Chapter 2
"To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is a bad dream."
— Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar)
— Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar)
Beep-beep. Beep-beep. Beep-beep.
6:15 AM. Time to wake up the clock tells me, but I was never sleeping.
Silence.
Oh my god. I stayed up all night. I am still alone. I really, really am. So, I just sit there as the artificial, syrupy light dries on my skin. This room expands to the size of a castle. Or a haunted mansion. The Mirror runs miles away, my door on the other side of the world, my closet unreachable, but all still in view. Worn out paths stretch across countries, coils of unraveling rope, and bread crumbs have been beaten into the dirt. Even if I folded the map, I couldn’t make my way through this land—it’s all too real.
“Teagan?” My world just snapped back, every wall tangible without even having to reach out. This is not my room, this is a casket.
“Let’s start getting out of bed now, okay? I set breakfast for you: a sesame bagel with butter, some blueberries—your favorite—greek yogurt, and a glass of soy milk, is that alright? You have to eat it here, or with me in the car, but if you don’t finish you’ll have to in the nurses office,” my mom ties a rope around her words to keep them steady.
She knows the slightest shift can make the water in my pools spill over the edge, because everything always does. But it doesn’t matter either way, I’m a perforated girl—that’s what she doesn’t realize.
“Yeah, fine, I know. I’m already up,” I say to her even though I’m facing myself, The Mirror.
“Oh, you are. Well, you have a half hour, so your shower needs to be quick,” and she leaves.
I remember each and every day she leaves me. She thinks I’m in good hands, a therapist knows how to handle me more than my mom and who better to make my meals than a nutritionist, right? She has left me in so many waiting rooms and doctors offices and hospitals. but i just needed to be left in her arms.
I really don’t want to go to school today.
But the routine starts.
I’m still staring in The Mirror. It dictates how my morning will go. I skip my shower, because what comes next takes too long.
The ridges of growth on my thighs glare at me, and I frown. Which pair of jeans will accept me today? Will I accept me today? I omit that last question. No calculator or text book or study guide could give me an answer.
After going through seven outfits, seven different skins I’ll always be uncomfortable in, I’m dressed. I end up wearing the pants stitched with threads that tell the world I’m not a complete failure. They’re one of a kind like that; the only pair that actually makes me look decent. A white V-neck hides my upper body today. I wanted to wear this shirt from Anthropologie, though. It’s pretty and expensive and perfect. I’ve worn it once; I even have a picture of me in it: There sits a girl, back parallel to the back of her chair, stomach parallel to her plate. See how her fingers curl around that scalloped hem, pulling, twisting, as if it were too tight and didn’t fit? See how if you look closely, you can make out the outline of her face behind her smile? Or how the edges of her cornea are peeling away, letting the light leak out? She’s almost empty, now.
The brush in my hand is heavy, or I’m just weak. Note to self: do more pushups. I let my red hair snake through the bristles, turning this knotty mess into something into something socially acceptable. I don’t try to look pretty, though. Well, I don’t try to look bad. I just learned a long time ago that it was just too hard, and the failures hurt. In third grade, to look pretty I would suck in my stomach, until someone snapped a picture when I had released my bloated failure. That’s when I gave up. I know what pretty is, though. I look at others and see beautiful people, people with a purpose, people who laugh and smile and dance and love; people who are wanted by others, people who have fun. But when The Mirror spits out its truths at me, I see a faceless girl, a dotted outline. I don’t know how to color myself in, so I just try shape the lines. If I really wanted to try to look beautiful, I’d wrap a corset around my waist and tug until my bones almost snap.
But instead, I just paint my face to hide the cracks. I smother on open eyes so people don’t see the sleep and tears and draw on a smile. Sometimes though, I wish someone would come up and wipe it off, just to see I’m not okay.
Then again, I don’t want to give anyone the chore of keeping my mind in order. That’s a task I don’t even take on. Just because I constantly mess up doesn’t mean others need to fix my disordered mistakes.
6:45 am. The shower in the master bathroom shakes the pipes. A muffled voice that may or may not be singing fights over water pounding on glass. My mom really can’t sing. Dad still sleeps, that alarm doesn’t buzz until 8:00 am. The clock reads 6:45. Fifteen minutes until 7:00. Fifteen minutes to perform the vanishing act on my breakfast, and fifteen minutes until my mom drives me to school in a magical pumpkin. Only it’s not, there is nothing magical about anything that transports me from here to hell school day after day.
Well, I don’t hate it that much. I love getting A’s. I just hate how I struggle to keep my friends when I push them away. My social life is bipolar.
I take one last look around my room to make sure I have everything. There’s the edge of a folder sticking out from under my bed, a collection of inspiration, bones left out in the sun to dry. There’s a pile of papers, each branded with success—A, A-, A+. There’s my coat, the shell of a shivering girl dangling from the closet door. There’s a pile of clothes forgotten in the corner and a disposable camera stuffed with the shadows of my friends—and then there’s The Mirror. I grab my things. Have you forgotten your backpack? No. Do you have your algebra book? Yes. How about your phone? Your pens, your test corrections, your analytical essay, your calculator, your camera for photography class? Your life? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, no… well, not all of it.
I run down the stairs. It’s scary, actually, how my legs move so fast, but everything around me tilts so slowly, and I’m heading towards the last step like a long tunnel. When I reach the end, everything speeds up again. Everything. Ten minutes left—I search for a plastic bag and the shower shuts off. Eight minutes left—I finally find one and empty contents of the yogurt container into it. Seven minutes left—I pour out ¾ of the soy sludge into the sink, being careful not miss the drain. Five minutes—I tear apart the bagel, and in goes all but a few pieces into the bag. Three minutes—someone flushes the toilet. Two minutes—a door opens, I press sesame seeds onto the corners of my mouth. One minute—my mom tells my we have to go now and that I need to gulp down the rest of my drink and finish my bagel, and that I will have to eat the rest of my blueberries in the car. The gears in my jaw turn, grinding up the last of the bagel. I pour my soy milk through the slot, and there, I ate all my breakfast.
Snap, the seat belt hugs me close. This car protects me from the outside, temporarily. It’s not as cold as last month, but still the wind is chillier than yesterday. The breeze tests the trees. How far can I push you before you break? It asks, and the trees groan in response, they’re tired of the pressure.
