Secret at the Knolls (a demi lovato/timberline knolls fanfic)

Chapter 12 Shivering and bitterness

Laila

I'm home again. It is so silent here it is deafening. I would normally faceplant on my bed but having my nightmare just a while ago means my energy is pumping. I go for a quick jog in the clothes I'm wearing and head home to put it all in the wash, I tend to wear a lot of the same insulating clothes under new top clothes everyday. 

I am naked and I approach the full length mirror in the bathroom with caution like it's a deep dark basement and I'm 8 again and I've been dared to go down the stairs and then Felicia's friends lock me in while I scream and claw til my nailbeds are bleeding and I beg to go home. 

Small steps and then one big sideways step and I'm confronting myself head on, my dry hands searching and seeking over my torso, pinching an inch of fat here and a pound of fat there, searching and searching, pulling. I feel like there are red circles on all my faults, and there are many. Large bags under my eyes, paler than death himself, my lipstick gone showing a blue tinge to my lips which are chattering in the cold. I crank my thermostat up to 85 and finally put on a pair of fleece pajamas.

My stomach has been growling about 2 hours after my "lunch". Once a week I permit myself a half of a grapefruit. The bitterness actually makes eating ever more uncomfortable so it's food and punishment at the same time. So I grab grapefruit half and a diet coke and head outside to sit on my balcony, the autumn leaves are spectacular and my view is amazing and distracts me from my large meal. The shivering also burns the calories I eat. I eat slowly and with purpose, I wouldn't say savoring each bite because it's quite disgusting. I roll each section on my tongue and chew it a thousand times before I swallow. Chasing it with diet coke.

I put my dishes in the sink and sit for a moment, keeping my leg moving so I burn off some cals from supper. I clean up my lunch and make it all over again for tomorrow. 

Hmmm tomorrow, what do I have on? A strange and unusual team meeting of all the different sections with Dee Dee and the big kahuna Dr McKay. I am curious about this meeting as it isn't common for us to have them. Then D-Day with Sidi and Kayla which I've allowed an hour and a half for. After lunch, I am running group for one of the ladies on holidays. That should be interesting, I do better helping in one on one sessions.

I pick out my clothes and do my push ups and jumping jacks until stars are invading the edges of my vision. Time for bed.

It's only 7:30 but my bones are tired and feeling like mush, I'm shivering so severly I add another blanket to my already giant mound. I lay there, toss and turn. 

It's 8:30. I can't get comfortable, I feel like I am laying on a cement block and things are poking out at me.

It's 9:00 and I let out a growl of frustration, thumping my hands down beside me, I am still shivering. I get out of bed and run a scalding bath. Engulfing myself in warmth at last. Hoping it will last.

IT doesn't. Even with the heating lamp on in the bathroom, as soon as I open the door to go to my bedroom the warmth runs out like it's a matador being chased by a bull. The cold comes to my bones, wrapping their cold hands around me like my sister's icy grip in the nightmare.

I crawl back in the bed and cover myself in blankets and open my bedside drawer, my stash is at the back, even though I rarely get visitors. I open a little pearlescent old fashioned pill box, there are pinks and whites and a few yellow but the one I'm looking for is bright blue like the sky. I find it and scramble it out, spilling others on my lap, I curse loudly and heard all the children back inside their box.

Ambien, for a dreamless sleep away from demons, or as far away as I can get.