Escape, Chapter One

Alex.

"Are you damaged from childhood or something?"

Samantha asks the question innocently. God, questions like that make me nervous. The type that force you to interrogate the very matter of your being, to look
inside yourself and ask 'am I as fucked up as she thinksI might be?' It makes the hair on my ears prickle with nerves and my palms grease with sweat. That's before
I even think of how I could possibly answer. 'Yes' would be a reply to the affirmative, an acknowledgement of my problem. 'Yes', I would be saying pathetically. Yes, my
anorexia stems from childhood traumas. Conversely, 'No' would be just as unsatisfactory, for the truth of the matter is that either answer is a lie. I don't know why this illness manifested itself inside me about four years, ago and refused to leave. At twenty, its persistance is tiring me out. Some say admitting you have a problem is the first step toward recovery, and I love that simplicity. Thats all it is- admittance, not a cure. Some also say the disease is about control, that anorexia nervosa stems from a wish to block out mental pain, to control your own world so that you can ignore the banes of your existance. Me? I don't know. What I do know is that all of this thought is only making me feel ill. I had another blackout this morning, before college. I can't even remember what happened then, let alone stomach this self-analysis, and so I just stick to an ambiguous answer, one that would please her and hopefully let the situation be.

"I don't know."

"Right" she replies, unconvinced. Fuck it. Wrong answer. In retrospect, it's not as if it was a pleasing answer anyway. Yes, I suffer from anorexia. Why? Well, that's another matter entirely. Another obstacle on the road to recovery that has been trod wearily for two years. The truth is, I know as much about why I developed anorexia now as I did when I started. All I know is that I've had enough, of here, of home, and plan to move out as soon as possible. Where I'll go, I don't know.

I have yet to make up my mind.

"Hi guys" calls a shrill voice from behind us. Turning around, we see Darryl head toward us as Samantha and me sit on the stairs of Tower Way college. He plods clumsily down the stairs of the entrance as sunlight reflects against the glass doors, so I have to shield my eyes. I feel sick. He throws his bag down and, gripping each of us in a firm hug, follows it with an ecstatic shriek. He sits between us. God, not now.

"Party on friday night! Whose coming?"

Certainly not me.

"We'll be there." Samantha replies sweetly, brushing her tussled Chesnut hair away from her face. Darryl emits another falsetto screech. A group of passing boys hear him and amuse themselves by mimicking his womanish accentuation. He hears their ridicule, but doesn't seem to care.

"At least I'm not afraid to be myself" he whispers, almost victoriously.

I wretch inwardly at the thought of Darryl's party, and anger myself at my own reluctance to declare my desired absence. I cannot bear the thought of it; rooms and rooms filled with drunken, rainbow-bearing butch-girls and nancy-boys. On the other hand, Samantha will be there, and if a room is empty, she and I could go to it
and hopefully be undisturbed, which would be enough compensation for any suffrance.

"I'm so, so glad you're both coming! It's going to be the best. I throw a mean party!"

It's hard to stop him talking, so we both listen, Samantha more keenly than I. She engages him so that I don't have to, her eyes, a shade of ephemeral blue, looking at him so benignly. It's hard not to feel comfortable in her presence. Once she looks at you, you feel that little more important

"God, you're going to love it! All my friends will be there. Don't expect to leave early! Oh, I'm so excited. It's going to be unforgettable!"

All the hype does is make me wish that he would go away. I'm just about to close my eyes as tension builds within my stomach as he extends a hand to grab mine but then stops.

"Gosh, isn't it hot? I really need a drink" he moans, his head drooping downward like a pansy relenting to the sun. I don't feel half as hot. I feel cold. An icy, tingling sensation creeps down my spine, and I wrap my arms round myself, my black jumper pressed more firmly against my protruding ribcage. Darryl continues, for dramatic effect, to lean downward. On the back of his neck, sweat glistens. His ginger hair curls upward in tiny flicks, greased with more perspiration. Leaning upward again, he looks at me in mock-suffrance, and places a hand on my boney knee, his big, dumb face, etched with rosey cheeks, trying not to break out in fits of giggles.

"I'm just joking!" he finally cries.

I was never worried.

He throws himself back up, chuckling. "But I do need a drink, it's so hot" he gasps, staring at a pidgeon in a birdbath across the road in the park as it washes itself.

I tilt my head back to look at Samantha, who turns and looks back at me and lifts her eyebrows as if if to say "got no money." I need to do something, anything to relieve the situation. Aware that Darryl still has his hand on my knee, I shake it gently and then get up, rummaging through my black trouser pockets, which hang baggily off of my emaciated frame. Shaking himself out of his stare, Darryl looks up at me.

"Black really is a slimming colour, isn't it?" he asks.

Samantha offers no answer at first but a frank expression. She scrunches her perfect cheeks up and rolls her eyes, fully realising his faux-pas. "Yeah, really is" she replies, inviting no further queries.

After a further few seconds, I reach deep into my pockets and, feeling a rumpled piece of paper, pull it into view- a twenty pound note. Samantha and Darryl see it and look at me surprisedly. "Bloody hell, moneybags" Samantha laughs. "Where'd you get that from?" Also surprised, I flatten the note out in the palm of my hand, which is decorated with a yellowish skin, and eye it suspiciously. No idea where it came from, but useful it is. Twenty pounds more to add to my funds of moving away from home. It's also a further help in this situation.

"Take it" I say, thrusting it into Darryl's face. "Get us some drinks. I'm thirsty too."

He snatches it with a gleeful smile. "What do you both want?"

"Coke, please" Samantha replies, fanning herself with a sheet of paper.

"What about you, Alex?"

"Diet- anything" I say hurriedly. Decisions, decisions. "Make sure they give you the right change."

"Back soon!" he smiles, and then climbs off the steps, heading back up the stairs into college. Relieved, and with the tension in my stomach relenting, I take a seat next to Samantha on the cold, concrete stairs.

"I don't know if I wan't to go that party" I admit.

"Come. You might have a good time. You might not either, of course, but you should. Just for the experience, like" she says, so honest and assured of her words that I inwardly berate myself for lacking the confidence she possesses in spades.

"Yeah" I reply. Ambiguity, my speciality. Non-committment, neither yes nor no. As always. I might, I might, I might. If anorexia is for those who wish to exert control, I wonder if I'm an exception to the rule?

A few seconds of silence pass. In the park opposite, a clock mounted on top of a tall, green pole hits 3 0'clock, and streams of students rush past us from inside the college, eager to find their way home.

"What are we doing now, then?" Samantha turns to ask me.

"I don't know. Anything. What do you want to do?"

"Anything" she says lazily, and I get down to planning something we could do together, but my thoughts are thrown off-course. A gleaming black car creeps up the road, sunlight masking the drivers identity. I shield my eyes and strain my neck
for a better view as my heart begins to palpitate inside my chest. My stomach rolls. The driver, winds the window down, takes his sunglasses off, and looks around the College entrance, before settling his eyes upon me and crinkling his crusty lips into a rigid smile. Seeing Samantha, he offers a cheerful wave, which she reciprocates, and he then curls his first finger up and beckons me toward the car.

"Sorry" I say to her, standing. "Got to go" I say reluctantly.

"Oh" Samantha replies, rising to give me a good-bye embrace. "I'll see you tomorrow then?"

"Probably" I say back, and take small steps toward the car, the drivers smile seeming to edge into a more angular, contrived grin with each passing stride.

"Hello, Alex" he leers.

"Alright" I reply, trying not to look at him, and open the back door of the car. I wind the window down, to offer one more wave to Samantha. Darryl is back with her, holding on to my drink with one hand and offering the change with the other, which I only just remember.

"Wait, can I just get something?" I ask urgently. I want my money back.

"No, no, come on, got to be off" the driver replies. Then he looks up into the rear-view mirror, his greying locks matted against his forehead. "Come see Mum, she's looking forward to it." I wonder how the fuck he could know that. How he could know that she was looking forward to seeing me, given that she can't move or talk. How did he know- a code of blinks? A groan, a slur, dribble slipping from the side of her mouth that just screams "I can't wait to see Alex!" We'll never know.

I lean back, defeated. The car speeds away down the road, and Samantha waves at me as Darryl tips the change into his pocket, and I try to remember to ask him for it back. We turn a corner but I don't know where to go from here.