Better for You

It was three weeks later on a Friday, when I left Jodie’s office finally feeling good about my situation. Over the past month or so I had managed to gain five pounds and it hadn’t freaked me as much as I thought it would. I never used to weigh myself because it would cause my anxiety levels to skyrocket, but at today’s weigh in I realised that the numbers on the scale didn’t matter. I looked better – my skin was glowing, my hair had a healthy shine, my cheeks were no longer hollowed and I could see much less of my bones – and that was what mattered, not the numerical data.

Pushing myself to eat proper meals and even snack during the day had originally been very daunting, the guilt of eating was an emotion that used to wrap me up and consume me but now I knew that I needed to care for my body by giving it the food that it needed and so the guilt from eating was lessening by more and more each day.

Jodie had been praising my improvement over the past few weeks and even recommended that I only saw her once a fortnight to ensure that I was still on the straight and narrow. For the first time in a long time it felt like everything was falling into place and I felt like I was ok. I wasn’t hiding my pain, or masking my guilt or ignoring my past – I was finally ok, I had finally accepted the flaws that I had been concealing my whole life and I felt a whole new level of contentedness as I left the hospital and drove home.

I knew that when I got home I would see all of my friends as we had agreed that we would go out for lunch to celebrate the end of our January exams. Abby and Niall had managed to reconcile after their big argument - Niall had called Abby about a hundred times, leaving heartbroken messages explaining how Liam had told him everything and he felt really, really bad about how he had acted. Abby had ignored Niall’s calls for the first few days but when Niall changed tactics to knocking outside of our door non-stop for an entire hour, begging for Abby to talk to him, Abby finally caved and began ranting at him through our door and then that turned to Abby crying and that then turned into Niall forcing his way into the apartment and comforting Abby and that then turned into them both falling asleep on Abby’s bed as they both hadn’t slept since their fight three days before. Since then, Abby and Niall had slowly picked up their relationship from the ground and began carefully putting it back together, piece by piece and now they were both in a relatively stable place.

When I reached my home, I paused in my car for a couple of seconds just to live in my blissful bubble for a little bit longer when I noticed my mother’s car parked a few bays over to my left. Confusion clouded my bubble, the emotion filling the air as it pushed and pushed against my bubble’s silver lining, eventually bursting my oasis and forcing me to see my mother and why she had decided to show up unexpectedly.

Sighing, I opened my car door and stepped out into the bitterly cold air that kissed every inch of my clothed body. I walked towards my mother’s car hesitantly, stopping by her window and raising my knuckles to the glass and made contact with it’s cold surface a couple of times to catch my mother’s attention.

I watched as my mother’s teary eyes travelled to my direction alarmingly and then softened when she registered that it was me who had knocked on her window. A watery smile spread across my mother’s face and she patted the seat next to me, wordlessly suggesting that I sit down in the passenger’s seat beside her.

I bit my lip as I felt grains of uncertainty build in the pit of my stomach as I walked to the passenger’s side of my mother’s car and opened the door for me to step inside of it and then closed the door shut behind me as the warm air enveloped me.

“Are you ok?” I asked tentatively, placing a light hand on my mother’s arm as a symbol of support.

My mother sniffled and nodded her head, using her fingertips to wipe away any stray tears and adjust her smeared mascara. “Yes, I’m fine – how do I look?” My mother asked in her classic style, putting aside her emotions and concentrating on her appearance as she attempted to give me a reassuring smile.

“You look like you’re upset, what’s wrong?” I questioned my mother, causing her smile to falter at my blunt words. My mother rarely cried and so it was clear that something had to have been bad for her to be reduced to tears.

A silence rang through the car as my mother stared ahead at my accommodation block through the windscreen, trying to compose herself. “I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry.” My mother announced after a minute or so. I opened my mouth to question what my mother was apologising for, however my mother cut me off as she continued her sentence. “I’m sorry for what I put you through, what I used to say to you about your diet-” my mother began, her words being cut off by her voice cracking as a result of her emotions. “If I had known what you were doing to yourself, I- I wouldn’t have… I just didn’t know. I didn’t know! And now I feel awful because you were fading away in front of me and I encouraged it when I should have known that it was wrong and that you needed help.” My mother revealed, tears falling from her eyes at a fast pace as she then used her hands to conceal her eyes and the tears falling from them – I guess that I got my dislike of crying in front of people form her.

I didn’t know what to say as I watched my mother’s emotional outburst, I had never expected her to speak of her guilt so candidly and so watching her hurting the way that she was, was a very disconcerting experience. “It’s ok mum.” I mumbled comfortingly whilst rubbing my mother’s back, causing her to look over at me with a look of disbelief. “It is, I’m ok now. What happened – what I did – that was my choice and my actions, not yours.” I assured my mother but she shook her head at me.

“No, it’s not ok Izzy! I am your mother and I am supposed to protect you and look after you and yet I couldn’t even see how much pain you were in! How didn’t I notice what you were doing to yourself?” My mother questioned, almost sounding as if she was speaking to herself. “When I think about you laying in that hospital bed Izzy, your skin was so pale, so pale and you looked like a corpse. It makes me sick to my stomach to think that I didn’t notice what you were doing, how didn’t I notice?!” My mother vented, her eyes burning straight ahead of her as though she couldn’t bear to look at me.

My heart broke as I quietly observed my mother, for so long I had shut her out and pushed her away but not once had I really considered the effects of my actions on her. My mum had spoken about how hurt she was when she saw me in hospital, but now knowing the guilt that she carried as a result of my actions made my heart break as I looked at the broken woman that my mum had been concealing for the past year. “It wasn’t your fault.” I whispered to my mother. “I was an expert at lying and pretending that I was fine when really I wasn’t. No-one knew, mum, and I don’t blame anyone for not noticing because I was in denial of everything myself; how could I expect other people to spot something that I couldn’t even see myself?” I comforted.

My mother sighed as she processed my words, finally building the courage to turn and face me in her seat, her teary, bloodshot eyes meeting mine. “You’re my baby Izzybell.” My mother whispered as she raised her hand to gently stroke my cheek in a loving manner. “You’re the only person that I have left and I nearly broke you. I can’t do that again, Izzy – I can’t lose someone else like that.” My mother confessed, causing my heart to shatter at her pained words.

“You won’t lose me mum, I’m ok now - for a long time I wasn’t, but I’m ok now; I promise.” I promised my mum, looking at her directly in the eyes to try to convey my honesty. My mother stared at me for a couple of seconds with uncertainty flickering in her eyes as if she was trying to decipher whether I was trying to deceive her again. “Do you trust me?” I asked my mum in a low voice, hoping with every bone in my body that she wouldn’t say that she didn’t.

“I want to trust you.” My mother answered, her tone wavering with doubt which I tried with zest to ignore.

“Well then you need to trust that I am in a good place. For a long time, I couldn’t let go of dad and how everything ended, but I’m learning to accept what happened as something as of the past and I’ve made my peace with it. I loved dad.” I explained, pausing as my voice wavered with emotion from speaking about my father, I don’t think that speaking about my father in the past tense is something that I could ever do without it feeling like I had been stabbed in the gut. I inhaled a shaky yet calming breath to compose myself before I continued. “I loved dad so much, and I couldn’t understand how he could die and I was supposed to keep on living – I think deep down I didn’t want to keep on living - but I do now. I have my friends, I have Harry, I have you and I have a future all to live for and I’m not ready to let go of that just yet. So please, please just trust me when I tell you that I’m better now because for the first time since dad died I am optimistic about the future and I want to be in it.” I finished, my voice cracking towards the end as I bit my lower lip to try to stop it from shaking.

My mother stared at me for a couple of seconds with tears shining in her eyes as she tilted her head to the side and looked at me with unmistakable pride. “Izzy-” My mother began, evidently overwhelmed with emotion. “I’m so proud of you; you’re such a beautiful, intelligent and mature woman and you just make me so proud. I don’t know what I did to deserve a daughter like you.” My mother told me with tears of what I presumed were happiness falling from her eyes as she moved her hands to cup my cheeks in a loving manner. “I’m so glad that you’re in a happy place Izzybell - I know I’m not always the easiest mother to have but I do want you to be happy and so I need to say something that I’m not sure if you’re going to want to hear, but I need to say it.”

I nodded my head slowly in response to my mother’s words, anxious as to what she needed to say. “Ok.” I choked out in reply.

“Please don’t take this as me telling you what to do, it’s just me looking out for you as my daughter and I just want for you to be happy, and I know that you were happy with Harry. I may not be too keen on Harry and his behaviour in the past, but I do think that he was very good for you Izzy - he saved your life on that day and he didn’t leave your side until he knew that you would be ok.” My mother told me, truly surprising me with her words. I was silent for a couple of seconds as I mulled over my mother’s words. I knew that my mother was right, Harry was an amazing boyfriend and of course I still loved him, but I was also terrified of hurting him and ruining our relationship further.

“I know - Harry’s great and I love him, but I don’t want to be with him until I’m ready to be with him because otherwise I’m just going to hurt him and that’s the last thing that I want to do.” I responded earnestly.

My mother smiled softly at me. “Izzybells, I’m not trying to force you to do anything that you don’t want to do, but if you did truly mean what you told me then I think that you are ready to be in a relationship. There’s never going to be a perfect time for anything, and if you waste your time waiting for the perfect moment then you’ll never get anywhere.” My mother told me, reaching a hand out to comfortingly rest on my shoulder. “I know that you’re smart enough to know how you feel, but please think about what I said – don’t let your fears stop you from doing what you want to do.” My mother told me, her eyes searching mine intensely as if she was trying to imprint her message onto my brain. I smiled at my mum lightly and nodded.

“I won’t.” I promised.

“Thank you.” My mum said, looking into my eyes for a couple of seconds longer before she removed her hand from my shoulder and let out a sigh. “Right, well I actually need to get back to work before my lunch break ends, so I shall have to love and leave you, but you should come over to the house soon – I was thinking about having the Wilsons over.” My mother suggested and I nodded my head in agreement, leaning over and giving my mum a tight hug before clambering out of her car and watching her car peel out of the parking lot as I walked up towards my dorm with a lot on my mind.