Skylar started crying out loud, while hugging her knees. "I'm a human too. Please don't do this to me. Why is my body a problem for you?" She mumbled between hiccups. "Sky, it's your fault. Why did you agree in the first place? You can't go outside with other people, you can't have friends. Why did you think your life was changing, huh?"
She hugged her knees, sitting on the bench at the bus stop. In movies or stories, at this point, someone would walk to her to comfort her, but this was reality, this was her life… No one would come.
Some students got off the next bus, which stopped right in front of her, but no one seemed to notice her.
Many old ladies, moms, wifes were strolling around you, holding grocery bags, but none of them even looked at her.
Real life is different from a movie. She thought. By now all her tears were dry. She stopped crying and aimlessly kept staring on the road in front of her. Life would be so easy, if I just could lose some kgs.
Lost in her thoughts like always, she didn't seem to notice a presence beside her, until the new arrived caressed her hand, which was placed on the cold metal of the bench near her thigh.
"What happened?" A cute, sweet voice asked her, and obliged Skylar to turn and see who it was.
She saw a cute, little girl, with cute, red chubby cheeks eating her ice cream and looking at her smiling. Her two central teeth were missing.
"Nothing" Skylar cleared her throat. "So why were you crying?"
"You won't understand" she sighed.
"I can… just explain" she was stubborn indeed.
"This world is a very dangerous place and you are too young to understand it" Skylar smiled.
"But the entire world can't make you cry. Tell me who made you cry" she showed concern for her.
"What will you do then?" Skylar stared at her tiny figure.
"I'll make sure to beat them" she giggled and formed her free hand into fist, while the other one was holding the ice cream.
"Every problem can't be solved with violence"
She vigorously nodded, looking at her. "So we can make them understand" she said.
I wish they could understand.
"You are really beautiful" the little girl said out of the blue. Skylar just looked at her with a questionable look, lifting her eyebrows up.
"I really like you" she said, holding her big cheek in her small hand. "Hell yeah, you're way more beautiful than those models in the TV" she held her face and kissed her nose tip. The ice cream was finished, so she held her arm with both hands and rested her head on herr shoulder.
"You need to make me proud. And to do so, you need some confidence in you, girl. Just don't care about what others say. I know it's difficult, but please try. Others' opinions don't matter. Slowly slowly start to ignore everyone who says bad to you.
You can do this. I know.
You promised me many things, remember!"
She kept mumbling.
"If no one, then I'll be by your side… always"
All this time, Skylar kept looking ahead at the road and kept listening to her. But, when he turned to face her, she wasn't there anymore. Holy shit, where is she? She thought and started looking right and left to find her among other strangers. But no. She literally disappeared.
Skylar abruptly stood up, still eyes searching for her. She sighed and started walking towards her house.
Soon she reached her home, and locked herself in her room.
"She was there, Jesus Christ" she was frustrated. "Am I becoming crazy? She was literally sitting next to me"
"What a day" she laid down in the bed, staring at the ceiling. She stayed there for ten minutes.
Fifteen.
Twenty.
"Oh no" she spoke out loud and sat on the bed.
Suddenly she went to one of the drawers near her desk, and, after some seconds, she found a photo. It was that girl.
I started hallucinating now.
The little girl was her childhood self, her inner child, whom you imagined. She came in your thoughts to motivate you, to support you and be with you.
"You were right little Sky, I need a change for myself"
*
Rafe looked at Eleanor exiting the restaurant and sighed. Then he looked at the other three. "Thanks for ruining our lunch" he wasn't angry, but his cold tone made the other three scared. Soon after, he got up and went away without uttering a word. Rafael's mind was still trapped by Eleanor's words. Was she right?
Skipping lessons, he went directly to his home, where he thought he could find some peace. Hastily entering his room, he laid down on the bed and kept staring at the ceiling. His room was painted with a dark shade of blue; the walls were covered with huge posters of his favourite swimmers; on the shelves many awards and trophies were placed in chronological order. It was the typical room of a sports loving teenager. Even after joining college, Rafe never changed anything in that special room.
Staying on the bed, he kept focusing on El's words, but his mind wasn't ready to understand.
Am I wrong? What did I say? She needs to stand for herself! Is this wrong? She better understands that now.
Time skip: after two weeks
Skylar became invisible again, since no one talked to her. But she was fine. This was normal for her.
As her inner self suggested, she started ignoring everyone and living in her own little world.
She stopped thinking of others and started doing small things that made her happy. At college, she focused more on her studies; in her free time she started going to the library; during lunchtime she found a peaceful place outside in the garden, where she could have lunch.
At home, she ignored her mom's cruel words, and started distracting herself. She painted her nails, decorated her room, changed her room's curtains… she was bringing many small changes in her life and this was making her happy.
On the other hand, Rafe became restless during these two weeks. He still needed to figure out why he was wrong aand Eleanor right. This matter was bothering him more than he expected.
During these days El completely stopped talking to him and even to Sky, as Rafe noticed.
Now Rafe was standing in the hallway with Gabriel, Jeremy and Sam. They were just casually chit chatting, when Eleanor passed near them without even sparing a glance at them.
"Rafe, is she still angry with you?" Sam asked, looking at El, who was standing some meters away from them. Rafael shook his head in disapproval. "Then why she isn't talking to you, to us?" Jeremy spoke this time.
"The reason is something else" Rafe mumbled looking at her, who was about to enter the class now.
Honesty Rafe wasn't worried about Elnot talking to him because he knew the real reason behind that. For now, his mind was just occupied by one girl and that was Skylar. During these weeks, he thought a lot on how to apologize to her even if he wasn't understanding his mistakes, but he never gathered much courage to talk to her. So today he decided to place an apology letter, which he wrote last night, in her locker.
Bidding goodbye to his friends, he went towards her locker.
He came in front of that. He looked to his right and then to his left. No one was there. He sighed and looked at the letter in his hands.
Again checking if there was someone else in the hallway, he forcefully opened the locker.
What he saw, made him really shocked.
Many magazines with super slim models, a whole, thick book about diet, some papers with notes regarding how to lose weight with a magical, weird diet found on YouTube, some notes where Skylar wrote her ideal body measurements and what she had to do to reach that.
It was crazy.
How can she…? This is crazy!
So this is how her mind works?
Rafe was now slowly understanding where he went wrong that day in the restaurant. He understood what effect others' comments had on her.
I need to talk to her now.
Thinking this, he started running in order to find her. Reaching the stairs, he went to the ground floor, then he ran in another hallway, after that he took a left turn and there he saw her.
Skylar was about to enter the library since she had no lessons now. Rafe ran towards her in a hurry and held her arm before she could pass the library door.
Firstly she was shocked by the sudden physical contact with someone, then she was confused when she saw it was Rafael holding her arm.
"We need to talk" that's all he could say while catching his breath.
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