RANDOM TEACHER
I'm not supposed to help you with your exam.
CASSIE
I stopped eating and then everyone had to do what I said. That was powerful.
RANDOM TEACHER
And did you enjoy that?
CASSIE
I think it was the happiest time of my life... but I had to stop before I died because otherwise it wasn't fun...
You wouldn't understand.
RANDOM TEACHER
You're wrong, Cassie.
CASSIE
Did you cut yourself too?
RANDOM TEACHER
People would do anything... people would do anything to work out why they feel bad, won't they?
CASSIE
And did you... work it out?
RANDOM TEACHER
Like I said, I'm not supposed to help you with your exam.
CASSIE
I want you to tell me.
RANDOM TEACHER
What?
CASSIE
How to stop bad things happening?
RANDOM TEACHER
Doesn't work, does it? That's why you have to start eating again.
CASSIE
I fell in love.
RANDOM TEACHER
Ah, love. Why cut yourself when you can be in love?
CASSIE
You think passing an exam will make me happy?
RANDOM TEACHER
Cassie, passing exams generally only makes life more complicated. But there's lots of other stuff that make things bearable and you don't even have to use a knife.
Sitting up in bed, a little more anxiously now, I grasp the collarbone, so prominent that it protrudes beyond the edges of the shoulders, like a wire coat hanger suspending this body, these bones. Beneath it, the rows of ribs, deeply corrugated (and the breasts, which I don't inspect). Then I press the back of my neck and as far down my spine as I can, to make sure the vertebrae are all still there, a row of perfect little buttons: as if they held this body together, as if I could unbutton it and step out any time I wanted to.
When she shut herself up in her closet and starved herself to death, people were shocked. But starvation was in her voice all along. That was the poignancy of it. A sweet voice locked in a dark place, but focused entirely on the tiny strip of light coming under the door.
Step into a tanning booth and fry yourself for two or three days. After your skin bubbles and peels off, roll in coarse salt, then pull on long underwear woven from spun glass and razor wire. Over that goes your regular clothes, as long as they are tight.
Smoke gunpowder and go to school to jump through hoops, sit up and beg, and roll over on command. Listen to the whispers that curl into your head at night, calling you ugly and fat and stupid and bitch and whore and worst of all, "a disappointment." Puke and starve and cut and drink because you don't want to feel any of this. Puke and starve and drink and cut because you need the anesthetic and it works. For a while. But then the anesthetic turns into poison and by then it's too late because you are mainlining it now, straight into your soul. It is rotting you and you can't stop.
Look in a mirror and find a ghost. Hear every heartbeat scream that everysinglething is wrong with you.
