Little Things

First one.

Second.

Third.

Hayleigh breathed in deeply as she moved the sharp-edged razor against her thigh. Her skin was naturally soft like baby’s but still, she hated every single things about her appearance, her personality, her self.

Fourth.

Tears filled her eyes when she saw the little river that consisted of already dried and fresh blood running down her leg.

Cutting herself was the only option she had. Or so she thought. Her parents didn’t give a damn about her; if they did, they would not have thrown her into a foster home. The feeling that filled her when she was finally able to leave the cursed so-called home couldn’t be compared to relief. She thought that the fact she was leaving her foster home could be finally her new beginning. She would find a nice little and cosy flat somewhere in London. The location would be near to a supermarket where she would always buy all the ingredients to pursue her dream becoming a female chef.

Fifth.

Hayleigh sizzled with pain and she threw the razor in the bin in her bathroom when she heard the door close. Somebody had entered her flat.

“Leigh!” she heard Liam holler. Her eyes widened and she immediately started panicking. She desperately looked for her sweats but she wasn’t reacting fast enough.

He caught her doing that.

“Hayleigh!” he whispered and collapsed on the icy cold floor next to her. Hayleigh remained silent, feeling guilty. She expected Liam to yell at her like everybody in her life did. Nobody had said one positive thing about her. If they expected her not to feel worthless and disgusting at all...God, they we so wrong.

“What is this?” he asked though he knew the answer, pointing at the dark red line that ran from her upper thigh almost to the level of her knee. Those were scars. The girl he loved the most was cutting herself. Possibly, she wanted to kill herself.

Hayleigh didn’t respond him; she was silent and her thoughts were eating her alive. It wasn’t like she was busted cutting herself for the first time; the pedagogues in her foster home found her a couple times, but the only thing they did to her was yelling at her and telling her not to do it again, otherwise...
Liam’s reaction made her feel terrible. She wouldn’t be surprised at all if he started to scream at her for being selfish; she was already used to it. But instead, he looked as if he was about to cry.

“I hate myself,” Hayleigh confessed and dared to turn around, meeting the reflection in the mirror. “That girl there,” she pointed at her twin sister trapped in the glassy mirror, “I can’t look at her. She makes me feel nauseating. You see her face? The freckles, the dots are everywhere. The crinkles by her eyes, just, ew. Her thighs don’t have the required gap between them. Her stomach isn’t as flat as it should be. When she spins around, she can see dimples in her back and they are certainly not beautiful,” she named the mistakes and she wasn’t about to stop.

“She can’t fall asleep with lack of coffee rushing in her veins. And when she drinks it, she talks awfully lot and senselessly while she sleeps. When she’s taped on a video, her voice is too high-pitched. She is scared to stand on the weight because the numbers would literally destroy her. She is far from being perfect.” She turned to face Liam, ignoring the tears running down her cheeks. “And you know what the worst thing about her is?” She didn’t pause for long enough to let Liam answer.

“She is me,” she whispered and broke down in tears.

Liam was not able to believe the words he had just heard from the girl’s mouth. She surprised him, but in a negative way. Never in his life, he hadn’t thought that Hayleigh, his Hayleigh, could see herself in a way like this. It just wasn’t possible. He didn’t understand it.

“Leigh,” he kept on whispering although he and she were the only people present in their flat. The girl looked at him, her eyes full of pain. “The freckles on her face are adorable. The crinkles by her eyes match her smile that lights up this world. She is not fat, she is beautiful just the way she is,” he breathed out and inhaled immediately, wanting to continue.

“Her boyfriend makes her her coffee every evening and they drink it together, laughing on silly jokes. When she sleeps, she always talks about her day and she repeats the boy’s name million times. When she’s taped on a video, she always goofs around. The weighing machine wouldn’t destroy her because the numbers would show her the real truth about her weigh and state that she truly is perfect.”

Liam leaned closer to Hayleigh and wiped the tears from her pink cheeks away. “And you know what the best thing about her is?” he asked her, half-smiling.

“What?” her voice cracked.

“She doesn’t realize how actually wonderful she is.”

Hayleigh shook her head, her dirty blonde curls bouncing on her shoulders. “That’s not true,” she dismissed.

“Hayleigh Amanda Clark, promise me just one thing,” he held out his pinkie, “promise me that you won’t do this to your beauty again.”

Hayleigh’s eyes were glassy and swollen from all the crying, but Liam’s words were echoed in her mind, reminding her that maybe, just maybe, he was not lying to her. Maybe if she admitted that she was a human instead of a monster she though she was, maybe she would believe in his words.

She hesitated before sighing and poking out her pinky finger as were, intertwining it with Liam’s.

“I promise.”