"Lil. Wake up darling. Dinner is ready." Lauren was shaking my shoulder and tried to wake me up.
"Darling. I need you to wake up." "No it's so warm." I mumbled into her chest. I heard her giggle my eyes were still closed.
"As much as I love holding you and cuddling with you. I think we both know that you need to eat dinner."
I sighed and opened my eyes still way to sleepy to hold it open for more than a few seconds.
"Laur I don't want to." I probably sounded like a toddler not getting what they wanted.
"Well you need to. Either you get up yourself or I'm asking Nick to carry you to the table." I didn't move. So a few seconds later I felt myself getting picked up and carried towards the kitchen.
"Seems like your awake again." I could hear Kath talking to me. "No. Just let me sleep." I grumbled into Nick's Pullover.
"Well dinner is ready so you need to wake up." My mom said to me.
Nick tried to set me down but I just clung to him. "Lil let go I don't want to accidentally drop you."
I sighed and let go of him. "You're all mean. Why couldn't I just sleep?" I looked at them slightly annoyed but with a smile.
"Because dinner is family time." Dad answered while sitting down.
The others except mom sat down too.
"I made tacos for dinner and salad." She put a tray and a bowl down.
My siblings and parents all got themselves food while I waited.
I could feel most of my siblings looking at me when I took some of the food.
One taco and a little salad. Not more.
I took a bit of the salad. Everyone around me was talking about their days and I just struggled really hard. Eventhough my siblings had told me that I was more than worth it one more than one occasion Victorias words had an impact on me.
Every bite I took made me feel worse about myself. It was clear that I was useless otherwise I would have a function in this family. Compared to all my sisters I was ugly and now they wanted me to become fat too.
But I also knew that they were watching me and wouldn't let me leave the table until I was done with the food I had on my plate.
I felt the pressure rise. I needed release. If I have to eat then I will take a shower afterwards and cut.
This thought calmed me and I somehow managed to finish the salad and start taking bites of the taco. I was finished after everyone eventhough I had the least amount of food on my plate.
"Mom I will take a shower now. I'll come back downstairs afterwards." I told her while most my siblings were caught up in an conversation and than silently left the room to the bathroom.
I immediately got under the hot water of the shower my blade in the hand.
After not cutting in two days this was much needed and I just felt that this was the only right thing to do.
Six cuts and a shower later I got out. I slowly dried myself off and made sure my cuts were clean. The last thing I needed was the cuts to get infected. This way my family would find out what I did.
I put my pyjama on. Of course a long sleeved one. Afterwards I brushed my hair and my teeth. Before I got out I looked in the mirror. Staring at the image of myself.
I could never compare to my sisters. I would never be good enough.
"What are you doing?" Amy had opened the door and was looking at me.
"I um I was...nothing."
"Well I think you are comparing yourself again and I don't think you should do this. This isn't healthy."
I stroke one of my hair strands behind my hair.
"What's that Lil?"
"What do you mean?" She walked towards me and pulled my sleeve up.
"Oh my god." She teared up.
"Oh baby girl." I felt so scared. My big sister, my birthday twin knew my darkest secret. What was I supposed to do. I felt myself starting to shake.
"Please don't be mad. Please don't hate me." I cried out. I shut my eyes tight in the hopes of ignoring Amy's concerned face and my panic.
"Lillian I don't hate you. I love you. And I always will. No matter what happens or what you do and I will always be there for you and take care of you. You're my baby sister and I love you alright? And noone will hate you or be mad."
She pulled me into her embrace and I snuggled my head into her shoulder. "It's alright baby. It's alright. I promise you. We will get you through this and I promise you that me and all of our sisters we'll stay with you all the way."
"Don't leave me. Please don't let me go." I clung to her. Not even giving her the chance to let me go or loosen her grip.
"Baby I'm not going to leave you alone."
She stroked my hair and my back trying to calm me down. And after quiet some time I had fully calmed down.
"Let's get you to your room baby girl."
We walked to my room where she sat me down on my bed.
"Darling I know that you don't want to talk about this but we need to alright?" She looked at me.
"When did this start?"
I looked at my hands. "I don't really know. Maybe a year ago."
I heard Amy chime at one of her sobs.
"Amy, Lil what's going on?" Kath came in and looked worried at us.
"Kath can you get our sisters please. We've got something important to tell them." Amy said while still crying.
"Yeah sure. But are you alright?" Amy nodded. "We will be. Just get the others and we will explain it to you."
Kath nodded and quickly walked out downstairs to gather our siblings.
"Lil we will tell the others what's going on. They won't hate you and they won't be mad. Yes they will be sad and ask you a lot of questions but they won't hate you for it alright."
Amy looked at me and pulled me even closer to her.
Lisa and Chrissy walked in. They looked really worried. While Christina sat down on the floor in front of us, Lisa sat down on my left.
Shortly after Lauren, Dani and Kath walked in. They sat down on the floor or in Lauren's case on Amy's right.
"Soooo why are we here?" Dani seemed annoyed which made me flinch. "Dani stop being so rude." Lisa immediately said to her.
Amy took a deep breath and looked at me. "Do you want me to talk for you?"
I nodded.
She took another deep breath.
"I was walking in the bathroom a little time ago and Lil was there. I noticed something on her wrists." She paused and looked around to see if the others understood what she was talking about.
I could her Lisa choke on her tears. "Please don't say it." She whispered.
Amy looked at her, tears brimming in her eyes. "She cuts"
Than hell broke loose. At first all of them were shocked.
Chrissy was the first one to recover from her schock. She grabbed my arms and pulled my sleeves upwards to see the extent of my self-induced cuts.
"Oh my god." She whispered. Basically my whole left arm was covered in cuts in different states of the healing process.
My right arm only showed thirteen cuts. Including the six from before. The ones I had done minutes before Amy found out.
Kath got up and looked at the wounds. "We need to clean and bandage this I'll be right back." Chrissy still held both my hands.
"Baby. Look at me."
I couldn't look her in the eyes I was too scared of her reaction. She probably would be mad. No matter what Amy told me they would hate me.
She stayed silent and waited for me to obey her first order.
"Lillian. It's alright nobody hates you or thinks of you below us. You're just as worthy of love and care as anyone else. None of us will give up on you because of this. Actually quite the opposite it. It shows us that we need to show you more how much we love and care about you." She didn't let go of my hand once during her speech.
Lisa got up. "I need to know where they are." I looked up irritated.
"Your blades." She was still crying and I could see how hard it was for her to say those words.
"Bathroom. In my stuff." I mumbled out.
She walked out probably to take my blades away. Lauren got up and starting searching the stuff on my bed. Looking for blades and much to my disliking finding some.
Only Dani was still siting on the floor. She didn't seem to care.
Kath came in again she held an emergency kit and sat down in front of me taking Chrissy's place.
"This might sting a bit." She pressed the cloth with the antisepticum on my wounds making me tear up. It hurt like hell but that was what I deserve I guess.
She took out some bandages and started placing them on the cuts.
Lauren apparently decided that she found enough blades because she sat down again.
Lisa also re-entered the room sitting down on the floor as Chrissy had sat down where she sat before.
"Baby we need to know what caused this." Chrissy said while looking at me.
"I am sorry. Please don't hate me for it. I didn't mean to hurt you by doing this."
"Little one. We aren't hurt we are worried and it hurts us to see you so sad and broken. We love you and only want the best for seeing you in such a bad shape is just hard for us." Lisa tried to explain to me.
"She's right. We only want to help you but in order to this we need to figure out what exactly started this."
"Cimorelli. Being a Cimorelli. The girl in school that bullies me.... She uhm she called me really mean things such as 'the talentless Cimorelli ' or the worthless one.... After some time your fans started getting mad that I wasn't a part of the band so they took it out me... It was too much." I cried out. Great I was back to crying.
"Well it's the truth. Maybe you should've cut deeper. It's not like we'd miss you. You don't have a role or place in this family." I knew it they all hate me I need to get out of here now. "DANI OUT!" Chrissy grabbed Dani's arm and pulled her out. Katherine who had finished patching me up followed them outside.
I cried out. Why did I even trust them they only want to hurt me. They never loved me. Lauren and Amy tried to hug me put I just flinched away trying to get away from here as fast as possible. But Lisa was faster she pulled me close to her and let me cry into her shoulder.
"It's alright little one. Calm down. Dani didn't mean what she said. We love you. Don't think something else." She held me close while was crying and hyperventilating. I don't know how long she held me and whispered encouraging words into my ears but at some point I started to believe her.
This was the point I started to calm down.
Lisa sat down on my bed with me on her lap and stroked my hair.
"Go to sleep baby. We're here don't worry nothing will happen." I shook my head no and clung to her.
"It's alright little one we won't leave." She kissed my forehead and started humming a tune to make me sleepy.
Sadly it worked and soon enough I was fast asleep on my older sisters lap.
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