behind twilight

Behind twilight

Emmet landed up calling someone else to cover for me after I sunk back behind my bedroom wall but it was hardly needed as that evening just before the night shift came on the found a doctor that wasn’t so scared of me to allow Emmet to reduce my observations right down to twenty minute checks. It wasn’t what I had been on beforehand and I would have preferred the two hourly observations but it was better than having an unwelcome shadow.

I had not been able to see Hev for the rest of the day though I was anxious to know whether she was OK after what had happened. The problem with Hev even though she was deaf she seemed to have no reason to be in the unit at all. I know she had a story I knew from the first time I saw her distressed state in the corridor that hev wasn’t happy all of the time but she had no physical scars. Her arms where pure untouched peaches and cream and she wasn’t like Pollyanna who was so painfully thin most people found it hard to look at her. She did not talk to the voices in her head or address hallucinations. She was perfectly in contact with reality and if you had the ability to communicate with her in her chosen language she was usually funny ad upbeat. her continued stay in the walls of an acute unit where a mystery to most even to her but she told me she had nowhere else to go apart from her posh boarding school that was refusing to take her back after finding her semi coherent with a belly full of pills.

As soon as I was let off of my observations I went and knocked on twilight which was the room Hev was now in after being moved up from the main floor a few days ago. It was not an easy task. I had tried to avoid the room since Bella had died like I tried to avoid lingering too much in front of Courage I didn’t even like walking past them let alone going in them because since she died nothing about them was right. She had given the rooms life she had breathed something into them and without her they were voids of nothing that tried to suck something out of me every time I was too close to them. It hurt every time I thought of her. Even when I was ok and doing normal things she would just pop into my head and it would feel like I was going to sink though the floor. Most people told you that time made it easier but Emmet had contradicted that when he had caught me one of the times I had fallen. He told me that the feelings stayed as intense and as devastating you just learnt to cope better with them when they hit. And he was right that was how it was like yet I had a long way to go with both Bella and Arabella they both had me on my knees. The trouble was I liked Hev and no matter how much I wanted to run away screaming as I pushed the door open to twilight to see if she was all right and wanted to come and play a game with myself and Esmee if I could grab her after handover.

Nothing could really prepare me for what I saw when I pushed open that door with a wave of my hands and before I could stop myself I let out a little yelp and grabbed the wall to steady myself as I looked at the scene from a horror movie. There first thing to see was the bright red blood that covered Hev’s legs and the blankets that where rolled up around her but more devastating was her. Fun and care free Hev had gone somewhere far away as her dead eyes stared like a zombies into the gashes on her legs before put down the tiny silver blade to the side of her and singed the words I’m sorry as her chest heaved up and down with heavy adrenalin filled breathes. 

On shaking ground

This isn't so good. Please bare in mind this is just a first draft 

I smiled sadly as I allowed Emmets words to comfort me. I suppose I had known it somewhere inside of since the first time Bella found me in the bathroom all those months ago. I had seen it as strength on her part when in fact it had been her illness that made her try and cover the part of me that was so anorexic. She liked anorexia she was letting it control her life and was happy when she found a friend. She fought it and she meant me no harm by not telling she thought she was doing a good thing. There wasn’t a bad bone inside of Bella’s body that would even consider doing anything other but if she had told that day no matter how much it killed me inside she would have been finding me the help that my withering body needed.

“You’re doing really well…” Emmet’s words where cut of midsentence from a smashing noise and a shrill throaty snarl of distress from outside in the corridor that felt like it made the walls shake

“I was going to say that you are doing really well today but that sounds like something that needs checking out.” Emmet smiled as he jumped off of my bed and went to my door followed my myself to see Hev screaming at her smashed up mobile phone on the floor and kicking angrily at the all ready scuffed paint work on the walls.

“What the hell has happened my love?” Emmet asked with his hands after he managed to get her attention at the same time as I asked her what was wrong with mine. Hev’s hands exploded into s flurry of action in return. Most of the words where shouted in with a bunch of expletives but nothing really made any sense and when she was done Emmet looked down at me to see if I had managed to pick up the conversation which I hadn’t.

“Errr… Something about glue sniffing up start penis monkeys…” I said aloud my heart going out to Hev as she started to sob and fall down the wall.

“Yeah that is about as much as I got too” He said before signing to Hev to slow it down what she was saying. She couldn’t slow it down. She was too sad to make her hands form the proper words and her shoulders shook from her tears. I had never seen Hev like she was then. She had never presented anything other than her bubbly self. She had had times of low mood when she wasn’t so eager to get in with things but this was different from that. What was in front of me was devastation and disaster and it made my body hurt to watch

“Come on my love, It’s all right, it’s OK.” Emmet signed gently going over to her and wrapping his arm around her shoulders. I stayed back by the door of my bedroom trying to give them as much space as I could without fully disappearing out of Emmets sight which would have meant he would have to come and get me.

“It’s my parents, I hate them.” I heard Hev say aloud barley eligible through h her tears. I had never heard her actually chose to talk aloud before and even though to me there was something actually beautiful in how she tried to form words even though she couldn’t hear them I could understand why her speech was enough to render her mute rather than try. If there was one thing anyone learnt about being alive in the world it was the fact that people where cruel about things that were different.

“What have your parents done to upset you like this. I take it that they just text you?”

“There extending their trip over Christmas.” Hev singed with her heavy hands even though after the initial outburst of anger they now just looked sluggish and heavy in the way she used then. “They were meant to come back and get me for Christmas so I could get out of here but now there not coming and I’m not even sure where I am going to go. They always do this to me. I am never important enough for them.”

I hated Hev’s parents. It was extreme reaction seems I had never met them before to say that I hated them but that in a way was the point.  Hev loved her mother and her farther, she pretended that they didn’t rule her whole life and she didn’t care what she said but it was lies. She wanted to be their perfect child. She wanted to be everything that they wanted from her and she would cross deserts and swim oceans to do it but they treated her like shit. She was not good enough for their miserable little world. It didn’t mean that she wasn’t good enough, she was, for Emmet for me we saw her beauty but in a way she cared little about us. She had swallowed a packet of pills to try and show her parents she was miserable and she wanted them and they had yet to even see her or make any real contact and now even over Christmas where families where pushed together, even pretend ones like the one I was going to be a part of they decided not to include there daughter in there fun but leave her stranded in a hospital. It was unforgivable, Hev was their gift not their inconvenience.

“I am sorry that has happened Hev. Did they tell you why they had to stay away longer? As for where you will go you will stay here in the hospital with staff for Christmas day with one or two of the other patients and there will be some fun stuff going on I can find out who is working if you want. I know Ava and Alice are on in the morning when you get up.”

Hev didn’t respond instead stayed looking down at her legs her head bowed low over them. Emmet could give her no comfort and in a way he knew it too he could make up words that flowed out from his hands but there was a bit that felt for her like anyone would. There were no words to describe the feelings that went with the fear that the Bears would do it to me and she had just had it crashed upon her. I sulked away behind the bedroom door trying to catch my breath. Things where never as solid as they seemed.

it only feels like being tortured

It only feels like being tortured

I ate the rest of my breakfast without moving or feeling and Emmet let me be while I did it knowing that there was something wrong inside of my head that would have made acting even half normal an impossibility. I ate quickly for me thinking that if I just did it and didn’t think I couldn’t worry about what it was doing to me or what it was doing to Pollyanna somewhere in a different room. It didn’t help that Pollyanna was yelling loud enough so the whole unit could hear her and it didn’t help that there were four empty seats at the table where the rest of the staff had had to drop there breakfast and go running as the wrist alarms burst into life signalling that they were rather urgently needed elsewhere. I had been partly responsible for that.

“Right, dishes in the dish  washer please.  I am running a relaxation group at 10 am for anyone that is interested. Other than that make yourself busy distract your self’s if needed and seek out staff to talk if you need to. Have a good day.” I hated the kitchen rush after breakfast so Emmet grabbed my plate and took it to the kitchen while I waited for him struggling not to make my own bolt for the door and away from him. It would have been so easy to make myself sick after that breakfast. My tummy already felt like a washing machine after what I had done in breakfast but I fort it. I also noticed Lauren loitering at the door with her eyes on me. Emmet had passed guard dog duty over before he had left the room.

“Good work Mi,” Emmet said to me after he slipped back into the room and came to my side. “I know that that was a real struggle for you this morning and you did very well.” I let him take my hand as he talked to me. It masked the fact the my head was screaming in equal measure to either slap him across the face and run before I could get wrestled to the ground or place both my arms around his waist and squeeze him until I could get the thoughts of Bella and an Ensure covered Pollyanna to leave my thoughts. I sucked my tummy in until it hurt, my top suddenly feeling too tight on me and it was a bit, I wasn’t really a size 8 anymore. I hadn’t been for a long time.

“Can we go and talk?” I asked Emmet going on my tip toes so I could whisper it somewhere vaguely close to his ear. 

“Sure thing, Do you want to go to your bedroom? or I can try and commandeer a room if you want me to.”

“My rooms fine,” I said as I began to walk towards it and Emmet followed, watching my feet as they took the two flights of stairs to my bedroom. Once there cuddled up on the top end of my bed wrapping a white fleas blanket with pink flowers on it around my legs to try and stave of the cold, yet another reason why the name sunshine for my bedroom was obsolete. Now it was winter it was always bloody freezing in the bedrooms even with the heating on constantly.

“So what can I help you with?” Emmet asked sitting on the opposite end of my bed from me

“Is Pollyanna OK?”

“I don’t really know honey; I have been with you since wake up so I can’t tell. I can tell you that she is being looked after though if that helps.” It should have. It would have made most people from the outside feel better. I had heard Emmet say the same thing to concerned parents as I floated past their conversations on the thread bear blues sofas in the hallway. They looked at me with cautiousness concern and fear etched onto their faces as they tried to judge whether I was likely to cause them harm.

“Not really,” I admitted. “I know what being “looked after” means Emmet. I have been “looked after” by some people in here and it can feel a lot like being tortured to death.”

“I can’t guarantee that she won’t be feeling that however I can guarantee we are not doing that. We will only be doing what is in her best interests because at the moment Pollyanna is too sick to know what is best for her.”

I smiled at Emmet thanking him for trying to make me feel better but I couldn’t help hide the grimace that came after it. Bella always said that I was too easily hypnotized by the staff, even more so when the staff in question where Emmet and Esmee but Bella never trusted anyone properly. She lived her whole life with walls and fences around her only believing one lie that she was fat and had to be thinner. She was dead, just a picture in my sketch book made from memories and she still wasn’t thin enough. That was what was sad. She died at war with herself still. And I hated it.

“Bella would be so angry at me,” I moaned eventually not managing to sugar coat even for myself how betrayed she would be feeling.

“Who’s Bella?” Emmet asked propping himself up to one side on my bed so he could look at me properly the slats groaned in there annoyance of the giants repositioning.

“I know you are a nurse and look after a lot of people but I was hoping even you wouldn’t forget the dead that quick.”

“Hay there is no need to snap at me. I am very aware of what Bella you are on about now I was just wondering if maybe Sophie had found herself a fried to play with which was worrying me slightly. Anyway why would Bella be mad at you? You meant a lot to her.”

“I told.” I said wondering how two simple worlds could make me feel cold inside. “I told on Pollyanna when she ran off. Bella never told. She found me so many times puking or cutting and she never told. To her it was the worst thing… I let her down; she would never forgive me” I stuttered.”

“Yeah you’re right she would be really angry at you and I am sure that somewhere she is yelling or sulking but she’s wrong and I would tell her that to her face if I could and you know it too somewhere inside you which is very positive. You loved her and that is brilliant what makes it brilliant was the fact that you loved her in spite of her flaws. Bella was here for a reason. She was poorly like you and everyone else here. She just spent a lot of time fighting that. If she was well and she found you or anyone else hurting themselves she would have come and told one of us so we could help, but she wasn’t well. I need to believe me that you did the right thing letting me know that Pollyanna had run away because you knew she was in danger or she was going to hurt herself and that wasn’t OK. It was a good thing and I hope that you can see that and stand up for that no matter what Bella would say because you are in the right. No matter what it feels like to her and I would make a guess at pretty bad you helped Pollyanna this morning more then what Bella did when she covered up for you.

number nineteen's snitch (mi's side)

right im out of the psyc ward again and feeling as good as i can be considering. I hope that this chapter is ok. Anything you really hate or love please let me know. vikki.

Number nineteen’s snitch

I went to breckfast. I had no more of an argument for him. Sophie couldn’t beat that even though she tried. She shouted and she screamed until it felt like the whole unit would fall down around me but I would have still moved unblinking though the corridors to get to the dining room. I would eat for him; At least for now.

The table was set up for nineteen to sit at but only two of the bowls where full of the food that was non-negotiable. I hated that it was so hard. I hated the fact that seventeen other people could sit at the table and chose there toast and exactly what they wanted on it. I hated that number eighteen was so swamped by a storm she had to eat though, and there were no words for number nineteen. Nineteen was… perfect…almost dead

.

Nineteen arrived from behind me shaking; weather it was because she still felt the extreme cold under all the layers or because she was terrified was hard to tell but I felt for her in a way; Her war was worse than mine. If I had one girl in my head having a temper tantrum she had twenty thousand babies screaming inside hers. The trouble is there was one main problem that she couldn’t see. She didn’t know it or understand it but the babies were crying in her head because they were hungry.

“Can I sit over there?” I asked Emmet, Pointing to the other side of the table that was blocked in by walls and chairs. I had no real desire to be there.  I wanted the chair that was closest to the door more than anything else in the world at that moment but nineteen needed it more than me. She really did.

Emmet agreed my request and swapped the bowls over. My portion was a lot smaller than it used to be. I could see that now as I looked into the hell that was the other bowl. I couldn’t have done it not even for Emmet or Esmee. Not to day.

I started eating my food with the squeeze of Emmet’s hand on my leg and Jean handed Pollyanna her spoon as her prompt. She looked at it like she had just been given the controls of the TARDIS and told to fly it. It would have probably been less alien to her then a spoon and a bowl of over 600 calories. It wasn’t going to happen. She wanted it to, she was starving, but it wasn’t.

Her breath began to come in shortened pants again as she delicately pushed the side of the spoon against the china and brought the measly amount of corn flakes to her mouth and started to chew. I had already got three much larger bites down into my stomach. Emmet had eaten nearly half his bowl and was looking for more.

It was agony to watch as the  repeated the action from bowl to mouth. I could see why people would be frustrated with her. For anyone who saw exactly how thin she was or who could see the size of her ankles as they bounced under the tables it was a living hell. You wanted to yell at her, scream at her that she was so small, but I had been her. I had nearly thrown up in my pasta. I chocked on my spoonful remembering and heaved once into my hand.

“Wow, all right, it’s all right. Something’s just gone down the wrong way, here Emmet said handing me a cup of water from the table which I took in both my hands and sipped at until the coughing had subsided.

I took another spoonful of my cereal and went back to my breakfast before allowing my eyes to drift back over to Pollyanna. Big fat tears trickled down over her nose and cheeks as she crunched on a tiny mouthful of cornflakes. I begged someone to end her pain. It seemed almost cruel that Jean sat beside her watching out the corner of her eyes as she at her own breakfast with ease. I knew the theory behind it. I knew that it was meant to help but theory’s had to be adjusted to the person. We needed to share in her pain and celebrate that fact that she had managed about 75 calories more of cereal in the morning that she had managed in a long time by herself, but 75 calories wouldn’t keep her alive. The whole damn bowl alone wouldn’t keep her alive. It seemed impossible that she still was yet I had heard them say the same thing about me on the first few weeks I had walked theses halls and sat at the table. They had said that I was just waiting. That they where a stop gap before the inevitable death that would follow. Well all of them apart from Esmee. She had always seen a future for me and in the end she had been the one to make it happen too. I was more grateful to her and to Emmet then they could ever know.

There was a clatter as Pollyanna pushed her plate away from her with force and the milk splashed down onto the table. She looked like she was about to scream along with the voice in her head or vomit onto the floor.

“Come on pork chop, you are doing really well just keep going,” Jean said reacting to the defiant gesture with her own defiance at the obvious defeat but Pollyanna would not be persuaded by the words of mere mortals like Jean. She had a power in her head that would not be matched.

“I cannot eat anymore.” Pollyanna’s words where strict they oozed a power that she still thought that she had when it came to what went inside her mouth. They wouldn’t have told her about the Ensure yet or eventually the tube they forced up your nose after you had been sectioned into the mental health act. I would not be the one to tell her though. I would not brake there silence or the lies. That pain would be to devastating to see.

“Your food is one of those non- negotiable that we mentioned to you Pollyanna. Emmet said his voice not soft like normal but firm and cold. Even I felt the want to shuffle away from him on the chair and eat alone somewhere dark. I didn’t like his compassionless form. “What is given to you, you must eat and there isn’t any room for discussion. Now you made a good start but I would like you to finish of the plate please. It is the same rule for everyone like you.” I felt the unnatural and unwelcome spotlight come and land on my head as I shovelled in another large spoonful of my own cornflakes and chewed. I wanted to hiss at Emmet like a cat would if it felt trapped. He shouldn’t have made an example from me; I was just as scared and confused as she was in different ways.

Pollyanna gave me a brief look of disgust as I chocked down my mouthful before crossing her arms and looking up at the ceiling closing off the rest of the argument. I smashed my spoon against the side of my plate and tried to control the tears that where welling up inside my eyes before continuing the horrific meal which was only about to get worse as i heard Harry and Elizabeth bashing about telling others that It was time to join us for their breakfast.

With the arrival of the others spilling into the dining room and choosing their seats Pollyanna changed again every one of her muscles coiling ready to make her spring.  I tried to work out what way she was going to dart. The normal assumption would be that she would chose the door but that was where the new people where coming from and what that staff where expecting. I wouldn’t have been that clever to choose the other way but Pollyanna seemed it.

Pollyanna’s reactions where so fast it seemed almost impossible and even though they were made out of fear there were timed to perfection. Jean was looking away and Emmet had turned his attention to Hev who had sat opposite him and was moaning about the rights of night owls with her hands leaving her escape unmonitored by all staff. I watched with envy at her escape wondering how I had not managed in the moths of occupying that chair at breakfast to make such a faultless escape before doing something that made me cringe and made Bella roll somewhere in her grave and grabbed Emmets leg pointing to her empty chair and allowing him to shout at Jean so she could get off of her chair and go after her before she made it all the way to a place where she could shove her fingers down her throat.

Bella would have gone crazy if she saw what I had done. She had watched me at breakfast so many times as I smeared dressings and jams into my hair or scattered handfuls onto the floor to avoid the calories. She had helped me not get caught in the toilets as I throw up blood into the procaine and shared tips on the best times to water load and not once had she showed me to the staff to put up with their back lash. I wanted to vomit but I went back to eating. The eyes of a disapproving dead girl fixed somewhere into my soul.

There's no weight in love

There’s no weight in love

I could hardly breathe as I reached the bathroom and threw myself inside and locked the door. I knew that it could be open from the outside by anyone but it felt one of the most secure places I the unit and one of the only places I could find some little relief. If there had been a cord at that moment I would have tied it around my neck without thinking. If there were blades I would have laughed at myself as I bled to death, but there was nothing to do harm with not even to a finely tuned in brain. There was a toilet though and my fingers could always find their way down my throat. He would love me if I was still as thin as her.

“I hate you!” I screamed as I caught my reflection in the mirror. I was huge. I had been telling myself that the mirrors lie but I was wrong, everyone else where the one’s lying to me. I was fat and disgusting and covered in lard. They filled my head with stories about being dead before I was thin enough but it was all lies. “I hate you so fucking much! I wish you would just fucking drop dead!” I yelled punching the mirror with both of my fists repeatedly not caring how much it hurt my bones.

I would not eat again. I would fight them and I would get there. I would get to thin, to perfect, to wanted and good. I would see bones under my skin and I would fall apart! I could be good all over again!” I sobbed harder knowing that losing the weight wouldn’t happen in the space of hours. It would take me moths to get back to five stone and even more because I would have to fight every member of staff along the way including them and that would break my heart.

Still crying I dropped to my knees in front of the toilet and studied my middle and index finger. There was a big part of my brain that knew at that moment where they should go. Instinctually I knew that there was a place at the back of my throat where they would fit. It was not a comfortable fit. It was in fact a match made in hell but it was surprising how many things could be, yet still feel amazing to a head that had been hurt.

I wanted to scream aloud as I heard the lock rattle in the door before I had time to take my chance to induce the sickness. Whoever it was on the outside of the door would not have felt the same perverted pleasure from attacking a gag reflex like I had. They would try to stop me.

Emmet ducked his head slightly to get in through the door frame after he had won the fight with the release mechanism and looked over the situation. I turned my back on him my tears suddenly silent. It wasn’t what I had been expecting from my emotion when I had seen him again. I had braced myself for the crazy frenzy of impulse to smack walls until my bones felt like that where shattered. Something inside me normally confirmed, wrong as it was, that to win the love of someone was to prove to them that you would rather turn your bones to dust then live without them. Sophie was mad though because he had made me fat, so by extension when threatened with him I got mad to. I did not show emotion in front of people I hated.

“You’re on red observations. I need to be with you wherever you go.”

“I’m in the toilet. I am meant to have a woman in here.”

“That only really applies if you’re using the bathroom for one of its traditional purposes. Hiding doesn’t count”

I heard Emmet sigh as if he was stretching before I saw him appear in the corner of my eye and lower himself onto the floor opposite from where I was curled in the gap beside the toilet and the frosted window. I wondered fleetingly if I could manage to yank the toilet off the wall and lob it out the window before following it by myself A three story plunge into concrete seemed easier than a conversation with him at that moment.

“Talk,” Emmet demanded.

“The weather’s nice."

“It’s pissing it down Mi.” if you are going to bullshit me with small talk at least try and get the facts right.” 

“You didn’t specify what subject to talk on and why just because is it raining does it mean the weather is bad. I like the rain. If you want a deep and meaningful conversation I am the wrong girl. I have nothing to say.” I hated the defiance. I hated that there was a million of Sophie’s workers doing over time on the construction of the castle she was to hold me hostage in. What I hated the most was the fact I had grabbed a hammer and nail and was helping reinforce the walls of my prison. I spent my whole life searching for freedom at the same time as locking the door to my own cage. It was stupid; but I couldn’t stop it.

“If you don’t want or need to talk it is time for you to down in the dining room.” Emmet got to his feet in annoyance and walked over to me in the corner before holding a hand down to help me up off of the floor. I studied the details of it for a moment, trying to see if there was something worth actually holding onto. In the end I looked away a blank look on my face. “It’s non-negotiable,” Emmet dictated.

“I’m not going!” I grumbled

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to.”

“That’s not a reason. Why don’t you want to?”

“Because I’m scared OK and because I hate myself!  You played a game inside my head and I am the only victim! I knew what I was. I knew what I wanted! I wanted perfection! I wanted bones and blood! I never wanted to be perfect! I wanted perfection back! She left me! He ran away from me in blood and water before dying in her hands! I never even got to hold him! Why you want to live after that? Why would you think keeping me alive was anything other than cruel when I have lost everything! Then you came and she came and you gave me something to live for, someone to fight for, someone to stay for, now half of me is with the angels and the other half is here but then I find out that you only cared because I was skin and bones! You have a new toy now so go and play with her!” I tried to stay calm as I finished shouting at him. I tried to stare him down and try and prove that he hadn’t hurt me and wouldn’t get the satisfaction of my tears but it was impossible. The tears came so quickly the biggest dams couldn’t hold them back and I was rendered the week crying wreck that I had been all along.

“I know that you’re scared.” I felt Emmet reach out and touch my shaking arm and I tensed. I tried to find the bit in me that would have had the power to shrug him off. There was a bit that demanded it of me. To get lost to him again would have been a stupid and an unforgivable mistake but I felt comfort from it. I was stronger when he was treating me like he cared. Something with him made my whole body and soul rise up. It was the most amazing feeling and that was why it hurt so much to think that I wasn’t what he wanted anymore. I would have become thin again if it meant I cemented a place in his heart. It was a pathetic place to be. I was just another doll for another person but I didn’t mind if it was him playing, I couldn’t.

“I did not play a game inside you head Mi. I tried to make your head realize that the games it was playing with itself  where wrong and harmful to you. I know that you miss your sister and your son and I can tell you that that stabbing  you fell when you think of them, that pain that makes you think you might have to drop down to your knees and scream and never stop is not something that goes away. I will tell you some rubbish of time healing all pain because I don’t think it does but I do think that life will give you tools to help you deal with the hurt that remains.” Emmet sighed sadly and took my hands trying to lead me out of my hiding hole beside the toilet. I tried to remain where I was it seemed safe to have some physical barrier to him but he claimed every wall I put in his way and slayed dragons. “Also I want to point out to you that my relationship with Pollyanna and with you is a very different one,” Emmet continued as he tried to steady my trembling.

“Because she is thinner than me… because…” I was cut off before I could shout again.

“Weight is just a damn number! I am so fed up of the people I love thinking my feelings will change about them just because that number increases! That is the difference between you and Pollyanna Mi, Not a number on a scale but love. You I love.

For the love of bones

For the love of bones

It was anger that made my legs move and not the fact that I wanted to go to breakfast. Anger was anorexia’s biggest ally. It was anger that made it possible to move when every part of you was frozen at the thought of facing food again. It was anger that kept the people that wanted to help at bay. Without anger Anorexia would spend most of its time hiding under the bed.  I could not face a plate of pancakes again. Even the thought of cereal was flooding my shield but I could not tell him I was scared because it was more important that I proved him wrong.

“Do you eat when you’re not hungry?” I snapped waiting by the door frame for him to follow me down the stairs where the table would already be set up. Even on the second floor I could smell it, feel the calories leaching their way into my skin. I wanted to vomit. “Well come on,” I huffed stamping my foot as I waited “You where the one it such a hurry a minute ago.”

“Ok, I’m coming.” Emmet walked towards me and I took of up the corridor towards the flight of stairs trying to push the tears back under a stone inside my head. I hated the fact that we were fighting with each other and I hated the fact that in the end he would win. My legs where turning more and more to jelly from the fear as I got closer to the dining room.  I would break before he did and what was worse was he knew it…

“Emmet, catch! The voice of Jean suddenly sounded making Emmet Jerk around in the direction of her but the object she had been referring too had already hoped past Emmet like a Gazelle however had failed to negotiated me as an obstacle and smashed into my front knocking me to the floor before I could try and steady myself.

Disorientated and in pain from my impact with the floor it took me a few moments to try and get back to my feet but the person on top of me was like lightning. She was back standing erect in seconds her eyes darting between Emmet and Jean who advanced on her like hunting lions.

“Pollyanna, you need to go to with Jean to the dining room for breakfast. I am sure that Jean has told you that this is not negotiable. I also think that Mi would like an apology.” Emmet turned from the new girl who obviously went by the name of Pollyanna and crouched down next to me as he spoke.

“Are you hurt?” He asked. I shook my head and pulled myself back to my feet giving me the first opportunity to really look at the new girl. The image that stood in front of me was horrific. Anyone that had ever thought you could never be thin enough had not ever seen Pollyanna, after a glimpse of her they would be forced to retract that statement. She was a frame of bones hidden underneath baggy clothes. She was the face I would be sharing the early breakfasts with from now on. She was why the early breakfast’s where needed. The reason why tubes where placed up noses.

“She’s perfect Mia. She is what you gave away. She is the pureness that you could never be. She is strong and reliable. She doesn’t stuff herself all day. She got there. She is good enough. What are you compared to that self-control. Look at Emmet now; look at the way he is looking at her. He has someone else who is thinner then you that he could love now. He never loved you, you were just his project and this is his next but she won’t give in. She is so much better then you.”

I watched without words for a few seconds as both Emmet and Jean crowded around Pollyanna and turned their backs on me. I felt sorry for her in a way. I had remembered what it was like to be new and trapped between the nurses that all new tricks that you had to work out. There was a tiny part though that Sophie kindled that felt annoyance. It felt like the presence of someone showing their bones rendered me invisible. The red obs that had been “vital” a few hours ago meant nothing when there was a side show of hips and ribs to be goggling.

“I know that you are scared Pollyanna and we will be gentle with you but you must go down to breakfast and eat for us,” Emmet said gently, placing his hand on her arm. He hadn’t been gentle with me… he had threatened me…

“You’re nothing to him now Mia. Look at him, he just expects you to sit there like his good little lap dog and wait while he ignores you and there you are doing it. Just standing around so they can feed you more and take you away from what you really want… It’s not too late Mia, I can help you, I can make you perfect and strong. I am your only friend. I am the only one that really understands what you want Mia. I can make it so nothing hurts you anymore.”

I felt two fat tears roll out of my eyes as I continued to stare on at the girl that had once been me. When I was thin, when I was perfect… when I wasn’t a ghost that they fed now and again… when he loved me…”

He does love me.

“Don’t kid yourself Mia…”

He does love me…

“You’re stupid… he loves bones, Look at her.”

I think he loves me…

“LOOK AT HER!

Maybe he loves me…

“He doesn’t… I love you Mia, only I love you.”

I want him to love me…

“HE DOESN’T STOP MOPING ABOUT IT!

He hates me…

With my face flooded with tears I turned silently on the balls of my feet and runaway with Sophie back up the stairs towards the bathroom. 

Violent ends (Mi;s side)

I just want to remind everyone that this is a first draft of the story and not the finished thing. This doesn't flow as well as i would like but time i do a better edit it will. It's a bit shifty and jumpy but you will get the idea. I hope you like. As always let me know what your thinking. 

Violent ends.

“Come on, I think all this waiting around for the last minute really isn’t helping anyone. Let’s get you down to breakfast the more you think about it the worse it’s going to get.” It felt like a cop out, like he couldn’t understand that my reaction was based somewhere in deep set fear inside my head. Yesterday’s breakfast had been bad. Of course there had been more to it than that. The words Conner had said to me had driven a part of my head into oblivion but even without everything he put into me even without the fear of losing my mind as soon as I got “home” on my Christmas leave and using Emmet’s razors to open my veins I would not have managed pancakes. I could yell at anorexia and tell it that I didn’t need it when not faced with food, but it was set in me now. It was a part of my life like so many things that I didn’t want. There would always be a part of me, like there was a part of Esmee and Echo and every other person that had been infected with her vicious thoughts that would always feel Anorexia. I would know that once there was a voice in my head that told me that all food was evil and wasn’t something that i needed.  A part of me that I had called Sophie had tried to kill me, and I had to accept that for the rest of my life probably Sophie would always want me dead. The trick was to learn that she was so very wrong. You had to learn to shout back louder than her and one day you would find that she didn’t have that much of a convincing argument anymore. I was getting there. I was better than the 55lb child that walked through the door but in terms of my recovery everyone knew I was still just a tiny baby. She would still have days or weeks when I could not eat, when the bit of me that was Sophie was a hell of a lot bigger.

“I don’t want to go to breakfast,” I mumbled stubbornly trying to shot down the fear and the destructive thoughts that where winning. “I’m not hungry.”

“Food has never been an option Mi. I understand that lately the nursing staffs have become a lot more lax with your meals and calorie intake but that wasn’t an oversight with us. It has been deliberate to see whether you could carry on your recovery more independently without such strict guidance. Overall we are pleased but I think maybe subconsciously you are beginning to restrict again. No one here will allow you to take that very far before be shot it down and if that means delaying your discharge or cutting your leave that’s what will happen.”

“Oh piss off. Do I look anorexic to you! I’m just not hungry Emmet. I will eat lunch.” I turned my back on Emmet in defiance and curled back up on the foot of my bed still shaking my legs against the duvet cover. I fixed my eyes on a spot on the wall to stare on. It was a pretend anger but it was a key component in the game that I felt like I had no choice to play today. I had to ruffle Emmet up; I had to make him angry with me. Anorexia enjoyed isolation, it caved in with sympathy and understanding it was with isolation that it could turn a human soul to stone.

“Mi, breakfast and every other meal today Is not negotiable. You will be expected to eat everything that is put in front of you and anything that is missed will be made up with Ensure. If you refuse I will tube feed you.”

“The jokes on you Emmet. I had my PEG taken out a week ago. I though you would remember,” I sneered with a malicious grin. “I thought you would have remembered, I was at the hospital all day.” I could feel my heart beat funny as I said the words. Somehow fear had turned into sick scary determination. It wasn’t want I wanted to be saying. There was a part of me that wanted to get up go down the stairs and eat like I was meant to and I wanted to obey it. Silently I screamed at myself to do what he wanted. I pushed with everything I had to make my body rise from my bed and walk but I was just a voice in someone else’s head. My body was being used as a host to become dark and twisted.

“I am well aware that you have had your PEG tube taken out, and I can guarantee you I’m not joking. I will put a tube up your nose if I have too Mi. Don’t make me.”