40

Sienna stared at the television, not seeing the image on the screen. She couldn't concentrate on anything for more than a second or two.

It was her third day without food. After the party, Adrian had told her he wouldn't be seeing her ever again unless she did a hunger strike for a week. At the time it had seemed achievable, but now, only three days in, she was on the verge of breaking.

After three days without sustenance her stomach was cramping, she felt tired, was getting a cold, and her attention span was so short it was practically non-existent, like Dory from Finding Nemo. She wasn't allowed to tell anyone either, so had to keep pretending she had an icky stomach every time somebody offered her food.

Coffee was good though. She had discovered the joys of strong, milk free and sugarless coffee since this was all she was allowed besides water. Over the last few days, she had become obsessed with the stuff, drinking cup after cup for the electric zing of the caffeine buzz. It wore off quickly, but it was keeping her alive.

With Scarlett by her side, snuggled into her, it almost felt like things were back to normal. They even had Tom hanging about. He'd been up in Adrian's room for about fifteen minutes when he burst out and almost flew down the stairs, stumbling down the final few steps.

His face was contorted with horror as he glanced at them on his way to the door.

"Your stepbrother is a psychopath. You know that, right?" he said to Scarlett.

"W—what's wrong? What happened?" Scarlett asked, grabbing him by the shirt as he poised to run off. He yanked his shirt back, but not before they saw the lighter burns on his back—a little cluster of smiley face-shaped scars.

"Oh my God," Scarlett gasped. "That's what he was hiding before."

"Huh?" Sienna asked.

"I think Adrian gave him those burns," Scarlett said, frowning. "But why would he come back here after that?"

Sienna, too worn out to think straight, just nodded with an open mouth. It didn't surprise her much. Adrian liked to hurt people.

"It makes no sense," Scarlett said, shaking her head.

She stood when Scarlett paced the room, seeing little white spots behind her eyelids for just a second. Stumbling over to the mirror, she took in the mess she'd become.

"I hate this new look," Adrian had sneered, forcing her to change her hair back to blonde. She'd had to use a bleach wash to get the black dye out and now her ends were split and straw like. The circles under her eyes and pimples were getting harder to hide with make-up, meaning she looked worse than the girls she used to tease at school.

'Hello Karma, my new friend,' she thought, staring down at her bare hands.

Adrian had also demanded she give the glove back to Damien and stop hanging out with those guys. Since she had abandoned her other group of friends, they no longer invited her to join them, not that she wanted to. Being a 'popular bitch' was a thing of the past. She didn't want that identity dragging her down any longer, despite the years of honing it to perfection. It didn't make her happy anymore, she realised.

'Or maybe it never did make me happy,' Sienna thought.

'At least I can still hang out here with Scarlett,' she thought, turning to her friend, and seeing her sadness mirrored in her eyes. She was about to ask her what was wrong when the weird little neighbour appeared at the door, knocking with all the force of a piece of limp asparagus.

"Hey, Rob," Scarlett greeted him in the same voice she used to use with the nerds at school. Sienna almost laughed out loud.

"I-is your mother in?" he asked.

"Mum!" Scarlett shouted, almost shattering her eardrums.

Sam appeared from the toilet, wielding a toilet brush, spray bleach and wearing bright pink rubber gloves and a pair of knickers to hold her hair back.

"It's not a good time, Rob," Sam said with a sympathetic smile.

"I need you to tell your stepson to stop harassing me," he cried, ignoring her. "He's put screws under my tires, emptied bins into my garden, and I'm pretty sure he put antifreeze in my cat's food. I have to keep her indoors now and it's not fair."

"Oh," Sam said, her eyes widening. "Are you sure it's Adrian? I mean... did you actually see him do any of these things?"

"I know it's him," Rob insisted.

"I'll have a word with him," Sam said. "Sorry I have to get back to—"

Sam waved the dirty toilet brush as she approached the guy, using it to gently usher him out of the door. When she shut the door behind him, she looked over at the girls and rolled her eyes.

"I think he's finally lost the plot," she joked before returning to her cleaning duties.

Sienna and Scarlett exchanged strained smiles, both coming to the same conclusion but not wanting to say anything.

"Oh, I have to go," Sienna blurted, remembering her dad was picking her up to take her to see the new Avengers movie.

On the way back to her house she stopped at the shops to buy snacks. She wasn't allowed to eat them, so she decided to get stuff her dad liked. When she was a kid, they would have treats on Saturday night—it would always be some ball-shaped chocolates like Maltesers or Mini eggs, and her dad would throw them up in the air to see if she could catch them in her mouth. She got pretty good at it, thought the occasional treat would go astray. During the removal after the breakup, they had shifted the sofa to find a row of moulding chocolate balls, covered in a film of dust.

She selected her chocolates and paid the cashier before ambling back out onto the busy street, squinting under the ferocity of the sun’s beams. If she didn't get home soon the chocolate would melt.

She walked down the main street and past the memorial in the centre of town. Damien and his gang loitered on the benches surrounding the grass and brightly coloured blossoms of the flowerbeds. He glanced up as Erin gave her a little wave but turned his back without acknowledging her.

It stung more than it should have. She was hit by a wave of irrational anger at Damien for ignoring her, Adrian for forcing her to unfriend him, and just about everyone else.

'You can't blame him,' Sienna told herself. 'Why should he be there for you when you mess him about and reject his friendship?'

Walking on, she felt so incredibly lonely. She realised there had been something special about being in Damien's group. The lack of pressure, maybe, or the feeling of unity. Belonging.

Her group had been a fickle one since the Tom drama had ruined everything, and while she understood this was a direct result of her actions, she hated the way things had turned out.

'I wish I had been a better person and a better friend,' she sighed to herself.

When she arrived home, she found her mother on the couch, playing with her little brothers. They giggled and screeched as she looked up and made that face Sienna knew so well. That—'I'm sorry your Dad is a prick who always cancels,' face.

She dropped the bag of chocolates on to the table.

"Bought you guys some treats," she said.

The boys’ happy little faces cheered her momentarily as she dragged herself up the stairs and to her room.

'Only a few more days of this,' she thought. As time went on, not eating got easier. This probably meant her stomach was shrinking or she was dipping into survival mode if her internet searches were anything to go by.

Since she wasn't going to the cinema anymore and she had no group of friends to call on, Sienna decided to listen to music and catch up on her pile of coursework. Her brain probably wasn't switched on enough for Maths, but she should be able to create some Art coursework in her state of near starvation.

She had downloaded another album of Damien's favourite band, and as she listened to the lyrics, it summed up exactly how she felt about her father and the memory of him collecting his things after the move.

"I've got an armchair from your family home.
Got your P.G. Wodehouse novels and your telephone.
I've got your plates and stainless steel.
Got that way of never saying what you really feel."