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.