Fun Fact!
I am actually a model and a photographer and I specialize in self-shot photography.
The vast majority of these photos actually exist and I am the subject of every single one of them. I either modeled the photos or took and modeled them myself.
I have changed a few of them slightly to better fit this story and my OC.
WARNINGS:
Descriptions of photos depicting or portraying self-harm, suicide, domestic violence, ED, and weight loss/ weight issues, using animal parts.
Talk of mental illnesses and their effects.
Chapter 32
Ella looked at him with a sad look in her eye.
"Do you have to make me say it?"
Bucky just looked back at her; he wasn't sure what his own face looked like. Concerned? Afraid? Worried?
"No. But I want you to tell me. You don't have to, but I want you to."
Why was he torturing them both like this? He knew the answer. And on top of it, Sam was standing right there playing eye tennis between them.
"Men don't like being under the command of a woman. They do not like feeling inferior to a woman. They do not like being outranked by a woman. And some of them tried to prove how inferior and unworthy of my rank I really was and how big of a man they were."
Bucky said nothing. Sam said nothing. Ella continued.
"Most of the time I handled it myself. Or it was handled before it ever reached me thanks to David and Daryl. If they heard chatter before something happened or it got to me, they took care of the problem. If you look at the records, the number of medical discharges skyrocketed during my time in the Army. The armed forces do not like investigating sexual harassment or abuse claims. Especially when on paper it's between two men. Everything is about appearances. And how would that look? A lot worse than a bunch of their men getting injured and having to be sent home."
Ella looked away from them and back up at her portraits.
"It is said that women are not cut out to serve because we cannot handle it, physically or mentally. That we are not strong enough. In my experience, it's the man's ego that is not strong enough and cannot handle serving with women. They cannot handle knowing a woman might be stronger than them."
There was absolute silence between them. Even the gallery itself seemed to go silent. Bucky and Ella just stared at each other. He could read so much in her eyes, yet still so much more remained a mystery.
Ella downed the rest of her drink in one go. Sam and Bucky followed suit. The weight of the conversation was heavy in the air.
"Just leave the glasses under the portraits. I'll clean them up later. I'm pretty sure most people are gone. The doors should have been closed for the night by now."
Bucky looked down at his watch to see it was after 11. She was probably right.
When he looked up, Ella was turned away from them again and was slowly making her way towards the last half of the show.
When she got to the six full-length portraits of herself covered in various bruises and wounds, she did not waste any time in her explanation. It seemed as if she wanted to get the explanation out of the way as quickly as she could.
"These were taken over a series of two years. Every bruise and every wound is real. There is no makeup of any kind present in these photos. Not even on my face."
Sam's look of revulsion must have matched Bucky's. Ella hadn't noticed, nor was she done yet.
"I was in an abusive relationship. He always made it a point to not hit my face or anywhere that would be visible. Every time he did this, he told me he would make it so that no one would ever want to put their hands on me ever again."
Bucky felt that pure, unadulterated rage again. It was pulsing in his core threatening to spill out. The animal in the back of his mind roared to life. Its need for blood was stronger than ever. He couldn't think of any reason why anyone would want to lay a threatening hand on this woman. Let alone in a way that left marks like that.
When he looked over at Ella's face that rage was unexpectedly gone. It was replaced with something else. That voice just wanted to put his arms around her. He wanted to do the same. She looked so small, so broken. The way she was looking up at the photos made his heartache. It was a kind of sadness he had not seen on her face before.
Sam looked nervous, but he asked the question that had bothered him the first time around anyway.
"Are those bite marks?"
Ella looked down at the floor and answered in a small voice that did not match her usual self at all.
"No. Those are from a studded belt buckle."
The same woman who had been so commanding and authoritative not half an hour before looked completely helpless. The same woman who threw that knife with such accuracy and precision that was only rivaled by the use of the knife that was literally the heel of her boot, sounded like she thought she deserved what had happened to her.
She looked so vulnerable, so defenseless, and weak.
Then Bucky had a thought. And he did something he had never done before.
He took the glove off of his right hand and placed it in her left. He could see Sam giving him an odd look out of the corner of his eye. But he was not concerned with that.
Bucky realized that this was the first time he had actually touched her.
Ella looked down at their joined hands and then back at him. Bucky knew that his message was received loud and clear. He wanted to touch her. So much so that he was taking down a barrier of his own protection to do so.
Bucky shoved his glove into his back pocket.
She looked down at their hands again and squeezed. She was surprisingly warm. Her hand was softer than he had expected. Then she interlaced their fingers and pulled slightly. It was time to move on.
All three of them came to a stop in front of the portrait depicting Ella with a large and spindly shadow figure behind her. The figure reached around, hooking its long fingers into her cheeks and forcing her to smile.
"That's not creepy at all." Sam repeated. Saying what he had said earlier.
"It's supposed to be creepy. That's the point. I even enhanced how wide my mouth is slightly to make it more cartoonish."
Bucky leaned his shoulder into hers ever so slightly.
"What does it mean?"
He saw her look over at him out of his periphery. He just smirked and kept his eyes forward.
"It means many things. The song Nightmare by Halsey is the main inspiration. This one is also based on a Shawn Coss work. Well, two of them. Two different ones come to mind. One is I Can Always Make You Smile, and the other is The Worst Part of Being Sad is Not Being Able to Explain Why. Both are allegories for depression. Another reference is the figure in the background. I based him off of Slender Man. A modern urban legend."
"You have made a lot of references to depression and other mental illnesses, especially ones that come up later in photos we haven't gotten to yet. Is there any reason why?" Sam asked.
Bucky turned his head to look at Ella. She was looking at the wall, then down to the floor. He squeezed her hand. When she looked up at him, she was speaking to him. Not just answering Sam's question.
"Because mental illness has played a big part in my life. I am diagnosed as bipolar, with clinical depression, and anxiety. I was four when I had my first panic attack. I was eight when I first self-harmed. And I was nine when I tried committing suicide. It was only after all that that I got help."
Ella had looked away during her explanation. She was back to looking at the photo in front of them. From what Bucky could see of her face, she looked ashamed. Sam and Bucky exchanged perturbed looks. The missing pieces of this whole show were starting to fall into place. It was a mixture of everything in her head and everything that had happened to her.
A culmination of all of the bad things. Just like she had said at the very beginning.
Bucky had to ask some pretty obvious questions.
"Why didn't you get any help before that? Why didn't you say anything? Why did it take so long for anyone to notice?"
Ella looked at him with a desolation in her eyes that seemed to be fathomless.
"No one noticed because I am good at hiding things. I can live and work under some seriously messed-up conditions. Whether it be internal or external. I wasn't even diagnosed with bipolar disorder until my 3rd psych eval at my current job. Many years after I knew it had manifested. I just handled it my way."
Ella took a deep breath and sighed. She leaned up against Bucky's shoulder and spoke to the floor.
"I never said anything when I was a kid because how does a child, a five, six, or seven-year-old, even begin to say 'I'm having a panic attack.' Or 'something is not right in my head.' Mental illness does not exist to a kid. I thought I was normal. I thought everyone went through what I was going through. I thought that I was just not strong enough to handle it. On top of it, I was also dealing with…. Other things. Which all lead to the suicide attempt."
Sam and Bucky looked at each other again. Neither of them knew what to say. This was some serious stuff that they did not know how to react to.
"A lot of people like to say it's all in your head. I like to counter with where the hell else would it be? It's called MENTAL illness for a fucking reason."
A moment of silence fell between them. Ella looked back up at her distorted smile in the capture. A frown pulled at her lips.
"This is also how I feel when random men tell me to smile."
Sam and Bucky had to stifle their laughter. It would not have been appropriate considering the conversation, not a moment before.
"It's ok to laugh, you know. I'm not fragile like a flower. More like a bomb."
Ella just chuckled at the looks that she brought out on Sam and Bucky's faces. A bark of laughter then escaped her lips. She took a step forward in the direction of the next series and looked at Bucky. It was time to move on to the next series.
The one with the plastic wrap.
When they were positioned in front of it, Ella spoke first.
"Now, tell me what you two think these photos mean."
Without thinking Bucky repeated what he had said the first time he had seen these images.
"Beauty standards are fucked up."
"Yes. Yes, they are. I was also dealing with body image issues at the time. I still am. I lost a lot of weight and then gained it all back, plus some extra, in a very short period. This is the most recent photo in this show. I took it a few months ago."
"What caused the weight problems? That sounds like a health-related issue rather than a choice." Bucky observed.
Ella kept her eyes on the images in front of them. Her face was stoic.
"My thyroid went crazy. I was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism a little over a year ago. I lost so much weight I looked like a Dachau inmate. Then when I got radiation therapy to kill off the thyroid function, I went hypo. Gained all the weight back, and then some. I just recently got all my hormone levels normalized. I still haven't lost the extra weight, though. I have been having issues with my appearance ever since."
"I'm glad you got everything taken care of. That can be nasty. Thyroid storms can kill you. My sister had hers removed a few years back. And for the record, Ella. You look amazing. Even in these photos." Sam said.
Ella gave him a sweet smile, obviously not knowing what to say.
Bucky took a step back, lifted her arm above her head, and spun her around slowly.
"You look just fine to me, Peach."
Ella's cheeks grew pink.
"Besides, I don't like it when I slap a woman's ass and it sounds like a screenshot."
Ella and Sam laughed exuberantly. Ella swatted him in the chest playfully while giving him an admonishing look.
"Wait. Wait. Wait. Peach? Am I missing something?"
Sam looked at Bucky and folded his arms with a wide grin on his face.
"You know, Sam. Like Peachy Keehn?" Bucky waggled his eyebrows at Sam.
Sam laughed and turned to Ella who threw her head back and groaned. Then she looked at Bucky with an evil smirk.
"Mmmmmm. Caking." That was all Ella said.
Ella and Sam burst out in hysterical laughter as Bucky stood there. He wanted to cross his arms and huff, but that would mean letting go of Ella's hand. He settled on standing there, glaring at them, looking faux livid.
When their laughter had subsided Bucky pulled Ella along, still fighting off a fit of laughter, to the next group of photos. The pig-headed photos. There was a question about these he had been burning to ask. He wasted no time getting to that point.
"Is that a real pig's head?"
Ella made a face as if she didn't know if she should give him the real answer or not.
"Yeah. It is. I butchered a whole pig to get some of the photos taken here. Got some great pieces of slab bacon out of it. I think I still have some pork chops in my freezer too. Nothing went to waste, don't worry. This is my commentary on models. High fashion models to be more precise."
Bucky stood there blinking up at the photos. Trying to process all of that information. Sam just stared at Ella; his expression unreadable.
"You know how to butcher a pig? And how did you manage to fit it over your head?"
Sam asked in a monotone voice, obviously trying to hide how he was feeling.
"I looked it up online. It's a good skill to have. And it's amazing the shit you can learn on the internet. As for fitting it over my head… I emptied the cranial cavity and used the grey matter for the last series of photos in this show. I think you know which photo I mean. I was wearing a swim cap, goggles, and a facemask under that thing. I showered with antibacterial soap afterward. I think with what I captured it was more than worth it."
Sam made a surprised and impressed face. Nodding his head slowly. Bucky just stared at the photos then back at her.
"Is there anything you can't do?"
Bucky brought Ella's hand up to his lips and ran them over her knuckles while he spoke.
"I think you know the answer to that question. Onwards!" Ella smirked as she pointed down the hallway.
Next came the abandoned asylum photos.
"Where were these taken exactly? Did you break in?" Sam asked, intrigued.
"I am not allowed to say. I got permission to shoot at this massive location throughout a long weekend. In exchange for access and the complete run of the place, I was asked to sign an NDA. I took hundreds of photos there. These are just some of my favorites. Every time I display them, the favorites change. That's also why I don't title any of my works. The titles would change every time you asked me."
"An NDA?" Bucky questioned.
"A Non-Disclosure Agreement. Meaning I am bound by a contract to not say where these were taken. If you know because you recognize the location, that's one thing. I cannot tell you, though. What I can say is that it is an abandoned mental hospital where they built a tuberculosis ward during the epidemic in the early 1920s. I want to go back one day. I had three days, but I could have used a week. The complex was huge."
"What's with this last frame? You look so different in comparison to the other frames."
Sam pointed at the last photo in the series. The one of Ella running through the garden of blooming flowers.
"Not all photos that I take are serious. That was an outtake while I was having some fun. I thought it added a little something to the whole. A breath of fresh air so to speak. Mental illness is not all gloom, doom, and suffering. Take my bipolar disorder for example. The mania can be amazing in so many ways. Just like the depressive episodes can be abysmal in just as many ways. Finding balance is key."
Bucky listened to Ella's explanation. What amazed him the most was how forthcoming she was with him and Sam about all of this. If he were in her shoes, he would be keeping his cards close to his chest. She was the opposite. She seemed so comfortable talking about these things about herself with them. With a few apparent exceptions.
Ella looked from Sam to Bucky and flashed him a knowing smile when she caught him staring.
"This next series is tied in with these very closely. They were all taken at this location as well."
With that, Ella followed Sam down to the next series. The one depicting the various barbaric treatments of mental ward patients.
Bucky was not looking forward to these. One, in particular, stood out more than the others. And that one had almost gotten to him last time. He was afraid it would succeed this time around.
He hoped that he was wrong.