Free Why Me? by Sarah Burleton Page A

my trip to the in-patient treatment facility. That place was a joke to me; it was so transparent what they were doing and how they wanted patients to answer their stupid psychobabble questions. “A baboon could fool those assholes,” I said to myself. I would take my mother’s beatings any day over another night in that hospital.
    What did change about me was that I got better at hiding my anorexia. I would eat just enough to make people happy, wear baggy clothes to hide my skinny frame, and lie about foods I had eaten with a smile on my face.
    Mom didn’t let up on me at all. Now that I was going on sixteen years old, Mom was tougher than ever. I was rarely allowed out of the house except to go to school, and I was never allowed out on weekend nights. No boyfriends, no football games, no sleepovers. “I’m not going to have my daughter knocked up at sixteen!” Mom would declare to anyone who would listen.
    I desperately wanted a friend: someone to talk to, someone to confide in, a shoulder to cry on. I would sit in the house on Friday nights, listening to the sounds of the football game from down the street. I would hear the kids laughing, the cheerleaders yelling, the crowd roaring; and my heart would ache.
    It was about a week until Homecoming during my sophmore year of high school l. I had never been to Homecoming and never even been asked before. Who would want to go with the shoplifting anorexic girl? My reputation at school was so tarnished that I felt I would never have a date.
    “Sarah?”
    I was in the school library, working on some math homework during study hall, when I heard a soft female voice in my ear. I looked up and was shocked to see one of the most popular girls in school, Susan, kneeling next to me with a smile on her face.
    “Um … yeah. Hi!” I stammered nervously.
    Susan brushed her fingers through her long, blonde hair and gestured toward the back of the library. “Do you know Brian Schulte?”
    I turned around. I knew of Brian: he was in football and he was a junior. Other than in study hall, I never even saw him during the day. I strained my eyes to focus on the boy waving at me. Then I turned back to Susan, sure that I was being set up. “No, I don’t know him; I know of him.”
    “He wants to know if you would go to Homecoming with him.”
    My heart raced and my face flushed. This was too good to be true; this had to be a prank. “Seriously?” I asked Susan, searching her face for any sign of betrayal.
    Susan smiled again. “Seriously!” she exclaimed. “Well, would you at least meet him at lunch or something?” She was starting to get impatient and wanted to get back to her seat before the study hall monitor saw her.
    “OK.” The word was out of my mouth before I could even think. Susan slipped away, and I looked up at the clock. Thirty-six minutes until lunch. I drummed my fingers impatiently, fighting the urge to turn around and look at Brian.
    Suddenly I heard Susan’s laugh echoing in the back of the library, and my heart fell. “It’s a trick! They’re going to get me at lunch,” I thought. “How could I have been so stupid?” I was ashamed of myself for falling into such an apparent trap, but what could I do? If I didn’t show up at lunch, I would look like a coward. “Damn it!” I thought to myself. “I have to go, or they’ll just get me after school—or tomorrow! Damn it!”
    The next thirty-six minutes ticked away slowly, and each tick of the clock made my heart race faster and faster. Finally the bell rang, and I jumped up to gather my books. I wanted to get to the lunchroom first to assess the situation and find a seat by the door in case I wanted to run away.
    Before I could walk out of the library, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around, and there was Brian Schulte with a smile on his face. His face was flushed red, and upon closer look I could see that the redness wasn’t heat, it was acne—and a lot of it. Brian was much shorter than