Fragile

6. Just water

After ten minutes of cleaning we had gotten almost everything back to how it was. Only sulfurous and carbonic acids were left to find since Fox insisted he climbed up this time to get another bottle of nitric acid. I gave in pretty easily, because I didn't even want to go back up there.

"Here you go." Fox hands me the bottle after climbing successfully back down.

"Thank you. Now we'll just need sulfurous and carbonic acid." I say.

"Alright, where are they?" Fox asks and I point them to him.

***

"What the heck took you so long?" Mr. Perry glares at us, looking a bit disappointed at me.

"Livia-" Fox starts truthfully but I quickly kick his feet making him stop.

"I didn't find them, I'm sorry. They were really hard to find." I lie once again.

Fox glances at me worriedly but I look at him and mouth "not now." quietly.

"It took you almost thirty minutes to find four bottles of acids. Are you serious Livia Bellemonte?" Mr. Perry glares at us, not believing us a single bit. But I couldn't risk my reputation for something so stupid like this. What if he wouldn't let me go to the lab anymore if I told him the truth?

"They were fucking each other!" Some guy yells loudly and the whole class bursts out laughing and giggling.

"We weren't! I swear!" I beg the teacher to believe me. He sighs loudly, takes the acids and tells us to go sit separately. The class is still bursting with laughter as I sit down, separated from Fox.

***

"How was your biology class?" Dahlia asks as we sit down at cafeteria.

"You wouldn't even believe how bad it was." I mutter.

"That's exactly why I didn't choose biology! You should've listened to me when I said so, it's so boring." She rolls her eyes. Today's lesson was everything but boring, but I didn't have time to explain myself anymore when Leo joined us with his sister. Soon after them Abby came too, holding a tray that had cheese fries and a smoothie. I stare at it, counting that it had like six hundred calories. So many calories...

"Aren't you going to eat anything?" Abby asks me frowning.

"I'm not hungry right now." I say but Leo laughs at me.

"You're starving yourself now? Girl's got willpower." He says and pats my shoulder like he'd be proud of me.

"She's not starving herself you dummy." Dahlia defends me but Leo rolls his eyes.

"I ate a huge breakfast today." I say and frown at Leo. He was so... ugh.

It's weird, sometimes I was so hungry that I felt like binging the whole world, but when I refused the binge, I soon felt like scared of food. I couldn't eat now, two meals a day is a maximum. But I wasn't even hungry now, so why eat? That's not dropping any kilos.

With no interest in chatting, I tap open my phone and start to look inspiration for skinny outfits. I found so many great ideas for when I would be skinny. Everything would look so nice on me. I'd be lovely like Dahlia. Dahlia was always pretty, her thick dark brown hair with chocolate deep eyes made her so pretty. Features that made her look angelic and a body gifted by god. Everything she wore made her look small and pretty. I always got told that with losing weight I'd be as pretty as she, and I guess that's true. My black hair was shiny and my ocean blue eyes looked pretty. Maybe I wasn't that bad, I just needed to lose the fat. And if it meant making my diet more strict, I'd do it.

With my pinterest board now full of style ideas, I decided to get up to buy sparkling water. It had zero calories but was still a bit different than normal water. Refreshing.

The line was long but I didn't really mind. After a minute or two, I notice Fox coming behind me. He's buying two toasts with cheese and chicken.

"Hey, how's your hand." He asks glancing at my hand, then noticing my great source of protein. "Not hungry huh?"

"My hand's fine, thanks. And I ate already." I lie again. Sometimes I felt like I didn't do anything else than lie to everybody. But what was I supposed to say? I didn't want to make him worried.

"These toasts are amazing, have you tried?" He asks.

"I haven't, guess I have to try them tomorrow." I say smiling at him, knowing damn well that I could never touch anything that cheesy again. It probably had more calories than in my dinner.

"You can have the other one if you want." He offers kindly, why was he so caring?

"Oh no it's fine, I'm so full already that I can't eat anything." At least the 'can't eat anything' part is true. It wasn't a complete lie then.

"Okay." He says and we are in silence for a long while, waiting to pay our lunches. There was a long line today since it was cheese fries day.

Minutes pass and Fox opens his mouth again. "Hey y'know the biology presentation coming up? The one where we have to pair up with someone and choose a topic together?"

"What? When did than come to knowledge? I've never heard of that?" I turn to look at Fox frowning.

"Last week. The class had already ended when mr. Perry told about it but most of the students were still there. You didn't hear about it?" Fox asks.

"No." I answer, remembering how I literally ran off the second the bell went.

"Well, who are you gonna partner up with?" Fox questions.

When I stay quiet for a while, not wanting to sound like a loser for not having even one friend there, he speaks up: "If you don't have a partner yet, we could do it together." I glance at him, just to make sure that he's serious.

"Really?" I ask, just in case he was joking.

"Really." He nods.

"Well, that's great. I'd love to. Thank you." I say and smile at him, he answers the smile brightly.

"Cool." Fox says and we fell into comfortable quietness until I finally get to the payment. I pay my very overpriced water.

"Well, see you tomorrow at biology." I say to Fox and he smiles at me before I head back to my usual table where all four of my friends stare at me weirdly. "What's wrong?" I ask them.

"Who were you just talking to?" Abby asks.

"Um, Fox Evergreen from biology?" I answer her.

"Why would he be talking to you...?" Dahlia asks, eyes the size of a plate.

"We have biology project coming up so we decided to pair up." I shrug.

"But he's so good looking and..." before Dahlia got to finish her sentence Leo spoke over.

"See Livia, the starving is worth it. You're suddenly surrounded by a cute guy after losing a bit weight. Great."

"Shut up Leo." Lavinia hisses and rolls her eyes.

But Leo was right, wasn't he? After I had lost weight Fox talked to me, said I was cute... maybe even he saw me in new light now that I was better looking. Okay, I had only lost like seven pounds but still it was something. And with my new diet, I counted that I can lose like four kilos a week. Four!! Even five if I work hard enough. A little hunger is worth it, it definitely is.

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