Enouement

//Enouement: The bitter-sweetness of having arrived in the future, seeing how things turn out, but not being able to tell your past self.//

He used to study his face in the mirror with a scowl - white patches covering his thin cheeks, his dark hair which was streaked with white at the young age of fourteen.  High cheek bones, angular face and sunken eyes - he could've been the poster boy of eating disorders. A pale layer of skin above his protruding collar bones and ribs. Baggy sweatshirts and loose-fitting jeans often covered his skeletal frame.

He had been diagnosed with Vitiligo, a skin disease, months ago and yet - yet the shock hadn't worn off. The first month after the diagnosis had been bad, but so had the second and the third and every month after the fateful day when he discovered the faint white patches on his once unblemished skin.

His mother had been hysteric. She smothered him with make-up, hiding all the paling skin under layers of powders. It didn't help in anything except increasing his anxiety. He would run to the bathroom frequently, praying that the make-up hadn't smudged. He was diseased, ugly and perfect bait for the bullies of his school.

He remembered wearing his, then trademark, hoodies and jeans during even the hottest days of summer, desperate for some sense of normalcy he received from his friends. That, of course, didn't last too long either. A small tug at his sleeve and an unusually hot day was all it took and his world came crashing down. He was labelled a freak, abnormal, diseased. He remembered how, as he walked through the hallways, people he once called friends fell silent, ensuring they don't come in a five yard radius of him - because, as they claimed, they would catch the disease as well, He never bothered to tell them that Vitiligo was not contagious.

He remembered the suffocating feeling of doctor's offices, of therapists rooms as medicine after medicine was shoved down his throat. Naturally, he didn't complain. He couldn't because complaining and whining about his appearance was something only girls did. So, he locked away his utter exhaustion and smiled and played along with everyone - he was going to be all right. His nights were filled with silent tears and choked sobs, muffled by a forever damp pillow - all his dreams of joining the film industry, crushed. After all, who wanted to watch a movie with an ugly hero?

He remembered crouching in the bathroom, desperately trying to rub, to scratch, to remove all traces of the pale splotches that decorated his skin. He remembered how his hands shook as he clenched a knife tightly in his fist, a towel in his mouth as he carefully peeled the pale skin off his elbow. He remembered, how tears fell down his face, how he stumbled out of the bathroom, head spinning and heart thundering. 'It's just a graze' he reassured the few people who still cared.

It had slowly gotten worse. The patches covered his arms and legs and when he had looked closely enough, there was a slight discolouration around his chin as well. He refused to get out of bed, to eat, to so much as acknowledge the people around him. He found solace in books instead, choosing to lose himself in the stories of the  brave and the beautiful - who had the ability to overcome their fears, who lit up the world with their courage and determination.

And slowly, he had felt himself inching toward life again - re-enacting movies that he still loved and remembered, reciting dialogues in a voice hoarse from the lack of use. He remembered the relief in his parent's faces - the joy of having their little boy back. Except - except he hadn't that little anymore - his seventeenth birthday had been coming up soon. It then struck him how long he had allowed himself to be a victim - a victim of society, of his own mind - prejudiced against anything that didn't match the world's ideas of normal.

Now, at twenty, six years after his first diagnosis, he acted in small movies and plays. He rejoined school. It wasn't much, but, from staring at the mirror everyday with sunken eyes and a depressed mind, to being able to walk around streets with a smile - it was definitely something.

It still affected him and he often found himself unable to leave the house without thinking twice about it. He still woke up with his blemished skin raw from the constant scrubbing and scratching and his eyes brimming with tears. He still felt his heart ache whenever he stumbled upon a group of, in his mind, normal twenty year olds. But he had accepted who he was and how he looked like. His hair might have been streaked white and his skin might have been covered with pale patches - he was perfect the way he was and he definitely worth more than the labels he used to accept as his.

He still remembers the first days of his diagnosis - the utter shock, denial and betrayal. Because after all, what had he done to deserve it? He remembers them with an odd sort of awe - he finds it hard to believe he's come this far. He remembers the depression and the anorexia. Most of all, he remembers how he got out of the dark pit and, today - today he can hold his head high and say that he's comfortable in his own skin. And that, that according to him, is what really matters.

Author's Note

Hi! Constructive criticism is appreciated :)