Basorexia - J.MAGUIRE

[1.16] cigarettes

Ciara had woken up the time that she usually did for school, despite how late she had stayed up the previous night. A certain dream shook her from her sleep, a dream that forced her to climb out of bed to seek the cold of her bathroom. She sat in the very corner of her bathroom breathing deeply to try and stop the rapid thudding of her heart that was beginning to become a cold sweat on the surface of her skin. She hadn't had one of those dreams for a long while and fully hated the feeling of it engraving its resting place within her mind.

As dawn broke and Ciara heard Cal get up, she rose from the floor and decided to get herself ready for the day. She knew that he had the day off and planned to ask him to go for one of their usual drives to nowhere so she could distract herself from the already awful start to the day. So she walked into her bedroom, grabbed the first semi decent outfit she could think of (jeans and a baggier black jumper) and ran back into the bathroom to get dressed. She always got ready in the bathroom, not wanting someone to walk in on her changing and discover her secret all over again.

She cleared her throat and, as per usual, stepped onto the scale in her bathroom and waited for the number to appear. Her stomach sank down to her feet and fell out of her heels, guilt and disappointment flooding her body like waves crashing up against a rock on the beach. Half a pound up and she had absolutely no idea how. It wasn't as if she had been eating more than usual, perhaps she had been exercising a little less but not enough to gain so much. In desperation, she tore off her jumper and shorts, leaving her just in her underwear, and started to ball when the number just did not change. She, while struggling to choke back her tears, stepped off and off the scale repeatedly, hoping the number was completely inaccurate.

But it did not seem so.

She continued these steps repeatedly, instead moving to the usual step in her bathroom that had been the place of her many breakdowns just like this one. She forgot all about the plans with Cal and forgot everything else, barring the step in front of her and the constant count of the calories she was losing in her head. After reaching seventy five, Ciara misplaced her foot and turned her ankle in such a way that shocking pains shot up her foot. She fell into a heap on the ground, a fall that was far too loud and was probably going to end in dozens of bruises on her thighs. She heard Cal's sprint up the stairs and instantly snapped out of her weight obsessed daze, pulling on her jumper as quickly as she possibly could. She knew he would not come in without knocking but the worry of it all ate away at her logical thinking.

"Chip?" he yelled through the bathroom door, knocking rather loudly. Luckily their Mammy was not home, otherwise the incident could have gone a completely different way. "You okay in there?"

"Yeah I just fell getting changed, stupid jeans," she laughed while pulling herself up off the floor, reaching for the very jeans she was talking about.

The long pause before Cal began to snigger to himself brought her so much nausea that she was insanely glad to already be in the bathroom, just in case it got the better of her. She sighed out of pure relief when she heard him walk out of the room, heading back down the stairs to the living room where he had been before. Chip scooped water from her bathroom tap and washed her face with it, needing to get rid of the cold sweat and the redness of her cheeks from the tears mixed with the brief workout that caused such pain to her knees that her legs shook. She, after getting completely changed and ready, covered herself with far too much deodorant then left the room. Ciara stopped at the top of the stairs, holding onto the bannister as she yelled down to her brother. "Cal?"

"Aye?"

"Want to go for a drive?"

The sound of him grabbing his keys from the hallway bowl had her running down the stairs.