Тили коул (Tillie Cole)Tillie Cole
Prologue
Dear Daisy,
Weight: 98lbs
Calories: 2000
This is my first letter to you, well, my first journal entry, I mean.
Since you have left me, I really don’t know who I can speak to, so I have decided to keep speaking to you… through the medium of pen and page. Instead of our nightly chats on the phone about our progress that day, I will talk to you here. I will tell you my weight, how many calories I’ve eaten… just like before.
But this is not like before, is it?
It’s not the same. The contact is not nearly enough, but it is all I have… all I have left of you, Daisy, my closest friend.
I’m sitting here now under the scorching summer sun, shaded by a huge pine tree… next to your grave. Your grave, Daisy! How did it come to this?
I am running my hand down the beautifully bright black granite headstone, tracing the edges of your epitaph:
‘She concealed her tears but shared her smiles’
That was you, Daisy, smiling on the surface but too fragile for this world underneath. You never let it show, though, always smiling through the pain. Wearing your mask that told the world you were fine, but all the time you were dying inside.
I know because I wear this mask too.
You were always my rock, the one person who I could rely on. But you left me here alone and I am lost without you. I don’t know my place without you in this frightening world full of pain, with its constant pressure to be perfect.
It was never supposed to be this way. We were meant to get through this life together, survive together. But just like the flower of your name, you thrived for a while but, too delicate to last, withered and died.
Your last words to me were live for the both of us. Do what scares me and cherish each day. And I will try. I promise, this year, I will try. But already dark thoughts plague my mind. Insecurities haunt me each day.
I don’t know how to purge myself of these horrid thoughts… of his horrid words.
The voice is so powerful in my mind, and only you could understand what this is like. I’m afraid without you here, it will win. I’m afraid without you here, I will lose this relentless fight. I’m afraid, without you, I will listen to his words and find myself falling into the iron clutches of my biggest fear.