thin that the sky becomes a baby-blue color. It reminds me of Mikey’s socks.

I sigh deeply before I walk out of the bathroom – past the mirror without even taking one single glance at it.
I keep my head low as I walk down the hall towards my room, but when I’m about two feet away from my doorway, I hear footsteps.
My head shoots up. Mom.

She’s drunk – her dangling body swaying from side to side and her eyes bloodshot. She stares at me – disappointed and annoyed. Tears threaten to flow down my cheek, but I keep them at bay.
She takes a few lazy, slow steps towards me, before she turns and pushes the door to her bedroom open.

A buzzing breaks the silence. Then disappears.

My mom stops – freezes. My eyes widen.
She snaps her head towards me and glares.
The buzzing returns again. Then disappears.

My mom suddenly moves fast. She walks across the hall into my room, and I can’t keep my body from following. I stop in the doorway and witness as my mom hurls my phone against my closet. It smashes into several pieces that flies off the closet door like a drop of water in a puddle.

When the last broken piece falls to the ground, my mom turns to me and snares through her clenched teeth.
My body is shaking.

Suddenly she moves towards me – fast. Before I can even react, her fist connects with my cheek. It isn’t hard, but it’s enough to knock me to the ground.
She starts kicking me – the toes of her high-heel boots digging into my body.
Before I can even register one pain, another begins. I can’t even figure out where I’m being kicked. Everything just hurts. It all hurts.

I stay quiet. I don’t make a sound – knowing it would only cause me more pain.

Suddenly the sharp toes of her shoes disappear, but are replaced by the sharp heel. I can’t even scream when it digs into my side. I can barely even breathe. All I can do is just take it.
And then she stops. She’s not touching me anymore. I can hear her panting breath behind me. I try to close my eyes, but all I can do is stare at the broken screen of the phone in front of me. It’s black.

My mom’s shoes scrape against the wooden floor as she drags her feet away from me.
She keeps dragging her feet as she walks across the hall and slams her bedroom door shut.

I lie still – perfectly still. I don’t move a muscle – not even to breathe.

The scraping sound continues – fainter this time.

I jolt up when a loud thumb resonates through the floorboards.
And then it’s silent – completely silent.

I pull myself up to one elbow – everything hurting so much that I can barely feel it anymore – and drag myself away from the doorway.
I push at the door and close it as gently as I can.

I slowly pull myself up off the floor and start limping over to my bed. My body slowly wakes up from its state of shock. Every nerve-ending of every limb starts throbbing, and I carefully lay myself on my mattress that suddenly seems so, so hard.

When I’m finally lying still and somewhat comfortable on my bed, I start feeling my body completely.
Everything hurts – my chest, stomach, back, legs and throat, but not my face. She only hit my face once, and it doesn’t even hurt. My face doesn’t hurt. It’s probably not even bruised. No one will be able to tell. They won’t be able to see that I’ve been hurt – by my own mother.

I feel tired.

One final thought passes my mind before I drift off: Fuck phone settings.