2012-05-09 / 2:27 p.m.

I sat and I looked at that balloon for days on end, slowly deflating, not nearly as quickly as I was, but I maintained it was a fair race all the same. April came and went. I'm done year two of four (I've actually completed a whole four years now, but the other ones never counted because I was always always always too sick to continue). I saw photos of the girl I lived with last year sitting on my current sofa, can't explain how that made me feel. She never calls, ignores my messages. I never really liked her all that much anyway, but sometimes she was good to have around. Not one of these people have seen my room this year, don't know where I live. I come and I go, I wander the corridors, I hold doors open, I slide away and they never really know. I wonder why they don't call. Lost my phone over a month ago, still haven't got anybody's numbers. It doesn't fucking matter. I don't make it easy on myself. They don't make it easy either. I get my results tomorrow, I'm guessing two C's and a B, the usual. I get by. I try, but I don't try too hard. Actually find myself dreaming of an office job these days, there's something really satisfying about the feel of a stapler, a paper punch, a churn in the stomach. I really always thought that when I got away from home I wouldn't much have anything to go back to, but I guess I feel guilty, I'm not even exciting. All I think about are calories and weighing scales, I go to the gym, find myself the noisiest machine and I work away, I burn away my lunch and my breakfast before I've even thought about eating them. I'll be skinny when I get back next year, I said that last year too, but this time it's different because I won't be stuck in a small bungalow all summer, crying because I'm not allowed to leave, some sort of blackmail. Getting paid, here you go, not paid enough, but it's almost enough so it'll do, and I could never leave. Couldn't tell you how many cigarettes I smoked in those five months (my summer lasted five whole months), but my face was always breaking out and I felt greasy and disgusting. Maria's almost dead two years.