Queen of Nothing at all.

               Maybe this was a bad idea.

   But all she had to do was walk up and say,

＊＊＊closed thread for @thecreativecastle​ (Leo)＊＊＊

【《ＲＥＷＩＮＤ《】

　　　　　　　　I'm not better, okay?! I'm not better!  　　And I keep waiting for someone to figure that out and they don't! 　　　　　I mean, of course, they don't 'cause as long as I say  　　 the right thing and I act the right way, they're **happy because that 　　　　　　　　means that they cured me, right? **

【》ＦＡＳＴ　ＦＯＲＷＡＲＤ》】   　　　　　ｔｈｒｅｅ　ｙｅａｒｓ　ｌａｔｅｒ．．．

Emma sat on the edge of her seat checking her emails. The therapist called her in twenty minutes past four. She had been out of school for over an hour and had shown up for her regular weekly appointment like normal only to find out her doctor was running behind. It made her anxious. Almost four years after the mainspring of her eating disorder she was still going to therapy. Her doctors had said nearly two years ago she could stop, but change threw Emma out of sequence. She didn’t enjoy it at all. 

“Emma,” the woman at the front desk called. Emma practically jumped out of her skin when she heard her name called, “Your doctor can see you now.” She walked back down the hallway towards the office that she spent more time in than her favorite coffee shop. She knocked on the door softly and waited as her doctor opened the door sitting in his rolling chair with a pen behind his ear. 

They went through the formalities of every session. He asked her how she was, she would talk about every time she struggled that week, or any accomplishments she had made. He would ask her if she was stressed and she would talk about starting college and how it changed her. He would ask her about food, and she would be quiet, like always, so he decided to ask her a new question.

“Emma, when you were first diagnosed with Anorexia, how did you get better?” 

Oh god, here it comes. “How did I get better? What do you mean like my treatments or my medications?” Emma snapped back confused. Her stress level was dramatically high this particular day and she didn’t feel like talking about that.

“No, what was it that drove you to get better.” Her doctor asked, hoping whatever it was could help her cope with the levels of Anxiety and Stress she had been experiencing. 

So then she began to reminisce on it all. 

【 ||ＰＡＵＳＥ】

＂I'm not better, okay?! I'm not better!＂

　　　＂Full disclosure, I stole this out of a guys rooms.＂  

＂Why can’t you admit it? I liked you so much more than you liked me.＂

　　　＂I want to help you. I want us to get out of here, together.＂

＂...After a while I got used to it I guess. And I liked having the extra time to study. And the more I thought about it, the more I figured, If I don’t need lunch, maybe I don’t need breakfast or dinner either...＂

【 ► ＰＬＡＹ】 

Emma forgot how much of that year she had blocked out. She found herself standing up and looking at her doctor. “Nothing drove me to get better. I did what the doctors asked and I’m better. I don’t think I should continue therapy.” She said picking up her phone and walking out of the office as a tear rolled down her cheek. Her doctor stood up and tried to follow her down the hall but she was already gone.

She didn’t take the bus back to her apartment that she had gotten the day after graduation, instead she walked the 12 blocks in crowded LA by herself. She hurried up the stairs once she unlocked the door and slammed it behind her. 

“What the heck is wrong with you Emma?” was all that could run through her mind. She sat her bag on the counter and looked over at the refrigerator and opened it to see her usual stash of food. two apples, a quart of orange juice, half a pound of spinach, greek yogurt, a dozen eggs and flavored water. Emma took everything out of the fridge and began pouring it all down the sink and throwing it away (after throwing it across the room). It wasn’t much, and it didn’t take long.

When it was done, she was still mad, she wanted to get rid of it all. She took her jacket off and walked into her bathroom to see the scale on her floor. She hadn't weighed herself in weeks, she didn’t feel like she needed too, quit frankly she didn’t want to. She washed off her makeup and looked in the mirror as something caught her eye in the reflection. A picture, in her bedroom taped to her wall along with many more, this one was different because it was from the “When I was sick” era. 

Emma walked into her room and pulled the picture off the wall to look at it. Leo’s bald head had a sun glare that made a flare in the picture, it had made her laugh every time she looked at it, but tonight it made her want to cry. His arm was draped around her shoulder and she was smiling. It was one of the only pictures she had of them together. It was special.

By fate or chance they had fallen apart after Emma left the hospital when she started “getting better” Leo hadn’t been in the hospital much longer, and they had hung out a few times after, but whatever was there before, had faded. They sent each other text messages on their birthdays and Christmas, but other than that there was never a word exchanged.

Emma took out her phone and took a picture of the photo and looked at it for a long time as she sat on her bed. She contemplated texting him, but she felt bad for reaching out to him just because she was feeling down.

It was a little more than down. Emma couldn’t make herself admit that she was two seconds away from a mental break down. A text message would be too insensitive.” So she dialed his number and called him.  

She didn’t expect him to answer, and as the phone kept ringing she thought she would just hang up, but he would see a missed call from her and call back, so she should probably leave a message saying she just wanted to say hi and that nothing was wrong.

What would she even say? “Hi Leo, how are you? I’m fine. I hate we haven’t spoken in four months.” She was regretting even calling him but she needed to tell someone. She needed someone to understand before it got worse. Before she found herself falling backwards again. She needed someone to see she wasn’t okay. She needed an anchor to hold her still before the waves tore her apart and let her sink into the sea.

“Hi, Leo...”

Finley looked at all of the pictures Emma had and smiled. Those had been good times before everything seemed to change. It had all been so fast, one minute she and Emma were fighting over the last marshmallow for smores and the next, Emma was sick and living at the hospital. Now, that’s where she was. “Okay. Will we be able to have like sleepovers? Like when we were little?” Being separated from her big sister made the hospital seem a lot scarier.

Emma thought about the idea of having sleepovers and grinned ear to ear. “Of course Fin.” She wasn’t entirely sure if it was allowed, but this was a hospital, she was her sister after all and she knew that other kids that were sick had family come in and out all the time. Emma hadn’t really seen much of her family while she had been in the hospital and that made her sad, but Finley being there, even concerning the circumstances, made her feel a little better. “We can even have movie marathons and eat popcorn in bed. We can do whatever you want to do.” Emma said knowing she would do her best to make her sister happy, and keep her spirits up.

Today was the first time in two weeks that I ate three meals. 

     Nurse Jackson says I may get to go home for Christmas.

          Therapy sucks. It always does.

               I sent in my application to Yale.

                    So I guess it’s been a good day.

                                                                                  Emma

Emma thought for a moment before looking around at her room. It was simple really, she had made it a lot like her room at home. Home, didn’t really feel like home much anymore, because she was always at the hospital... The blanket on her bed was the same quilt from her room and on the walls she had pictures of family trips. One picture over her bed was of her and Finley roasting marshmallows on a camping trip last summer. Emma took the picture and pulled it off the cork board before holding it out to Fin. “We can hang pictures up, I have lots more in my suitcase. It takes some time really. For the first week or so my room was really dull and then I had Dad bring some pictures. And over there on the wall,” Emma said pointing to her desk, “I hung up my Yale banner. We can give Mom and Dad a list of things they should bring and I will help you decorate it.” She said. Having Finley there made the hospital feel more like home than ever, and she wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not, seeing as she wasn’t supposed to get too comfortable here.

That was why he considered her one of the best students ever—                               she caught him doing stupid shit,                                        but just let it slide.

Pulling over his chair, Adam dropped to sit in it before motioning to one of the other seats opposite his desk,             a wordless invitation that she get comfortable.

“I did,” he replied, expression brightening. “And I’m very impressed by it— it’ll be sent along with HIGH PRAISE from me.” He promised, only looking to help the younger generations succeed. And Emma certainly had the possibility of going FAR. 

               “They won’t be able to RESIST you. I’m certain of it.”

                            Emma sat down in the chair feeling relived to not be standing any longer.                              She really appreciated Adam for helping her. Not just because she wasn't                             allowed to go to school while in the hospital, but because he didn’t have to                             tutor her, he chose to.

         Not many people would willingly spend time with a girl who wouldn’t eat her own breakfast but was dead set on going to Yale. It made it hard for her to be around people sometimes, when they judged her. Adam didn’t seem to be like those people.

                              “Do you think — ” She began a little worried        about the thought that had entered her mind. “My scores,        and my essay, will be enough? What if, when they look at         my application and see that I haven’t been in school — ”         Emma said trailing off. She hated not being NORMAL.

        Why couldn’t she just be in school like every other seventeen year old? Even if Adam had written her a glowing letter of recommendation, she wasn’t sure if she was WORTHY of Yale.

                          Her lack of self confidence would was drowning her dreams.