The truth in our songs

Chapter 20

Maia-Jane Miller

Te loud rumbling of my stomach made me look up in embarrassement as I sat crouched on the bench of the cheerleading team. A few girls giggled, others put their heads together and some didn't react at all. I held my hands tight in front of my stomach, it felt so heavy, yet empty at the same time. It felt like as if long withered fingers were digging slowly into it, robbing me of any fillness in it and any taste on my dry tongue. I didn't know when it started, didn't know why or how but it didn't matter. I had never been that much of an eater or at least, didn't let myself be one. I remembered the time where I was younger, dumber, innocent, the time where I couldn't give two fucks about food and the things I ate, I simply didn't care. And it should be nothing to care about, yet I did.

"You don't have the proper body for this"  "Exercise more" or "Do you really eat that?"

Like yes bitch, I really eat whatever the fuck I want and no, I will not exercise more and I really don't give a fuck about not having a proper body. I used to think that way for the first weeks, but since my father usually bought no food and I could not spend all my money for both of us, I had started to skip meals. All those shitty comments these shits had smacked against my head, had become my excuses for not eating, although that had never been the case. So now I was sitting on that fucking bench, watched the rugby team passing by, laughing at me as I sat there utterly lost and sent winks to these strange girls in their short skirts and tight t-shirts, and hell nah- not even for the sweet mother of jesus would I wear such an outfit. I'd rather push myself off of a cliff.

They stood there all giggly and make-up smeared onto their faces like a mask, perfectly set up, just to impress some random guys who saw them as a quicky, nothing else. I never undestood why so many girls seemed to like the way these boys were built, mean, pumped with father's money, no brain and many muscles they only used for fights or to impress. Whoever they impressed with that, really had to be just as dumb as them. My eyes rolled at their laughter and barking as they walked by and I sent them my middle finger, little yobs. Of course my style could not be compared to an actual cheerleader, I had looked at Chloe in pure disbeliev when she had showed me my workot clothes and had said not even in hell I would wear something like that. Just no. So it came as a big surprise when she nodded with a half-smile and gave me some check-up lists instead of hoping up and down like some jump rope freak. I was content with paper work and so we had not exchanged any words and I just really wondered how she seemed to have known my attitude before.

I couldn't think properly about her right now because my stomach didn't want to suht the hell up, no matter how much tighter I pulled it in, the grumble only got worse and sounded like an earthquake, honestly. It actually started to hurt a bit after I sucked it in too harshly and without kindness or care. It was an unyielding, severely noise- my stomach screaming at me to give him something. But all I did, was ignore it, silencing it, shutting the requests out. Of course I listened, how could I not? But I didn't want to hear, didn't want to react or be aware. My body knew how much I saw its struggle, begged me, every minute with a vapid reminder that I should not do this to him, to myself.

,, How does it feel? ,, a voice asked me from behind and I didn't jump, because I had gotten too used at the sound of it to be surprised by its sudden appearance.

He heared it, he heared my body call for me just as well as everybody else. Only my imagination could paint a picture of him behind me, his lips near my ear and the cold brush of his breath against my sensitive skin. His dark hair was rumpled because of practise, his face muddy and his eyes cognizant, I guessed. But I never reacted to his question, ignored his existence and he just chuckled near my ear before I felt him leave. Son of a bitch, I hated him, I hated him so much that everytime I heared his name or saw him in the hallways everything inside me grew cold and empty. My abominate was all his, he had wanted it from the start and he got it. But I really wanted to kill him, to yell the question back at him, to smack his back against the wet, muddy and stony grass on the rugby field. I wanted to hurt him. He made me leave the band, something I had actually been good at and now there was just nothing for me to do. I couldn't dance, couldn't move like the cheerleaders could. I knew the questions in his question and they drove me mad. But-