Week 3

Sunday Morning

7 a.m.

Ashley

It was 7 a.m. the next day. I was walking down the narrow carpeted hallway of the 2nd floor of our big house.

"Louisa, breakfast!" I called.

Hannah, Lily and Dad were already downstairs.

"No," my sister's voice said from in her room which was behind me.

I turned back around.

"What?" I asked.

"I'm not going."

I walked into her room. she was sitting in her thin narrow bed the covers up to her waist.

"Louisa," I said: "you have to eat."

"No," she replied firmly.

"You'll be late."

"I don't care. I'm not going."

"You have to eat breakfast and you have to go to school."

"No. I don't."

"Now get up."

I went over to her bed and started pulling the covers back.

"Ashley. Stop, now."

"Well someone has to."

"You're not Mom."

"You're right I'm not Mom. But I'm the closest thing you've got."

"I wish Mom were here."

"Well she's not. Now get-"

"Ashley!" I heard a voice down the hall call.

I turned my head and looked behind me.

"Coming!" I called back.

I left my sister's room and walked quickly into the cold white bathroom where Anna was. She had paled, although she was pale to begin with. There was dried blood on her neck.

"What did you do?" I demanded.

"Don't worry; I'm not-" she opened the white toilet and leaned forward but nothing came out - "like the others."

"Oh."

By this she meant inebriated. A cutter. Someone with eating issues.

"I'm sick," my sister told me.

"Did Dad take you to the doctor's?" I asked.

She nodded: "yeah, yesterday."

"What did the doctor say?"

"That I needed to see an oncologist."

"Oncology? But that's..."

Anna looked up at me from her spot on the white tile floor, her brown eyes wide: "yeah. I know."

-XXX-

Even though I myself had depression and had for quite some time I didn't understand why Louisa wouldn't do anything. Why she cut. Why she didn't want to go to school that day.