TW: WHEN I SAY THAT SHE HAS A HARD TIME MAINTING HER REGULAR BODY TYPE, I DON'T MEAN THAT SHE HAS "THE NORMAL BODY", SINCE ALL BODIES ARE NORMAL AND BEAUTIFUL. I MEAN, REGULAR AS WHAT'S HER TYPICAL WEIGHT, HOW MUCH SHE WEIGHED BEFORE BECOMING DEPRESSED.
It was actually quite nice being at work, Ally found. Especially when she started at five or six in the morning. There were a few people to talk to and half of them were too tired to utter more than a handful of words. It suited her fine. She could go to work, put on a mask of contentment, and laugh and joke as if she wasn't dead inside.
Because that's what it felt like.
Her insides were no longer anything but smoke and greyish, soft, sand blowing in the wind. There were no thoughts or feelings there, only a hollow emptiness. It supressed her needs. Eating and even drinking - she only did it to fake the appearance of being normal.
She drank water at work. Ate lunch. At home she did neither of those things. She barely slept, at least not until her body collapsed of exhaustion.
It was surprisingly easy to work nine to ten hours a day on nothing more than the bare minimum of what she needed to survive. She wondered briefly on how long she could maintain her mask of expected behaviour. It became harder - as her mind drifted away due to exhaustion - to remember to laugh at the right time in a conversation.
The past few months had taught her that she was quite the actress. Hiding the truth about Daniel from Leo. Keeping Benjamin's warnings hidden from Adryan. Pretending that she had nothing to hide from Clara and Jamie, that she didn't have a soul-crushing secret. It was easier than expected. The only thing she couldn't hide was the fact she had lost weight, and kept losing it. She just couldn't get down enough food to maintain her regular body type. Food tasted like nothing to her and she had lost her appetite. Forcing down even the smallest amount of nutrients was hard, and the more she ate the higher was the risk of it all coming back up again, which would be even more suspicious.
Ally slid into a quiet room, in which you could chose to go up the stairs to the office and the changing rooms, or exit the building.
She leaned forward, letting her hair fall over her face, and then snapped her head back up, sweeping away every little strand. When she looked up Leo was standing in the middle of the stairs, a box in his hands.
"Hi", she said.
He eyed her up and down, from her cheekbones, more prominent than before, to her lose pants, a belt the only thing keeping them from falling down.
"Hi", he replied casually.
He walked down and stopped a few metres away from her.
"Are you quitting?" She nodded toward the box. "Or are you stealing the cardboard box of shower hoses?
A smile played on his lips.
"Quitting. I need a job that's more flexible now that I've started studying."
"Right, I heard." She forced a smile. "Congratulations."
He raised an eyebrow.
From Benjamin?
She knew he wanted to ask.
"People are talking about it", she answered his silent question.
She made a swooping gesture toward the door separating them from the store area. He seemed relieved.
"I wanted to apologise. It wasn't right of me to..."
"You made your boundaries clear", he said, cutting her off. "I shouldn't have pushed you by talking about..." His voice trailed off.
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He's Fire and She's Playing with It - Mafia Version
ChickLitShe fell of a ladder at work. He caught her. He's a colleague and they have never spoken. Until he scolds her for putting herself in danger by grabbing her chin and turning it up to him: "I told you to get down." He's had his eyes on her for some ti...
