My Secret Life Read Online Free PDF Page A

it all really kick-started. He knew how much I cared about him. Yet, being unsure of his own feelings, went abroad with family after telling me it was over. It had felt so final and I’d never been that upset before. Despite the temporary heartache, it didn’t take long before I was seeing someone else. That someone was, in theory, everything a girl of my age should have wanted. I tried to put him to the back of my mind. It wasn’t long however before he heard of these new developments. After receiving a rather frantic mail from him entitled ‘Please’, how could I not resume thinking of him? I’m not sure I’ll ever forget the day he flew home; sitting together and talking about silly things that only we could talk about. He had come home for me and me alone. I had a clear choice and the question was all but answered before he’d even asked it.
    People make this stuff out to be so complicated. Yet here I am still riding this perfect wave with the person I most want to be with. I’m not sure how anyone could think love is so difficult. This is love and it couldn’t be easier.
    ***

    I loved him as much as any teenager could love someone. The love was youthful by definition and my perceptions on it have changed greatly over the years. Still, it was a happy time and marked one brief interval in my young life with a most glossy polish. This new romance, however, could not have been more different to what I had known before. Throughout the affair, I committed ardently to bettering and ultimately perfecting myself. If I could do just that, then perhaps I would not feel as I had come to since it had all started. Perhaps some of that confidence could be regained and that self-worth be dug up. But it didn’t work.
    I began exercising at night, long after the house had drifted off to sleep and I could be alone. It was in these hours that that familiar voice was at its loudest. I didn’t just hear what she had to say, I felt it. I felt it in my skin, in my bones, in every strand of hair and eventually I would feel it so hard that my stomach would wrench itself up and hurt with each thought. Maybe I thought if I moved fast enough, I wouldn’t hear or feel all those thoughts. Maybe if I made myself hurt in some other way, I wouldn’t feel those pangs as my stomach curdled in disgust. So that’s what I did, moved as quickly as possible until a muscle would ache, until my sides would feel like they were tearing and until I had caused just enough physical pain to mask any other. Oftentimes, the best thing to do would be to take some painkillers beforehand. It would mean I could prolong my exercise for a greater period of time. For every moment spent doing overtime, I enjoyed just a little extra allotment away from the reality of the nothingness I had become. It was one of the best forms of escape in those quiet hours and required only me, and whoever now dwelled inside me.
    It almost goes without saying now that by this stage, my eating habits had changed profoundly. Most people seem to maintain the mentality of ‘Well, I can just burn off whatever I eat through exercise.’ I, however, contended in the back of my head that if I ate too much it would surely have wasted all that time spent exercising. I began to eat much less. Generally it went unnoticed because the change wasn’t initially all that severe. Eating became like a race against time. I would eat very small amounts and would time it around exercising. In this way, I could never give the food enough time to latch on to my insides. It was like I suddenly became aware of an invisible glue that lined my stomach. Anything I ate could stick to it almost immediately. The only way to stop this from happening would be to exercise before the glue had time to set or shortly thereafter. This process was fast which meant I had to be faster; I had to be one step ahead of my own body at all times. It was exhausting to say the least.
    I watched any and every television programme