I ran into the bathroom fighting back tears. Those girls… They shouldn’t be able to say the things they do. Every day, they whisper in overloud tones about my supposed anorexia. Now that I think about it, coming into the bathroom probably wasn’t a good idea, but it was too late now. I could practically hear their voices. “Christine’s so pathetic.” “She’s already skinny, it’s sickening that she goes in there to try and make herself even skinnier.” “Why doesn’t she just eat less instead of binge-eating and sticking her finger down her throat? Gross.”

I’ve never been able to help my appetite, but while other kids might have gotten chubby and fat because of it, I only seemed to get skinnier. I couldn’t help it! It was the way I’d always been.

I hid in one of the stalls in case they followed me inside the bathroom. By the time the bell had rung, I had calmed myself down. Leaving the bathroom, a few people stopped talking or lowered their voices, peeking glances at me. I kept my eyes down and tried not to draw attention, though it seemed too late for that too.

Stella, with perfect platinum blond curls and a bubble gum pink sweater, breezed by me with her pack. “Yeah, he was soooo cute, and he text me right away.” She said in an overly loud voice. “Just watch, he’ll be my superstar soccer player before the week is through.” She spared me a single disdainful glance as she went by, and her brood followed her example, a few bumping roughly into me and saying insults under their breath. It was the same thing every day, and I was so tired of it.

I wish I could say that I didn’t know what I did to make Stella hate me so much, but I did. When we were both in 2nd grade, I always ate alone at lunch, but back then it had been by choice. She insisted on sitting and eating with me. She didn’t take no as an answer from anyone so when I tried she just grew more determined that she had to sit and eat with me, like I was trying to hide something from her.

When I finally let her sit with me, it started out well enough until Stella started eyeing the brownie my mom had put in my lunch box and snatched it up before I could stop her. “Friends share.” She said in that petulant voice of hers before taking a huge bite out of the brownie. I hadn’t had time to tell her that no one could eat my food but me. Not because it was special or anything, but because every time someone tried to eat something that I made or that I’d touched, it turned rotten and spoiled in their mouths.

Stella spat it back out almost instantly, screaming. There were maggots all throughout the brownie now and a few were cut right in half where she’d bit into the brownie. She kept screaming and screaming, bringing everyone over to where we were sitting. She screamed that I hid the maggots in the brownie on purpose, knowing she would want the brownie and take a bite out of it. She even accused me of offering it to her and taunting her with it. My eyes were wide and I was barely able to mumble out a few words of denial.

The few friends that I’d had vanished. They wouldn’t talk to me or acknowledge me in the hallway. Stella was quick to tell her story to new kids and they would want nothing to do with some gross, messed up girl like me who would put such disgusting creatures in their food.

It only got worse in high school. My appetite grew and grew, though it never really showed on my body. Stella, of course, started the rumors about me having anorexia and again, everyone believed her.

I sighed and started walking to my locker again after the whole group finally passed by me. I told myself I wasn’t going to cry, not here. It always came later though. High school has been a living hell, but my parents wouldn’t let me drop out. They’d told me that I’ve already finished 3 years, I couldn't just quit on the last one. They promised it’d get better in college. I didn’t believe them.

The rest of the day passed like it usually did. Only the teachers ever seemed to even see me. And everyone I did meet eyes with didn’t smile or say anything to me. I was always relieved when the last bell rang, and today was no different. I just wanted to go home and be by myself for a while.

I lingered at my locker to give all the others time to tear out of the parking lot with squealing tires. Luckily, I didn’t live very far away so it was a short walk home.

When I got home my dad was asleep in the recliner. I shut the front door quietly and tiptoed past him.

I didn’t really get a lot of family time with him since he worked two jobs and when he wasn’t working, he was catching up on sleep. It always made me feel bad, because he had to do it for us, his family. Though we all looked pretty small, every one of us could put away food like there was a dumpster in our bellies. Well, everyone except for my mom. She ate like a bird compared to us, and perhaps because of us. Sometimes I thought that she ate so little so that we could have more.

My baby sister, Lily, was standing up in her crib, staring at me with those big green eyes of hers. She was holding onto the rails and bouncing in that weird cute way that babies do, her little tuft of white-blonde hair bouncing with her. I gave her a half-hearted smile and she rewarded me with a big toothless grin and a giggle. She was so adorable.

I didn’t want an audience just then though. I threw my backpack on my bed and peeked out my doorway to see that my dad was still fast asleep. My younger brother Max was nowhere to be seen. I tiptoed out of my room and quietly slid the glass doors to the backyard open.

Scattered around the yard were dozens of kids’ toys and a large willow tree whose branches swept the grass. It was my favorite place in the whole world. I closed my eyes and walked to the tree with my arms wide open, letting the dry leaves brush against my arms and my face. I opened my eyes once I’d passed through the curtain of leaves and felt like I’d passed through a portal into another world.

The sounds of the town around us were muffled and distant. What little light showed through the leaves was tinted green with white specks that moved as the small gaps between the leaves moved. It was hypnotic to look at. I climbed up the trunk of the tree to the point where it branched off, making a perfect little cradle to sit in.

I started talking to the tree, telling it about my day. I’d heard that talking to plants helped them, so I figured I was doing some good for the tree along with venting all my feelings. I just felt so much safer there, apart from the world that lay beyond its leaves. I wiped my wet face with the sleeve of my shirt.

I’m not really sure when, but I started to feel the urge to get down and walk through the leaves again. Like always, I kept my eyes closed until I had passed through them and when I opened them, I was bewildered to find myself inside a cave. This had definitely not been here before.

I was alarmed to find that I couldn’t move at all. There was a boy in front of me I didn’t recognize, with a regal white Andalusian horse standing by his side. He was staring at me intently, which made me uncomfortable. When I glanced as far left as my eyes could allow, I saw a girl with short black hair and a look on her face that made me think that she was almost daring me to do something. Next to her was a red Arabian horse that was fidgeting and stomping its hooves, quite the opposite of the white horse, which I would have thought was a statue if it didn’t blink its gray eyes every once in a while.

“The third Seal has been broken, and the third Rider summoned.” A great voice boomed and I flinched. The other girl did too a little, but the boy seemed to be expecting it. The next thing I know, there’s a black horse coming out of the pool of water in the ground I hadn’t noticed before.

Upon closer inspection, I realized that the horse was a Connemara. I remembered riding one just like it when I was little at my uncle’s farm. The breed almost died out in Ireland’s Potato Famine, but they held out and grew stronger. He taught me so much about horses and how to take care of them. This one wasn’t as large as the other two horses and its ribs were visible through its side, but I got the same feeling I had when I stood under the willow tree branches by looking at this horse. A part of me stopped worrying so much about what was going on and calmed as the horse assumed its position by my side.