Page 15 of Kill Me

“Oh, look, he’s psychic too.”

“Not psychic. I just have the ability to read between the lines. And in my professional opinion, if it was your parents finding you the therapist, and they are involved in your treatment, then if this is a regular occurrence with every therapist, maybe, just maybe, the therapist has been doing their bidding for them. It’s not unheard of. Illegal, yes, because of confidentiality. But if the price is right, then some can be swayed.”

“So you think they were all part of some elaborate plan to, what? Break me?”

“You tell me. Only you know the answer to that.”

She ponders. Her eyes roam the room as the thoughts race through her brain, but something lights up in her eyes—realisation.

“Something just clicked in your brain. Care to share?”

Before she has a chance to think, the server comes over and places our food on the table. As she walks away, Quinn says, “She got my order wrong, but I don’t want to be rude in case she thinks I’m telling her she’s shit at her job.” Doesn’t like confrontation either, noted.

“No, she didn’t. I changed your order.”

“Why?”

“Because you look like you could do with a good meal.”

She cackles. A loud, dirty cackle. No hesitation like before, almost like she’s comfortable—but then she realises and stops.

“Why did you stop?”

“Because I didn’t want to embarrass you.”

“You could never embarrass me, Magpie. Now, tell me why you laughed.”

“Because you said I looked like I could do with a good meal, like I’m not fat.”

“Are you? I never noticed. I was too busy looking at your ass.”

Her eyes go wide.

“I’m joking! Shock factor. I have no filter, but usually, when I’m with patients, I can switch it off. You, however, seem to pull out this side of me that not many get to see. I figured you’d need a good meal. No one should make big decisions on an empty stomach.”

“You think a good meal will make me change my mind?”

“No. I think I can, though.”

“Ok, Harley, the therapist with no filter. Give it your best shot.”

Game on, Little Magpie. I have a few tricks up my sleeve that you’ll never see coming. Operation Convince Quinn To Live is a go.

Chapter Thirteen

Quinn - Present Day

I don’t know what it is about this man, but he disarms me without even trying. I’m sitting here eating perfectly crisp sweet potato fries without hesitation, no fear of judgement, and he picked the perfect order without even trying. He silences the voices like they were never there in the first place—a figment of my imagination, and that’s like my worst nightmares ever come true. The fear of turning out like my mother, even one iota, is the reason I don’t want children. Well, honestly, I would have loved to have been a mum if I wasn’t so fucking psychotic. But it turns out parents with ‘mental health issues’ in today's world are highly frowned upon. And while I understand the extreme end of that scale, some of us are nothing but survivors and could teach a kid a thing or two. The older I get, the more I realise that for me it would be safer not to have kids than to have kids and cause them a fraction of the trauma she has caused me. I’ve never had the maternal urge, but I don’t know if that’s something that I’ve subconsciously switched off so I would never find myself accidentally pregnant. It’s also why I don’t have a lot of experience in that department. My mum fat-shames me at every moment. “Should you really eat that, Quinn?” and “That’s a big portion, Quinn.” or “That’s a lot of calories; you don’t do enough exercise to eat like that, Quinn.”

She tears apart my appearance like no other. Cellulite on my thighs? I look like a cheese grater. No fringe? I have a fat forehead. Makeup on? I look like a slag. High-waisted jeans? I have a fat vagina and a permanent camel toe. Wearing a vest top? “Oh, look at those bingo wings; you’ve got a full house there.” And god forbid I should attempt to wear shorts or a skirt.

One of my most pertinent memories with my mum was when she took me shopping for clothes for my birthday one year. I must have been ten or eleven. I’m short, but not petite—as Harley has clearly noticed. So at a young age it was mainly in the women’s section, and she never let me forget it, especially the price increase. Every time I went up a dress size, it was noted and spoken about—loudly. And if I ever asked to try on some jeans, I was told that we couldn’t possibly find any in my size—despite the fact that she was, and still is, bigger than me and manages to wear jeans. When I found my first stretchmark in the shower one night, I panicked and called for her. She looked at me in disgust because only people who have had babies should have them, apparently, and I should lose weight because of it. And that was the birth of my eating disorder, anorexia nervosa, the binge-purge type—I know a fat girl with an eating disorder that has anorexia in it, hilarious, right? And in a dash of bulimia and a side of binge eating disorder. What a fucking catch.

Nowadays, I’m a size twenty. It doesn’t matter what I do, how much I do it, or how little I do or don’t eat. I carry all of my weight in my body. One day I can be small enough to fit into a size eighteen, and the next I’m a size twenty-four. My periods are all over the place, and according to my mother, that’s also because I’m too fat, so basically, it’s all self-inflicted. So I barely eat, and when I do, I binge. It got worse after the accident. The inability to move for an extended period of time made it easier to put weight on, and I’ve never been able to get it off. My face and stomach bloat so much it’s painful, and I have hyperpigmentation all over my body. And don’t even get me started on sleep. I’m lucky if I get six hours every three days. I’ve tried to go to the doctor, and all they say is I have heavy, irregular periods and there's nothing they can do, so I have to suck it up. The pain I suffer from for most of the month takes my breath away and makes me sick. The only pads I can use are the heavy night-time ones with wings, and I have to double them up to be able to wear them for longer than an hour. And even then, I bleed through my bedding, all over my mattress, and multiple changes of clothes a day. It's all fun and games. And it’s fucking expensive. It baffles my mind that we didn’t ask to be born women or have periods, yet we’re taxed on the products we need to get us through it every month. Fucking men. I know it’s not all of them, but I have yet to meet a man other than Dane and Keegan who is half-decent.

“Where did you go?” Harley’s voice interrupts my train of thought.

“Oh, sorry. You mentioning my parents got me thinking.”