Caterina Valentine: My Life.

FlorMorada

I do NOT own Victorious, or any songs that may be used.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE:

I'm back from Spain. :) I got back on Thursday, but I've been kind of busy, so.

I read over this and decided to change it all - which took some hours. But I'm doing water fast so I've been lying down all day so had time to. So enjoy. :)

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NOTE:

" Real life ", " "Cat speaking" ", " Cat's flashback/past happenings ".

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Chapter Eleven

Self II.

"And that's what I did - I believed you. When you called me selfish - a selfish bitch.

I still have the faintest lines of that word on my left thigh, Jade, because of you."

…

Slowly waking up, I smell what seems like…toast, beside me, and the aroma is both heavenly and extremely torturing.

Heavenly, because it's toast - and, opening my eyes, I see butter and marmalade on both slices - but torturing because I already know I that can't, shouldn't and won't eat it.

I notice Jade on the ledge by the large window, the curtain wrapped around her. She looks like she's looking outside, but I move shift and the bed creaks, so she turns around.

"Finally awake?" she asks me.

I sit up in my bed, and my still-new, red curls in my vision around me.

Stupid hair.

Well, the hair's not stupid. What's stupid is all the drama it caused yesterday.

"What are you doing here?" I say to Jade. I attempt to get out of my bed - and I'm met with the feeling of fabric grazing over my skin. As caused by yesterday's event, I tense my left leg and wince, and I stay where I am.

Jade lets go of her curtain shawl and walks over to me, placing the tray of toast beside me on my lap. "Here, breakfast."

"Breakfast?" That's a no from me.

And Jade knows that, so I don't know why she's brought it up.

I see a mug of what looks like coffee on the tray, and despite having just woken up, I know I'll need it. I place my hands around it. "Has this got milk in it?"

Jade shakes her head. "No - just a sugar. How you like it."

I lift it to my mouth and take a sip.

Hopefully it'll will be enough to satisfy my stupid stomach.

Jade nudges the tray on my lap towards me, and I look up at her, still confused. "I'm fine," I say to the food - although, of course Jade knows that. Or she should do.

She stares at me. "Can you eat some?"

"No, thanks."

"Cat-"

"I don't like breakfast."

"No, Cat-"

I put my coffee down on the tray, and irritatedly repeat my question. "Jade, why are you even here?"

She sighs, and sits at my feet. "I just said: I've got you breakfast."

"Right." I laugh. "You're suddenly caring enough to do that after you were so mad at me yesterday?"

Because unless some sort of amnesia has caused Jade's change of mood from last afternoon to this morning, I know Jade hasn't forgotten.

I twist the plate of marmalade toast and poke the edge of one piece with my finger, and Jade notices.

"Yeah, have some," she says.

I inwardly sigh, as I often do when she's like this.

I reach under the duvet and dig my nails hard into my stomach's skin. I pick up the mug of coffee with my other hand, and take a sip again. "I'm not hungry."

I feel the beverage drop in my stomach and it growls. I pinch, angrily, even harder.

"Cat, you are…" she says to me, whispering, and I'm about to dishonestly object, but she suddenly reaches over to me. "Cat, I'm so worried about you."

…

"And you had a right to be, I guess, Jade; I'd be worried if you were like me. If you were cutting and not eating properly.

But that's you - no; I didn't deserve that.

So of course, I had the idea to act clueless. I asked you why. And your response was a gesture to the plate of food in front of me.

And then my stomach, I remember, 'conveniently' roared and the other response of yours was to that.

That I was 'too skinny'.

And I told you you'd said that before, and that I really didn't think so, but then you disagreed and poked me in the ribs and it wasn't just through flesh - you poked my ribs.

And I got irritated, you being worried, because worry would mean you'd want me to eat and that thought really terrified me. Not just because of 'getting fat'. Just, the voice; that part of me that craving that 'skinny'.

Like, imagine this friend who promises the world and then bam: slowly beginning to take over you. But you can't leave her - she'll get you what you want, right?

And in my case, what I wanted was a weight below ninety-five."

…

"I'm going to say it straight out, okay?" Jade says, and I nod, already knowing.

A day doesn't go by where Jade doesn't make some comment about my weight. I'm 'too thin', 'too skinny', 'sick?' - all the time. I'm surprised she hasn't said it months ago. Jade places her hand on my shoulder, and looks down.

"I think you're anorexic, Cat."

All I hear in her voice is patronising. It takes all I have in me not to shake my shoulder free and slap her, but realising disagreement and objection is probably her reason for her thinking this, I just look up at her and stay calm.

"Anorexic?" The word comes out from me as both a freaking hymn, and pure bile.

"Even my dad's noticed, Cat."

I have nothing to say. Of course he'd have noticed - it's not exactly easy to discretely refuse a whole meal at the dinner table. I want to object to Jade, again, but instead, I flatly say, "You're not a doctor. Neither you nor or your dad can say I have anorexia."

Like…anorexic.

I've considered it before. I've done reasearch, and I'm not stupid - I know my habits are…'of what one with anorexia would do'. And I'm terrible at being in denial towards myself - which is why I feel such self-force to lie; I've had thoughts on all this being an eating disorder before. But anorexia nervosa?

It seems extreme. And wrong.

Still staring into Jade's eyes, I expect them to stay glassy, but her gaze suddenly turns hard and she grips my shoulder, picking up a piece of toast and pushing it right against my lips.

"Prove it then!" she says. "Eat the damn food!"

I close my eyes and protest. I feel stuff on my lips and I lick them on instinct, immediately tasting the toast's marmalade.

The thickly spread, sugar-filled marmalade.

I push Jade back and drag the back of my hand across my lips, stunned. She throws the food to the ground and I see she's started crying.

I'm suddenly not only disgusted, but annoyed. "What- why the hell are you crying?" I ignore the pain on my thigh and actually stand from my bed. "You were so mad at me yesterday! And pissed and hated me and now you're-" I gesture to her wet face, "-are you bipolar or something?"

Jade spreads her arms, pointing towards me. "Yeah, because of you!" Because of my worry for you! I just see you like this, Cat," she stutters, still crying, "and I can't deal with it, that's why I just change so much - I don't know how to deal with it! I can't take it-"

And neither can I, because from being pissed last night, to feeling starved, to being angry, I suddenly realising I am crying too.

…

"That was the cause of your stupid emotions, Jade - me. You weren't upset or annoyed or hating me, you were just worried but you couldn't say.

Again: because I'd probably object! How could you tell me I was scaring you if all I'd do was disagree? I was so stupid - how did you even put up with me, Jade? How could you even live with what I was causing you?"

…

Once more with the physical contact; Jade suddenly hugs her arms around me again. I hear her cringe as her hand touches my back.

"I don't think you understand, Cat. You're not," she says, "you're not-"

"Skinny?"

"Fine, no - you're a freaking skeleton."

I squeeze my eyes tighter closed and l feel such a pain. Jade's words; voice…the sincerity in it.

Jade releases me. "You are not fat, okay?You need to eat. I'm just watching you and it's terrifying!"

I cover my eyes with my hands. I feel Jade's hand grip my elbow.

"Cat, you want to get married, right?" I feel her pull me and we seem to start to walk forwards.

I shrug, totally confused. "What- yeah?"

"And kids- a little girl, Luna, or that Harry Potter character?"

I feel tiles on a bathroom floor. "Yeah, Luna."

"Do you want to live a life, Cat?"

I shrug again. I guess I do.

I want…I want to be skinny.

But I want to live a life too.

We stop moving. I feel my feet against a cool, glass ground. After a moment, I hear Jade inhale. "Open your eyes, Cat."

I remove my hands. I look down.

I don't even attempt to acknowledge how we got into the bathroom, how I didn't realise and why Jade's even doing this.

All I do is stare at the blink, blink, set of the number beneath me, on the, I then realise, glass scales. Sweat prickles on my palms.

I have to blink twice to adjust my eyes because it just doesn't seem real. It's like the words 'anorexia' - to my ears, they're unfitting and wrong; they don't describe me. And neither can this.

I don't mean to say it aloud, but the shock inside me evidently feels that I do. I stare. I repeat the number.

"Eighty-nine…pounds?"

…

'No form of emotional expression available' is all I felt when Jade showed that number to me.

Eighty-nine. Like, I knew I was skinny - as I said, I found difficulty being in self-denial. But I hadn't been on a scale for months. I didn't ever think I was that skinny.

Without having to Google it, I immediately worked out a body mass index of 17.4.

And I started crying.

I got off the scales, kicked them into the wall, hugged Jade again and started crying.

I didn't get it. I was so skinny. I was- I knew. I was anorexic.

Which was what I wanted, wasn't it? To be skinny? But I suddenly felt such a chest ache - worse than in my stomach - and I just yelled to myself, 'why am I crying?'

From shock, still? Dissatisfaction? Was I wounded because that voice in my head still sneered that it 'should be' lower- at eighty-nine pounds?

All of them - reasons, but the main one? I just felt broken.

And I was breaking you, Jade.

And that just hit me. And I cried, and I couldn't take it-

I realised, I was so selfish."

…

Still with my head in her neck, I feel Jade shaking her head. "How are you going to find a wedding dress like this, Cat? You'll say it doesn't fit or doesn't look right and you won't even be your real size. You'll always be 'too fat for it - how will you even get married?

There won't be a Luna. You were small enough already, Cat, to carry a baby - you know, like this, you won't have kids, right? What if you're damaged permanently? What if you can't have kids?

You're going to…"

Jade slowly lets go of me again, and looks straight into my eyes. She isn't crying anymore, but honestly, that's what's worse. "You're going to die."

…

"You said I might as well have been killing myself.

And that was killing you, Jade: me, killing myself.

I'd never thought of that. Of course I wasn't trying to kill myself - I just wanted skinny. I didn't want to die. I got depressed sometimes - increasingly - but I wasn't wanting to end it.

I didn't feel suicidal.

Not quite yet, I didn't.

The only thing I felt right was selfish. Because I was killing you."

…

"Do you want to die, Cat?"

I swallow, shaking my head.

"That's what you're doing! Don't you get that? You're going to die if you stay like this." Voice still unwavering, Jade says to me, "What would I do if you were dead, Cat? What would the other guys do? You're- just, you can't. Are you that selfish? Don't do this to yourself, Cat…don't do this to me."

…

"To 'you'.

I was doing this to you."

…

"You need to stop, Cat," Jade says to me, "I, I've done research - I know how scary it is. But we need to get out of this. If you fall down dead, Cat…"

…

"…You'll be bringing me down with you."

…

"I would feel dead too."

…

"That's what you said to me.

And it must have taken months to change my way of thinking- it really was. It was almost half a year.

I was thirteen by the time I finished a West meal - the age most girls don't even have to yet worry about eating disorders. Fourteen pieces of pasta and a slither of skinless chicken - the furthest progress, finally, I'd ever made. Without a diagnoses or anything. No doctors or whatever. I managed to get rid of everything on my own.

She's in the back of my mind, that…my 'Ana'. Still whispering to me that I should be skinny. But she got downgraded, if that makes sense; Miss Selfish, she just took over.

She's in my journal; on my mind; on, now, not just my thigh, but my right across abdomen.

She's overpowering.

Like, I managed to take over Ana. I stopped her voice, and I ate, and she only comes out again occasionally.

But, Miss Selfish, she's turned me just like her.

I'd actually call it selfless - taking my life away. I caused you pain, Jade, and so I'll be ending it, right? Though, suicide.

Suicide.

I guess one can call it selfish.

But worse than Ana's starving, worse than Ana's skinny; killing myself is all that Selfish's voice has taught me I deserve."

…

But…no. No, Cat.

You didn't deserve it. At all.

If anything, for first calling you that, I'm the one who does.

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I haven't written the next chapter (André :)) and I don't know when it'll be done. But, although to you non-writers, it seems really whore-y and cliché, reviews really do help me update. So, go on.

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FlorMorada.