The Bully (Part 3)

I woke to hear concerned voices talking above me. I didn't know where I was, and the voices were fuzzy and distant sounding. I moved my head to try and make the sound clearer. The voices stopped immediately, and I blinked my eyes open to see what was happening. Two figures stood either side of me. They were all fuzzy, like the voices, and I blinked several times to sharpen the image. It was my mother and a nurse. A nurse? What was a nurse doing here? I looked around more, waiting for a spark of recognition, but there was none. It's a hospital! I realised eventually. What was I doing here? Oh no! They can't have found out about me making myself sick. I'm not doing anything wrong. I'm fine, never better, so why bring me into hospital?

I blinked back tears, and I finally found my voice to croak out, "Why am I here?"

"You are ill, Charlotte. You're bulimic. A girl called Pauline told us all about you throwing up all the time." the nurse said.

"She's lying!" I cried hysterically. "She's wanted to put me in hospital since day one at school. She hates me. She bullies me every day. She hates me, and I hate her. She's a liar!"

Mum patted my arm, in a way that said, 'There there, Charlotte. We can help you.'

"I'm telling the truth! Why won't you believe me? I'm your own daughter, for heaven's sake! Do you think I'd lie to you? I've never lied to you in my life! Why won't you believe me?"

I burst into tears, and turned my head away. Everyone was against me, everyone. Pauline and her gang, Mum, the doctors and nurses, the teachers, everyone! I didn't even have a friend in my school. I was a loner, no-one liked me. Every letter I received from my friends from my primary school showed they were making loads of friends, were terrifically happy.. without me. Their letters were becoming less frequent, too. I felt worthless. I had no-one to turn to, because no-one understood me. My own father left me when I was two years old because he went off with another woman. I haven't seen him since. I don't have any siblings. I don't have any friends. I wished I could curl up and die, there in hospital. Anywhere. Any time. I didn't care anymore.

I turned back. "When can I get out of here?" I enquired of the nurse standing patiently to my left next to my mother. Her face showed an expression of false cheerfulness.

"Once you get eating properly, and not binging, Charlotte."

"I don't binge! I eat my meal properly, like everyone else does. I am fine! I want to go home! Let me go home! I am not sick!"

"Charlotte, you are underweight. You are not in the realistic region for your height. How can you explain that you have such a healthy appetite, almost unhealthy, yet you are losing weight?"

"I'm exercising for God's sake. Is there anything wrong with that?" I smiled to myself. 'Good one, Charlotte. That was very convincing.' The nurse looked taken aback, and she looked flustered for a minute, not knowing what to say.

"I, er," she stuttered eventually, "I'll just ask the doctor. If he affirms it, then, you can go home."

I got to go home. They couldn't keep me in there anyway. I only fainted that's all. And that was because Pauline punched me in the stomach. I frowned suddenly. 'So why didn't I tell the nurse that that was why I fainted?' I wanted to protect Pauline. But why? She's been an absolute bitch to me. I didn't want her to do anything else like that. In fact, I didn't even want to go to school, but I had to.

I went up to my room, and sat on the bed. It was drenched in the light coming through the window. My old fear came back at once. I stood up slowly, my eyes fixed on the bushes at the bottom of my garden, watching for the slightest moment, the slightest clue that Pauline and her gang were hiding and watching my movements. It was absolutely still and silent, yet I sensed they were there. They were always there, always there in my mind if they weren't there in person. They were tormenting me day and night. About two o'clock on the dot every night, I would jerk awake drenched in sweat. They were tormenting me even in my dreams. It took me about five minutes to make sure it was a nightmare, before the nausea set in, knowing I would have to wake up at seven, and get ready to face another day at school. Every night, I would stumble my way to the bathroom, and empty my stomach of all my nightmares, making sure not to wake Mum. She doesn't care about me anyway, why wake her up, and disturb her beauty sleep? She's always asleep, it seems, every time I feel I want to talk, but every time I think of waking her up to talk to her, I know she'll be angry that I woke her up, so I don't bother. I was glad I didn't afterwards, because I knew that Pauline would give me grief if any one found out, and told Mr. Wallace.

At school, I just wandered through the lessons, drifting through the questions, not caring if I did them well or not, and sat alone at break and lunch every day, thinking, watching. It was the only time I was alert at school, at break, when I knew Pauline would have a chance of tormenting me, and bullying me, and humiliating me. I kept out of the way of everyone at break and lunch. No-one wanted to know me, and I wanted to know no-one. I didn't care any more if I was a loner, I just followed my everyday routine religiously, carefully making sure no-one knew what I was doing. They all pretended to care, and it was worse, knowing that they didn't.

One day, I was sitting alone in a corner behind an outside classroom, eating my huge lunch, and I suddenly burst into tears. My head started pounding, and my stomach began to heave. Before I knew it, my food was covered with vomit, my clothes were covered, and I felt sick all over again.

'I'm not going to go back to lessons looking and smelling like this,' I thought, grabbing up chunks of grass, and wiping my clothes with it. I grabbed up my bag, put on my coat to disguise the sick, and walked out calmly from behind the classroom. Walking around to the side entrance, I looked around alertly, yet avoiding everyone's eyes. With one last look, I walked out of the gate.

My mother was never home before 4 o'clock, which left me two hours to get clean, and get out again before school finished and Pauline came looking for me, and an extra half hour before Mum got home. I stood waiting in the kitchen, not quite sure what for, and I looked around.

'Come' the fridge seemed to say. 'I have a lovely chocolate gateau in here.. come and eat it!' I didn't want to. Mum had bought that for when my aunt and uncle and three cousins would be coming over that weekend.

I opened the fridge. The gateau stood on one of Mum's posh plates as though it were waiting for me. My hand stretched out, and my finger sliced a bit of chocolate off the top. I stared at it in horror. I shut the fridge, and walked upstairs to the bathroom to wash it off, but absentmindedly, I licked my finger. Within minutes, the entire chocolate gateau was gone. I stood and looked at the crumbs on the plate in disbelief.

"Oh my God," I said, staring at the empty plate in front of me on the floor. "Mum is going to kill me. She's going to kill me. I'm dead." I stopped. "I've just eaten an entire chocolate gateau. I'm going to be so fat!"

I weighed 9 stone 3 ounces a week earlier, the last time I weighed myself. I was skinnier, and I fit into size 12 clothing, which was absolutely amazing.

I ran to the bathroom. I had to get rid of the gateau. I was going to be so fat if I didn't. I couldn't be fat again. I had to be thin, and after that long time of not being thin, and trying to be, I had finally found something that worked.

After several minutes, it was gone, and I sat by the toilet bowl, my eyes streaming. I plucked some tissue from the toilet roll, and dabbed my eyes. I stood up, feeling relieved, but guilty. My eyes fell on a clock. A quarter past three. School was finishing soon. I had to get out of there. I had to go, my Mum would kill me, and Pauline would bully me. I was a mean, horrible person, I had to go, where no-one could find me, where I could just die by myself.

After packing some clothes, not many though, a bottle of water, and the bottle of paracetamol in the bathroom into my little denim bag, I changed clothes, dumping my school uniform in the washing basket, and headed out the front door. I had left a note on the kitchen table for my Mum.

I ran down the street, not knowing exactly where I was going, just running, and I turned left, left again, right, around the corner, and carried on going, past houses, and shops, over traffic lights, through back streets, over fields, and through to the next town. Then I ran to the next town. I just ran on and on until it was dark, not noting where I was going, or anything. I never once thought about my mother until I stopped finally, and found a small subway, where I sat down, exhausted.

I didn't know where I was, except that I was in Kent, and I was alone in the subway. It felt as though I was the last person in the world, and I was so lonely. I felt lonelier than when I was at school, being bullied, and when I was being told off by the teachers for not concentrating, and when I walked past groups of school kids chatting merrily, or playing tag, or playing football.

I felt lonely enough to end it all, then and there. I cried, and cried. I didn't want to die.. but I did. Oh, to leave all the pain and misery of the past year behind, I would do anything. With trembling hands, I undid my denim bag, and drew out the bottle of water, and the bottle of paracetamol. My hands shook as I undid the cap on the water, and I mustered up every ounce of strength I had left to undo the bottle of pills.

Part 4 of The Bully

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