the lying days

It’s really fucking hard to look at someone you care about and tell him that you hate yourself. It’s been a sort of mantra for me for more than half my life: I hate myself. I want to die. And it’s only just dawned on me that that’s probably not a normal thing to think.

We’ve just ordered hamburgers at a little diner a half hour north of town and I haven’t stopped crying since the waitress told us the burgers would be right out. He says all of what should be the right things: You’re amazing, he tells me. You have changed my life. You are so special. It makes the whole thing worse, somehow.

Because I know he doesn’t understand how I feel, doesn’t understand how someone could be as fucked up as I am, because I need him to see it, because he is saying that I am sweet and kind and good, when I know that I am far from it—because of all of this, I tell him: I am worthless. I’m nothing. And he hangs his head and I am worried that he will cry, too. The waitress comes by to refill his coffee and she asks if I’m okay. I’m not, but I say yes. She leaves and quickly returns with a stack of napkins. Here, doll, she says. She glances suspiciously at the sweet boy sitting across from me. As if it was his fault I’m crying at a diner at eleven-thirty in the morning.

I don’t touch the burger when it comes. He can’t eat, either: I’ve ruined the meal for both of us. I go to the restroom and in the mirror I see a hideous girl with red, puffy eyes and a complete look of terror on her face. I hate myself. I want to die.