Chapter 1
Hanna P.O.V.
I have to stop doing this. I know I promised Aria that time a year or two ago to stop, but, I just always thought of Alison. She told me it would help. I knew she was wrong, yet I couldn't help but believe her. But this is worse. So much worse. I'm not even eating anymore. I just make myself throw-up for no reason. But I can't find the willpower to stop it. Every time I skip a meal, I hear Ali in my mind, cheering me on. When I throw-up, I hear her say, 'This is going to help even more, darling.' I hate it, though. The burn of whatever is in your stomach rising up and stinging your throat like acid. But nowadays I don't even have anything in my stomach, so it feels more like in spitting out my intestines.
I close the seat and flush the toilet, falling back against the wall, coughing and crying. I curl up in a ball and close my eyes. I realize I should probably, go though. Aria would be over any second. I sit up, wipe my eyes and brush my teeth. I straighten my hair a little with my hands and touch up my makeup. I look at myself in the mirror a little longer and hate what I see. I'm a lot skinner now, but not as skinny as I Ali. I feel my eyes burn again, and before I know what I'm doing, I'm over the toilet seat again. I taste the acid and feel the burn. I empty my insides even more than before. I've been doing this a lot, lately. Forcing myself to throw-up, even when I haven't eaten in a really long time.
I do the routine again. Flush, brush, straighten, touch-up. I open the bathroom door and I see Aria standing a few feet away, tears in her eyes and a shocked look on her face. I feel my eyes burn again, tears threatening to escape my eyes and cascade down my face. She takes a step forward and pulls me towards her, into a hug. She wraps her arms around my neck and holds me close while we both cry. When she pulls away, she wipes away my tears, and then her own.
"Hanna, why? Just, why do you do this to yourself? You're so, so beautiful. You can't do this," she says to me. I look down at the floor and glance wearily up at her and speak. "Because, whenever I do it, I can hear Ali saying how proud of me she is." She looks at me sympathetically. "But you don't eat anymore. That's so dangerous, Han. Hell, this whole entire thing is!" I nod and look at the floor again. "I'm sorry," I tell her. She hugs me again, and I hold back my tears. It burns my eyes like acid. The acid reminded me of it all, and I wanted to do it again. To throw-up, to be skinnier. I needed it, but if my friends are around, hopefully I won't for a while.
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Aria P.O.V.
It hurt me so much to know Hanna was doing this to herself, struggling so much. I wanted to take all her pain away, but I didn't know how. So I just hugged her. Partially for my own purposes, but mostly because I wanted to hold her there so she doesn't run to the bathroom. At around 9:00 p.m., I left. Hanna fell asleep, so I figured she'd be alright. I headed off to Spencer's house. I noticed Emily's car was there, too. I let myself in and made my way up to Spencer's room. I had to tell them about Hanna. That way we would all know to keep her safe, and what's going on. I walked in and saw the two girls on a laptop, singing along to, 'Still into you,' by Paramore. I laughed and they looked up at me and smiled. I sat of the edge of the bed and looked at them sadly. They immediately turned down the music and looked at me puzzled. I sigh. "We need to talk about Hanna."
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
After I told them what happened, and what Hanna has been doing, we all went to her place. We knocked on the door, and after about a minute, she answered. "Hello," she said with her eyes half closed as she opened the door. Emily immediately wrapped her arms around her and let go a couple seconds later. We all went in and decided to just have a sleepover. Most of it included the four of us snuggled up under one big blanket watching 'Evil Dead,' and screaming whenever something creepy happened. We ate popcorn and chips. Well, other than Hanna, who only drank some water.
The next morning after we woke up, we realized that we had today off for some meetings the teachers at school had. We also had the next day off for voting. We figured we'd stay at Hanna's again since she was going to be home alone for the next few days since her mom was out on a business trip. "We should do our homework. I've done… none of it." "I've done all of it," Spencer said. Hanna rolled her eyes in a joking manner. "Of course you have Spencer." We all already came prepared with our work, so we started studying. Hanna just stared blankly at her worksheet, and every now and then a confused look came across her face. I didn't know if her reactions were because of what she's been doing, or if she just really didn't understand. I just guessed option number two, since I didn't understand what we were doing either. But then again, Hanna is in the lower math class, while Spencer, Em and I were in the advanced class.
I scooted closer to her. "Hey," I said. She looked up at me. "I have no idea what the hell I'm doing. I looked at her worksheet and examined the problem she was on. I did most of this last marking period, so at least I knew I could help her.
After we all finished our work, which was around four p.m. we sat around the living room watching reruns of 'FRIENDS.' "We should go to the movies," Emily said after we sat in silence for about twenty minutes. We all agreed and started to get ready. We all packed clothes and make-up, so we didn't need to stop home to get anything.
We made our way to the movies and walked up to the board to see what was playing. "Ok, we could either see… um… 'Carrie' or 'Gravity'. Nothing else is playing in our age group for like, three hours." "I already saw Gravity," Spencer said to us. I nodded. "Then we'll just see 'Carrie.' You guys up for more scary movies?" I smirked at Hanna's freaked out expression. "Evil Dead was terrifying! I don't understand how I got through it. Even if it was awesome," she said. Emily laughed. "Don't worry, Han, we'll be right next to you. But if we're going to see 'Carrie,' we have to wait for another hour and a half." I looked at Emily confused, since there was a showing of it in ten minutes. "Um… why?" Spencer asked her. Emily grinned. "Because then we'll be around for the five thirty show. If you see a movie here at any time after five 5 p.m., you get to wear you pajamas here, and you get a free large popcorn." We all smiled at that and left to home.
"Okay, guys, we should probably go now," Spencer said. She was wearing a light pink tank top and short black shorts, which is what she wears to bed. Emily was wearing a long a short sleeve navy blue shirt and sweat pants, which is what she goes to bed in. Hanna wore a long and baggy long sleeve gray shirt, which had sleeves that went a bit past her hands, along with short which you couldn't really see since the shirt went down to her knees. It used to be Caleb's shirt before he left to Ravenswood. I wore an equally as long shirt and sweat pants. We all wore slippers, and took off to the movie theatre.
When we arrived, it was only five minutes before show time. We bought out tickets and got in line for popcorn. We also got one large soda, and some candy. We ran to the theatre we were in, and noticed it was empty. We sat in the middle of the dark theatre, and waited for the lights to dim. When they did, we all shifted closer to each other. We all passed around the soda, taking sips of it and passing it on. We did the same with the popcorn and candy, too. Hanna didn't eat anything, though. She just shared the soda with us. I was starting to get really worried about her.