Read Online Color Me Pretty by C.M. Stunich - Free Book Online Page A

started.” I look down and see that Kylie's green eyes are open wide. They're dry now, but I can see the cold, dull ache of pain throbbing beneath a false brightness. Kylie seems outgoing, talks big, smiles wide, but she's dead inside. I know because I almost was, too.
    “You're going to kill yourself?” I ask. I try not to sound judgmental, but maybe I do because my new friend sits up and stands, looking down at me with an expression that says she sees deep, far deeper even than I. It's then that I understand she already knows me better than I do. We're cut from the same cloth, her and me.
    “Is that any different than what you're doing?”
    “I want to be a model.”
    “Bullshit.” I stare at Kylie, at the redness in her cheeks and the anger in her fists. I don't blame her. She doesn't know me, doesn't know how badly I want this, how badly I've always wanted this. “Don't play that crap on me. This isn't about being skinny, not really. This is about punishment. You're punishing yourself because you don't think you deserve any better. I know that because I watched Madelyn do it to herself, day in and day out since she turned thirteen.”
    “Everyone's different, Kylie,” I snap, feeling a little angry myself. I look up at her standing silhouetted against the window and realize for the first time since coming in here that Kylie does have bars on her windows. “Even anorexics. Believe it or not, we've all got our reasons.”
    “And so do I. If I want to bleed myself dry, whose business is it? If love drained my soul and killed my spirit, why should I stick around and stare at the rubble of my dreams?” Kylie's eyes get moist, but she doesn't cry again. She stands there, strong and simmering, full of passion, but unaware that it's there. She says she has nothing to live for; I see everything in her eyes. I wonder briefly if I'm the same way. “If I can't have him, what else is there?” She switches her gaze back to me. “If I can't have the one thing I've always wanted, why bother?”
    I look her straight in the eye and tell her the truth as only Emmett knows it.
    “Even when you think there's only one road to your destination, you can always find a scenic detour.”
    I can't wait until I believe that.

The nights at Crescent Springs are so much worse than
    the days.
    When the sun's up, Kylie and I pretend we're on vacation, just lazing away the days sitting on her bed and talking about nothing. Occasionally, a hard topic comes up and promptly gets dropped. Other than our conversation my first day there, we do not talk about suicide or anorexia or depression again. Instead, we talk about nail polish and designer clothes and magazines. We talk about celebrities and movies and rock stars. We go to our counseling sessions and keep our lips sealed and the locks to our secrets shut tight. Nobody gets in; nothing gets out.
    At night, when I lay in bed, my thoughts consume me, and my disorder screams from deep, deep down, begging for light, desperate to claw its way up and out of my belly and into my chest. I push it back, but barely. My room is heated, but it feels cold. I think it's Emmett's presence that I miss most. Strange that, since he hasn't exactly been in my life all that long. Or maybe it's because the pillows smell like bleach instead of flowers, and the blankets are scratchy and staunchly utilitarian.
    I dream that I'm fat; I wake to skinny. When I switch out my clothes for pajamas, I'm always afraid that the items my mother packed – all baggy and oversized – will strain across the massive rolls of my gut and bunch at my hips. Instead, they hang loose, almost comically so. The one thing that remains consistent is this: people stare at me and they don't like what they see. So, I guess it doesn't matter whether I'm fat or thin; people are disgusted with me.
    And so I get through the days with my new friend because although she's gregarious on the outside, she's ten times more fragile on the inside and