Fabric, thorns and secrets.

Fabric, thorns and secrets

It was the instinctive part of me that reacted first and I growled before the sound erupted into a primal aggressive shout with bared teeth and I ripped out of Esmee’s hold as easily as the incredible hulk ripped out of his clothing. I wanted to hit her. My whole body pushed at the very edges of my control to lash out at her so she could feel pain because the bad bit of me. The bit that gained control far too easily blamed her for every tiny bit of my currant pain and anxiety and she had to be punished… or I did.

I stumbled away from Esmee whimpering as my whole body fought some kind of battle. There were more feelings inside me that could be counted and they all mashed up in some sort of strangling grip that ripped my head apart until I was convinced that in seconds I would implode. I wanted to implode. At least if I was blown into a million different pieces my head would have stopped torturing me. I would have stopped hurting.

“I hate you! I hate you!” I sobbed towards Esmee as all of the mussels in my body strained in opposite directions until I ended up on the floor riving in my own brains simulated agony.

 “You don’t hate me. You hate that way that you’re feeling and because I happen to be closest that makes you think that you hate me.”  

I hated her logic. I hated her ambivalence to the best insult that I had for someone like Esmee. I hated the way she could explain exactly the way I felt even better than I could but most of all I hated the fact that she was exactly right. I didn’t hate her. I loved her. I loved her more then I loved another human being in the entire universe and that was almost the problem. Love like that was always insane. It made you mental. No sane person would throw them self’s into traffic or in front of a bullet in their right mind and I would have for her, or for Emmet. I wouldn’t even think about it, not even when I was convinced that I hated them.

My body convulsed with shaking and my back arched against the ground as I tried to regain something of my sanity and my dignity. I tried to tell myself that it didn’t matter how fast I ran. That that wasn’t important but I couldn’t convince myself and what I hated more… what made me loath every living cell of my body was the fact I could forgive her more easily for telling me my son wasn’t important than what I could for her outrunning  me. That was just fucked up… I could sell my sons soul for a perfect body.

 Slowly Esmee got down on the floor with me as I started to chock on my own tears. She seemed a little clumsier then she used to be as she lowered herself into a lying position on her right hand side so she could be face to face with me. She may have been clumsier complete with her little bump but her face was the same as it always was, comforting and strong… understanding of everything I was battling…  I wanted to scratch at her with my broken nails… I wanted to roll over into her arms and let her hold me until the pain was gone.

“It’s OK. I know it feels bad, and I have said and done some really dumb things tonight which have made it worse. I can’t tell you how sorry I am about that. It’s going to be OK though, I’m right here.” Esmee’s words where so gentile, so kind and alluring it would have been impossible not to melt with them and her actions spoke a million more of the same kind words. She was the only person in the unit, probably in the world – with the exception of Emmet – that would lie down on the cold soaking wet floor with me just so I would know I wasn’t alone in the world… with my pain.

“It doesn’t work anymore,” I chocked, coughing so hard on my tears that it felt like my lugs would burst open against my ribs “The running…” I coughed again harder.

“Shhhh, try and calm down before you talk to me, I want to hear what you’re saying and I know that it is important but you need to try and calm your breath and control the sobbing. You can do it, take my hand.” Esmee leant her arm out across the floor to me with her palm facing upwards. She was so confident that she could pull me through, and for some reason so was I.

Without thinking I reached out to touch her. I slowly let my fingers slide in-between hers and then over her palm. Her comfort and her heat calmed me almost instantly, like she had a magic hormone seeping through her skin into mine. It was a better drug then even running was. It just felt right. I gently started to trace my fingers over the creases in her hands and with my sensitive fingertips trying to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I found very old scars against her fragile palms and two harder ridged shaped pieces of scar tissue on the back of her knuckles. I had the same ones as her. Bella would have had them too, and Echo, and anyone else that found their solace from inducing sickness. Almost subconsciously I began to slow my breath to match hers as I brushed my fingers gently over the three diamonds in her engagement ring, then the smooth white gold of her wedding ring. I then moved up her hand slower heading toward the cuff of her sleeve. I wanted to feel her pulse. I didn’t really know why but I knew it would be strong and it time against all the madness, just like she was. I very gently edged my fingers in under the cuff of her blouse trying find the spot where her very life flowed around her but my fingers hit more fabric that had tiny little nylon thorns sticking through it just before Esmee yelped and dragger her arm away cradling it to her side. At first I was confused what it was - as to why there was something that felt so alien against her skin so reluctantly I let my eyes drift to look at her face. It became obvious as soon as I saw her features as to what I had just discovered. It was her biggest secret and it hurt my soul to think that she had it. Apparently Esmee was in more trouble than I could have known.

When running ran out

When running ran out

The night air was freezing against my skin as I stepped out of the unit after Esmee. It was also dark apart from the few flood lights that lit up different patches around the grounds. It wasn’t these bits that concerned me but I wasn’t sure of what lurked in the black bits. Apple gate house seemed to be a place where ghost would be hiding.

“I can’t let you leave the grounds,” Esmee shivered crossing her arms over her chest rubbing her shoulders. “You’re on red obs so it really isn’t an option but we could do a few laps around the building.”

I honestly didn’t care where I ran to. I would have settled for a treadmill if that was what was on offer. I could stay in one place yet travel a thousand miles inside my head when I was running. Sophie would make the experience a punishment but I enjoyed the bits when I was allowed to be me. I was sure that even without the anorexic bit of my mind I would have still loved the way it felt to run.

Without even telling Esmee that around the outside of the building was fine for me my legs took off in clockwise direction around the hospital. I just couldn’t keep them still any longer. It was like I had caught the scent of my pray and I had to follow it no matter how far it went.

I didn’t run properly, I did not pace myself so I could keep going longer I just went as fast as I could even if my legs didn’t like it but there was a problem with that too. My fastest wasn’t nearly fast enough for what I wanted. I wanted to be a chaeta or a gazelle. I wanted to cover miles in the blink of a second because maybe then the pain would have been enough that it covered the other pain. I wanted to feel the wind zip faster through my hair and for my feet to smack header against the ground until they dug their way into it but I wasn’t getting there. I was humanly slow. Not extraordinary like I used to be.   I was slower then I was before I entered into the unit. The extra weight was pulling me back like I was running on elastic. It simply didn’t feel right. They had managed to flaw something that had been as exhilarating as running. It wasn’t serving me right anymore and that was terrifying.

I only managed four laps of the building before my distraught mind made me stop. I couldn’t breathe or think or see straight but none if it was due to the physical strain of the running. It was the sheer panic that festered in my head at the downfall of what used to be a survival mechanism. What if they all stopped working? What if even braking bones and cutting skin granted me no release. There was no way I could live with the feelings. There was no way I could live with Oscar inside my head without being able to drive his image away.

I chocked on nausea as I doubled over in pain. It was not a physical pain in my tummy that made me do it but something worse than that, something that I couldn’t fight beyond or even except or understand. Running had always made me feel good without exception. Even when I could physically feel the pain of bones rubbing on each other the pros had outweighed the pain of it but now there was nothing and I couldn’t understand it. I didn’t know how to cope with it. It had been stolen from me, like so many other things. Brain and Joe may have raped my body and left it broken but apple gate had raped my ability to run and the consequences where the same. I could feel the ripping inside of me as I became detached.

“Mi… Mi… Mia!” Esmee shouted from the other end of the building as she realized I was no longer with her. The whole time she had been running one pace in front of me. I think she was just trying to make sure that I didn’t get away from her but it was another reason why I felt so bad but could never admit it. I had always been the very best at running. I won all the races at school. I crossed the finished lines of every cross country race a whole five minutes in front of the others but Esmee was better than me. Even carrying a 12 week foetus and a bag of amniotic fluid she could have easily outran me and Sophie didn’t like to lose… I didn’t like to lose.  My large 115lbs frame couldn’t outrun a pregnant woman.

“Mi… Ok it’s all right, it’s Ok I’ve got you,  I’ve got you,” Esmee comforted in a frantic voice after she had run back over to me and locked her arms around my waist, “have you hurt yourself? Where is the pain too? I didn’t mean to run on I hadn’t noticed that you stopped?

My anger raged with the pain as she spoke and as always it was anger at the wrong person but she was the only one there,  and the insane part of me, The borderline personality part, the anorexic Sophie part needed something to blame – someone to blame –  for my disillusionment that running could concur all. It could have been anyone, but Esmee was there.

This cannot end well

This cannot end well

I stopped pacing instantly and snapped my body around to look at Esmee. I scrutinized every part of her body to try and see what she was playing at. I had had an out and out ban on running since I had walked into the unit. In fact I had had an out and out ban on any type of exercise unless it was monitored closely and anything that was allowed even then was not considered hugely calorie burning. Running was. I craved the power and energy of running again to have my heart really pounding inside of my chest and the muscles burning in the backs of my legs. I could run away from everything in the actual act of running. That was what made it so hard to stop.

“It’s night time. The rest of the staff won’t be happy you taking me out running, shouldn’t I be getting ready to sleep?” I asked the question in a half-hearted attempt to try and not to sound as elated as I actually did, my insides where doing back flips in there triumph and I had already physically moved over to my bed and pulled my trainers on with force.

“Nope they won’t be, that’s very true, but tell me honestly without this is there any chance of you actually going to sleep? Or is there more of a chance of you trying to break your arm on one of this walls. I rather run for a few minutes then spend the night in the Emergency department.”

I did not argue wither her further. Her decision fucked with my head but an older voice was fucking with it more and the promise of a run I could not ignore. Not even if I knew here was no chance of it actually ending well.

importance

Importance

The room span back into focus and then out again before I could find any solid ground. I was torn between the reality and the current news of the situation I was in and the painful past. Esmee’s bump was not Oscar. It was a new baby in there. It was twelve weeks into its creation and it was beautiful and that is what I knew I should have felt. I should have been happy about this. I should have congratulated her and smoothed the bump under the fabric of her top  but I couldn’t manage the words or the actions. Oscar had been thrown away with the clinical waste and that was more important that a new life… maybe.

“Try and focus on my voice Mi. I know it is difficult when you head is trying to pull you away but you have had the flashback, you have let it happen and now it is just torching you.” I could feel Esmee shift her grip on my hand and briefly I could snap away from any thoughts of the solid mass amongst the blood or how his body twitched and contorted … I felt the breath squeeze out of my lungs with a yelp allowing the nausea to take its place in the pit of my stomach.

“Push against it, control it, It happened and it was terrible but it’s exactly that a memory. It is not important right now.”

“Well at least this way you won’t have to worry about a baby,” A nameless nurse said gently to me after she caught me sobbing in the hospital bed over the empty shell of my bump. He hadn’t moved in three days from within me. Nothing had been using my bladder as a trampoline and I missed it. I missed all of the little things.

“You are just a baby yourself. This is a blessing in disguise. You may think you wanted it. You may even think that you loved it but in a few months you won’t remember that you even had this inconvenience. It’s not important…”

“HE WAS IMPORTANT!” I Shrieked at Esmee suddenly the whole of me back in the room with her. She was now the focused point for all of my emotions. I loved her and I hated her. I wanted her to leave but wanted her to stay with me forever at exactly the same time. I wanted to scream at her and wanted to hug her. Every emotion short circuited against its exact opposite and they fort with each other. I was so angry. I had always hated anger like I felt it then. I wanted to lash out, like my hands and feet needed to punch and kick and I had to physically hold them back no matter the pain it caused me. Emotion told me to rip Esmee apart, to hurt her. Logic and love knew that she as actually an object of my affections;  she was never someone to hurt.

“I don’t care how fucking old I was! He was my son!” I screamed and stamped my feet to try and release some of the energy in my limbs, to try and gain some control over my rampaging body. It felt like something in me was physically pushing my limbs out towards the walls. I wanted to open my skin just to be distracted.

“It wasn’t his fault that he was born too little and too tiny! He was scared and he was cold and I couldn’t even cuddle him or sing him to sleep! They put him in the trash because they said he wasn’t important but he was! He was just a little baby!”

Esmee got to her feet from my bed and moved awkwardly towards me. Her face was in an expression I hadn’t seen before like she couldn’t quite to decide what feeling she should have been feeling or how she wanted to deal with it. I knew that she was very aware of my current mental state; I could see her eyes judging what I could harm myself with. She wondered whether she could reach me before I ploughed into a wall but she also fought with it, like somehow she wondered whether stopping me would have really been in my best interest, or if the rolls where reversed she would have been able to survive if someone stopped her.

“He was important, it’s important. I used the wrong words because I make mistakes. I really am sorry. I wish I could have a better word or said nothing at all, but I can’t. I fucked up, a lot.” The words sounded strange as Esmee spoke them like she had to monitor them and even then she had grimaced after she used them. They still didn’t sound right inside of her head and that was for one simple reason - what words could have sounded right? How could you really ever console a mother that had watched her child die?

I grunted without words and turned away from her as I started to pace across the floor of my room at the same time as one of my hands pulled at my hair and the other tried to get my clipped nails to do some damage to the skin on my arms.

“Come walk with me,” Esmee prompted as I passed up and down the room harder while whimpering. I shook my head pushing my nails into the scare on my face until I could actually start to feel wetness gathering underneath them. Walking wasn’t helping, it wasn’t going to help it didn’t hurt or distract me. It was painful enough. I could still feel him.

“The come and run with me instead.”

laptop back and im writing chapters!!

OK laptop is back and I am starting on more chapters. That's if there is anyone there. Have you all ran off and left me guys?

bye bye computer

Hi everyone.

My computer has fallen ill again! It is so highly annoying! *grumble grumble* but that means there won't be an story for a while because I had to send it to the hospital (Well at least to PC world)

Sorry everyone. It annoys me too! I love my laptop!

So se you around when it gets back I hope!