Basorexia - J.MAGUIRE

[1.01] therapy

"So how is everything Ciara?" Dr W, a foul doctor who always had pursed lips and a sour look upon his face, asked as he squinted his eyes at her. He watched Ciara expectantly, deeply monitoring her every blink into the dull blue notebook purchased onto his lap.

"Fine," she answered back, sighing softly as she anxiously twirled a ribbon of dulled auburn hair around her fingers.

"Fine?" Dr W echoed, as if not believing the sentiment whatsoever. Doctors were rather cautious to believe a word their patients said, especially in the OSFED (other specified feeding or eating disorder) wing of the hospital. Instead they chose facts. Three facts surrounded Ciara. One, she had been seeing Dr W for the better half of five months, with little to none improvement. Two, she had been admitted to the inpatient facility two times and left every time, promising to be better on the flip side. She was not. And Three, if she did not put on some weight in the coming weeks she'd be back in the hospital and not likely to leave. "Okay. Take me though yesterday," Dr. W prompted, clicking his pen as he got ready to write.

Ciara cleared her throat and shuffled on her seat, leg bouncing as it rested on the wooden floor. "I woke up around noon and laid in bed for a while, listening to music. My brother asked if I wanted to go with him to the shop, which I didn't, but he insisted I go with him. So we walked to the shop at around two ish, he bought caramel chocolate and a bag of flour since Mam needed it for some shitty. Sorry... Some pie that she made for dinner. Got home at around three and went back to my room because I had a phone call from Michelle. She invited me to a party, which I didn't go to."

Dr W's brow flew up his forehead, knowing that Ciara was one who tended to get to alcohol on any occasion that she could. It numbed her thoughts, as she so hesitatingly explained. "Why didn't you go?"

"Didn't feel like drinking. Plus it was some shoddy welcome party for her cousin," she sighed deeply, chest brushing uncomfortably against her oversized knitted jumper. "Anyway. Mam served tea at around five ish."

"Did you eat?"

She looked the doctor straight into the eyes and replied, "Yes."

"And how was it?"

Ciara sighed once more, letting the hand that had once been playing with her necklace fall onto her lap, "I told you, shitty."

Dr W once again winced at her choice of language but she did not apologise, instead focusing her attention onto one of the stupid posters that layered the wall behind his head. She stared at a particular purple and pink poster, reading 'Your weight is not your worth!' in bright letters that swallowed up the entire page. She wondered how artists truly thought that was going to help someone. That words written on a piece of paper could have any effect on the vortex of emotions within her (and everyone else's) mind. "Did you have food in your room or with the family?" he asked quickly, pushing for her attention as it was so hard to grab anyway.

Ciara shrugged, "In my room, Cal had friends over." 

"And you wanted to avoid these...friends?" he asked slowly, pushing taped up glasses back up his nose as they had fallen down while he was taking his extensive notes.

"They're not the type I feel comfortable around," she responded quickly, wanting to instantly knock down his suspicions that had turned a sickening feeling in her stomach. Ciara would do anything to avoid inpatient again, except the obvious. "Especially when they're on the drink. It was Cal's birthday."

It seemed she had managed to peak his interest, directly avoiding the point about her eating in her room. "Did he have a cake?"

"Basic sponge with jam and cream. Mammy made it even though I wanted to. She said it wasn't right for me to make it, utter bullshit," Ciara's voice trailed off as an angered bite took hold of it.

"Ciara," Dr. W warned, attention finally coming away from his notepad.

"Sorry."

-

Ciara walked home all too quickly and by the time she managed to shut the heavy door to her home, her body was desperately heaving for oxygen. After a few minutes of seeing only black smudges, she shrugged off her coat and hung it on the coat rack by the phone before heading upstairs.

She walked into her bedroom and opened the window, needing to air out the rancid smell that the hidden pie of last night's meal had started to take on. She lay on the floor beside her single bed then pulled out a hidden wooden box, decorated with stars. Inside, she pulled out the plate of pie now gelatinous and stone cold. The pie was thrown into the compost outside and covered with fresh leaves, the plate thoroughly cleaned and placed back into the cupboard as if it had been there all along.

Fifteen minutes later, the door of her home opened and in rattled Cal, her brother. She could tell it was him by the overwhelmed sigh and the sound of his footsteps plodding up the stairs, despite the volume of her music. You could hear practically everything in that house, even down to the soft purring of the family cat - named Dooley by her Mammy. He, after knocking a few times, popped his head in the gap her open bedroom door created. He smiled brightly, hair destroyed by the wind that rattled in through her open window. "How was therapy?"

"A load of bollocks," she sighed, turning the volume of her record player down so she could easily hear their conversation. Plus she noticed how the deeper bass notes increased the grimace line not fixed between his brows that so desperately needed to be plucked - she would attack him and do them later. "How's the headache?"

"Awful," he complained, flopping himself down onto the bean bag in the corner of her room, right in front of the immense bookshelf that books spilled from.

"Serves you right," she muttered, rather forcibly turning the page of her magazine. A stunning smiling model with sleek brown hair and bright green eyes stared right back at her, donned in the tightest, newest fashion that only added to the tightening incentive in her stomach that never actually left.

"Look... I'm sorry about yesterday Chip," Cal apologized in complete earnest, his dark eyes that so exactly matched hers softening.

"It's fine Cal," she whispered back, fighting the desperate urge to turn away so she could avoid the conversation all together.

"I didn't know they were-"

"I said it's fine Cal," she interrupted, smiling in such a way that he knew to instantly drop the topic and move onto something else. He fell silent, searching for that topic for a good few seconds.

"You have lunch yet?"

"Yeah, therapist made me," Ciara replied quickly, sniffling softly as a cold gust of wind once again rose the bumps on her arms.

"Ah," he blurted, given that this had happened a few times in the past. "Anything good?"

"Just a pasty," she replied absentmindedly, focusing her attention on the magazine as she really did not have the energy for another walk to get food or even to leave her bed.

"I thought you didn't like those?" he frowned deeply, brotherly instinct starting to build up within the deeper depths of his mind.

"I don't. But if I had told him that then he would have probably taken it the wrong way."

"Right," he trailed off, the following pause full of words he just did not know how to say. "Hey Chip, is he... helping you?"

"Course Cal," she smiled softly, making it so it was as believable as humanly possible.

One thing you should know about people like me? We're notorious liars. It's like a drug, a vindictive game that you can simply never get enough off. The lies give adrenaline, energy to weakening cells. Lying became better than eating, better than any home cooked meal. And I was addicted.