Sad Perfect

by Stephanie Elliot

  “Red roses are so cliché,” you say.

  “Come here.” He pulls you in for a hug. While you’re not looking at him it feels easier and you try it again.

  “I’m sorry,” you say.

  “I’m sorry too,” he says, still hugging you.

  “You don’t need to apologize,” you say. “I was an ass. But I thought you were dead. I was so worried. And then I got mad at you. I’m sorry I was such a bitch and didn’t give you a chance to explain.”

  You don’t want to let go of him so you keep hugging Ben, right at the front of your school. You can’t believe you almost screwed it up over something so stupid. You’re so stupid.

  “We okay?” he asks.

  “We’re okay,” you say. You so want to believe it.

  30

  It’s Saturday night. Your parents are out, and Todd is in his room, probably plugged into his earbuds. Ben is over. You’re feeling inklings of the monster lurking; he’s getting in the way tonight, telling you that you’re not good enough for Ben, that someone like Ben will never love you, that you’re not good enough for anyone. Your anxiety is rising and usually when you’re with Ben it’s lowered. This is not normal and you’re quiet.

  You’re sullen. You’re moody.

  Ben can tell.

  You’re on the couch, trying to watch TV, but the monster is vying for your attention. It’s like you, Ben, and the monster. Like the monster is third-wheeling. You click the remote control to turn off the TV.

  “What’s the matter?” Ben has his arm around you, then he takes your hand in his. The monster howls as if Ben’s touch burns him.

  “I don’t feel very well?” you say.

  “You hungry?” Ben asks, and he pulls you up from the couch. “Let’s get something to eat.” You don’t want to eat, but Ben is dragging you into the kitchen.

  Ben opens the fridge and looks around, rummaging through Tupperware and tin-foiled leftovers, stuff you know you will not touch. It bothers you that Ben is going through your refrigerator.

  “What do you have in here?” he asks.

  “Like I know.” It comes out very rude.

  “Don’t be like that,” he says.

  “I’m not hungry,” you say.

  “You should eat something. What did you eat today?”

  “Stop.”

  He turns his head from the fridge and looks at you.

  It was the monster that said stop. Not you. You’re sure of it. Because it came out mean and sharp, not how you talk to Ben.

  “What? Why?” he asks kindly.

  “Don’t be my therapist. I don’t want to eat,” you say. Again, the monster.

  He closes the fridge. Looks at you.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  Your bottom lip is quivering. You don’t know what to say. On the one hand you want to cry, you want to fall into his arms and admit you need help, more help than you’re getting. Maybe you shouldn’t have stopped taking your pills. Maybe it was a dumb idea to think you were getting better on your own?

  You can’t go on like this, you don’t feel strong enough, and you wish you could tell Ben that you aren’t sure what’s happening, but that you’re extremely sad, and you don’t know what’s going on inside you.

  But. You know it’s the monster and you can’t control it when things like this happen. Because if you could control anything, you’d be able to get rid of the monster. And he’s still there.

  You pull yourself together and your lip stops quivering.

  Ben is still looking at you. You can tell he’s hurt by your attitude, but there’s nothing you can do about it because the monster’s got full control. This is exactly what you’ve been afraid of. Because of this disorder, and because of this monster, you’re pushing away the people you love. It’s happening with Ben.

  “Maybe you should just go home.”

  “You really want me to go home?” he asks, hurt.

  “I just don’t feel well, and I think I should go to bed before I do something not right.”

  “What do you mean?” he asks.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you okay?” he asks again.

  “I need to be alone.”

  “I don’t think you should be alone.” He sounds demanding to you. The monster tells you that Ben is bossing you around. The monster tells you that Ben is complicating your life, and he doesn’t care for you, only the monster cares for you. This boy, who you’ve known for only six weeks, is using you. The monster says that this boy, this boy in your house now, who’s telling you what to do, is not important, and the monster knows what’s best for you, because he’s been there with you from the beginning.

  So the monster tells you what to say next.

  “Just go.”

  “You sure?” He’s giving you another chance.

  Take it, you think.

  The monster says no.

  “I’m sure.”

  “Okay.”

  And Ben leaves.

  31

  It’s the Monday after you made Ben leave and you don’t know how you managed to get through school. You lied to Jae and told her you had to work on math homework during lunch so you didn’t have to see her and you went to the library instead. She would know immediately that something was seriously wrong; she’d see it on your face and she’d know right away. And you can’t face her.

  After school your mom comes up to your room to get you for therapy. You tell her you’re not up for it.

  “You can’t skip it. We’ll be charged ninety dollars for missing a session. And besides, you’re doing really well. I think you’re getting better.”

  “Mom, it’s not helping. None of it is. I can’t do it. Shayna wants me to start tasting foods soon and—”

  Your mom cuts you off. “I’m not arguing with you on this one. You’re going. You need to go.”

  She has no clue. But you don’t have a say in the matter and she takes you to therapy. Fortunately, Shayna has decided to take a break and skip the food part this week because it stressed you out so much last week. Instead, she does some touch therapy on you where you don’t have to talk that much. You’re so glad because if she asks you about Ben you’re sure you’ll burst into tears.

  Later, during group, you sit with the other girls—the ones who don’t eat and the ones who throw up—and you are quiet as you listen to everyone talk about how they are either struggling to eat a salad or struggling not to puke, and you want to die.

  You don’t want to be here.

  After a while, Shayna notices you are not saying anything, so she puts you on the spot and asks if you have anything to add.

  You stay silent for a while, and it’s the uncomfortable type of silence where everyone is staring at you, waiting for you to say something, and you don’t really want to talk but then you just spill out the words. Mostly because you want to know if you’re the only one.

  “Do any of you have monsters inside of you?”

  When no one says anything you keep talking.

  “Because I have a monster. I have a monster that lives in me. This monster, sometimes he’s noisy and sometimes he’s not so loud, but he’s always here, and he’s always, always telling me what to do. He’s responsible for my food problems—making it impossible to eat or try new things. He also makes me anxious and depressed and sad because he tells me what I should think, what I should say, what I should do. And then I do it. No matter what it is. And sometimes I do horrible things.”

  You don’t tell them what you did after Ben left Saturday night. You can’t. The monster won’t let you. You’ll get in trouble. You feel your nose get tickly and you are pretty sure you’re going to cry but then your monster tells you not to be a baby, not to cry, so you don’t. Because you always listen to the monster.

  “The other night, I made my boyfriend leave because of the monster, and he wasn’t doing anything wrong. And I didn’t want him to leave and now I think we broke up. This monster makes me do bad things.
Do you guys have any idea what I’m talking about?”

  “You mean like Ed?” one of the girls asks.

  Shayna interrupts. “Ed is a term we use for eating disorder, like we’ve given it an identity.”

  You look at Shayna and then address the girls again. “It’s worse than Ed. It’s like having Ed plus having a real monster. One who controls every part of your existence. Like for-real real. Like I wake up every single day hoping the monster is dead but he’s not. He’s not dead. He’s not leaving. I can’t get him to leave.”

  One of the girls—Nina, she’s textbook anorexic—comes over and hugs you. She’s standing and you’re still sitting and it’s a totally awkward hug, because she’s much too thin and has sharp elbow edges, plus you don’t even know her. You don’t hug her back, but that doesn’t stop her from hugging you harder. This is extremely annoying to you, and then Hailey gets up and group-hugs you.

  Jesus Christ, you think.

  “I’m so sorry you’re going through this,” Nina says.

  “I hate the fucking monster,” you say. “I need it to die.”

  Nina pats you on the head and says, “I know, I know.” Her breath stinks. You imagine it’s what death smells like.

  You try to pull away. “Please stop hugging me.”

  32

  It started the night Ben left your house. And every day it gets worse.

  The strange thing, the craziest thing about it, is you watch in amazement and can’t believe you can’t feel it.

  You can’t feel any of it.

  That’s not exactly true. You do feel something.

  You feel calm.

  The first time you were in the kitchen. Right after you made Ben leave that night, you sat at the kitchen counter, humming to yourself. Although you couldn’t tell if it was you humming, or if the monster was humming. You felt a buzzing, vibrating sound coming from inside. It was echoing and it felt like a force from within. There had been a safety pin on the counter.

  A random safety pin.

  You picked it up and unlatched it and at first you touched the sharp edge to your thumbnail. You pushed back your cuticle and picked at the skin with the pin. You felt like you might cry because you had made Ben leave, but you forced yourself not to shed tears. It wasn’t you who wanted Ben to go. The monster wanted him to leave. And so he left.

  He was gone.

  And you were alone.

  Alone with the monster.

  You pushed your cuticle back on your thumb and then you went through all your nails. All ten of them: you pushed your cuticles back and thought about what you had done. You were mean to Ben and you told him to leave. He left. You should have gone after him and told him you were sorry, explained to him that you hadn’t meant to be rude, that you were out of sorts, not yourself, and you didn’t really want him to leave.

  You should have done the simple thing, the right thing, and apologized.

  But the monster told you no. Told you to stay there.

  So you did.

  You had taken the safety pin and pressed your cuticles back with the sharp point, testing the soft area of your skin, and then you scraped them down some more, slowly and deliberately, until they turned pink. Then you scraped until blood came. But you didn’t feel anything like hurt. Nothing. Six of your nail beds bled.

  You thought you should have felt something but you didn’t. You heard the humming still, but it didn’t bother you, it just encouraged you. You kept scraping and scraping until more blood pooled from your nail beds, and then you got tired of it so you took the pin and put it down on the counter.

  You looked at your left thumbprint, the tiny circles looping round and round, and you noticed lines intersecting the circles; you had never looked that close before. You picked up the safety pin again, traced across those horizontal lines on your thumb, and jabbed at your thumbprint, tried to scrape it from your thumb. You scratched furiously at it, wanting to erase it. It didn’t go anywhere.

  The humming, you almost could recognize the tune; not quite, but it was still there, in your ears, like a soft rain, lulling you into a trance. It was comforting.

  When you got bored, you went upstairs, knowing that Ben wasn’t going to come back, he wasn’t going to call or text. It would be up to you to apologize. You were the one who hurt him.

  * * *

  After that night, you keep the safety pin with you. It doesn’t hurt when you do it, and it’s just a little scraping on skin. You’ve decided it’s a coping skill. Shayna has taught you about coping skills. Like meditation and yoga. Taking walks and listening to relaxing music—soft drums and chants, maybe a river flowing—something to calm you, almost like the humming you do, which sounds like a soft rain. The humming that accompanies the safety-pin activity is soothing.

  So the safety pin is a coping skill. It’s easy to keep with you, and after all, it’s “safe.” A “safety” pin. When you feel stressed or unnerved or like the monster is getting too loud, you take the pin and scrape and scratch. At first you focus on your fingernails, and in between your fingers, sometimes on the sides of your wrists, but really, really gently, until the skin turns white and flaky.

  You convince yourself this is okay. This is nothing bad. It’s not like you’re going to kill yourself. This is not a razor or a knife. It’s a small safety pin. You only do it for a short while, the scraping, just a few minutes at most. And the blood, when the blood finally comes, doesn’t spurt out, and sometimes there’s no blood at all. But when it comes, it’s subtle, like a soft ooze, so subtle that no one knows. No one but you and the monster. It’s not hard to hide it from your parents either. You camp out in your room, avoid dinners, the usual. They leave you alone and when your mom does check on you, you tell her you’re doing homework.

  The times when you get out the safety pin and scrape—when you see that crimson red skim the surface of your skin—you feel relief from some of the internal pain you’re feeling. It’s almost like letting out a little bit of air from a balloon that’s been blown up too much. You just need to let some of that air out so you can breathe.

  That’s all.

  That’s all this is, you’re sure. You’re letting the monster breathe a bit. And when some of the blood comes, it’s like you’re giving him air.

  He’s quiet. And you’re calm.

  33

  Alex continues to watch you in school and you continue to ignore him. He’s tried to talk to you a few times but you want nothing to do with him. The rumor mill has been quiet and you know that if there’s any communication between the two of you, you run the risk of rumors resurfacing. And you don’t need that drama. You’re barely getting through your days at school as it is, and since you haven’t talked to Ben, you can hardly concentrate.

  You do your best to focus on getting through one class at a time.

  Just get through one class at a time, that’s all you think when you’re at school.

  On Thursday, in English, Mr. Owens assigns the first of what he says will be many in-class assignments.

  “As juniors, you’re going to be doing a lot of writing in here, but to get started, I want to begin with something simple. We’ll work it into an essay later in the semester,” he says, rocking on his heels.

  You wish Mr. Owens wouldn’t rock on his heels because it looks like he’s about to fall over at any minute.

  You wish Alex wasn’t in this class with you.

  You wish you could go back to Saturday night and have a do-over with Ben.

  You also wish you didn’t have to bring the monster to school because you think you might have really enjoyed this class. You used to love English.

  You used to love a lot of things.

  Now you can’t think of a thing you love.

  Except for Ben.

  You were beginning to love Ben. But you told him to go away. Apparently, he is a very good listener.

  You feel the urge take claim so you unhook the safety pin from the inside of your T-shirt where you’ve
pinned it.

  The internal humming begins. Because you can’t hum out loud here, the monster does it for you.

  Your aim is the inside edge of your left wrist, just below the sleeve of the flannel you wore over your T-shirt. Your hands are tucked between your thighs, under your desk, and with the precision of a surgeon you hold the safety pin between your thumb and forefinger and scrape lightly. You’ve been doing this for less than a week but already you have a system figured out, a way to do this in class so no one knows.

  You wish you could tell Shayna or Jae how it makes you feel, how it shuts the monster up, but you can’t tell anyone. It is almost like a drug and you can’t explain it because if you told anyone, they’d think you were crazy.

  But maybe.

  Maybe you are crazy.

  Because.

  You don’t eat.

  There’s a monster living inside you.

  The boy you thought you were falling in love with is now gone.

  School sucks.

  Your ex-boyfriend watches you all the time.

  You’re coping by scratching at your skin with a safety pin.

  Your name is called and you see Mr. Owens staring at you.

  “Did you get all that?” he asks.

  “Yep,” you say with surprising fake confidence.

  “Great, so, the assignment, due at the end of class.”

  Everyone shuffles in their seats and grabs pens and sheets of paper from their binders to begin their work. The girl next to you knows you have no clue what you’re supposed to do. She places a blank sheet of lined paper on your desk and whispers, “Six-word memoir about you. Your life.”

  “Thanks, thanks so much,” you whisper back gratefully.

  A six-word memoir. So easy, you think, as you jot down the first thing that comes to mind:

  The monster inside wants me dead.

  Then you go back to your scraping while the rest of the class continues to think about their lives in six words.

  You’re in a zone, silently scraping away, when the girl who gave you the paper taps you on the shoulder and whispers, “What are you doing?”

  You quickly move your right hand away to hide the pin, but you’re sure she saw. And then you see the blood. It’s not anything to be freaked out by, but a little line of red has bubbled up and rivers down the palm of your hand. While it doesn’t seem like a big deal, this would get a whole lot of people talking if it got around.