Basorexia - J.MAGUIRE

[1.05] murder?

The following day, after a rather frantic call from Michelle, Chip wandered her way round to the Mallon household with the promise of an incredible story. She was not surprised to see all of the group as she walked into Chelle's bedroom and sank into her usual seat on the floor, looking around and waiting for one of them to break the silence.

"We killed Sister Declan," Michelle blurted, the words practically running away from her as her knee bounced with nervous pent up energy.

Chip stammered, looking around in pure confusion, "You what?"

"We killed Sister Declan," Michelle enunciated, the idea finally snapping in Chip's mind.

"With a machete or a knife?" she joked, needing a buffer to remove all the eyes that were constantly fixated on her. There was nothing she hated more than being the center of attention like she was right then. She hated all the eyes fixated on her, watching her every movement and all the minds that were thinking things she had no idea about. Chip made herself look smaller, bunching her knees up to her chest as she shrunk her shoulders down. It was not enough to make her look odd and receive more stares but just enough that she felt less bulky, less under the others gaze.

They all laughed (Chip fakely as to cover up her anxiousness) and relieved some of the tension felt within the room. Chip no longer felt as if she could not breathe but kept her gaze fixed on the wall behind Michell's head, making it look as if she was giving eye contact when in reality just the thought of eye contact was enough to turn her stomach. "No she just died," Clare announced as the laughter died down "Right after stealing Michelle's lipstick."

"The discontinued one?" Chip half gasped, hating the thought that her friend's favorite lipstick was stolen by someone they could no longer steal it back from. Anyone else and they could easily plan and plot something to get back that lipstick.

"Aye. But I stole it back," Michelle grinned, turning the familiar gold tube in her fingers victoriously.

"Good, that's a nice colour," Chip laughed as the image of Michelle stealing a lipstick from Sister Declan's purse popped into her mind.

"Back to Sister Declan?" Erin suggested rather loudly, catching the attention of the minds that had strayed from the conversation.

"Oh aye, continue," Chip agreed, looking forward to hearing what had actually happened from someone who was a reliable (ish) storyteller. Erin was certainly more reliable than Orla, who had her head in a book and was seemingly elsewhere.

"Heart failure, died right in front of our eyes," Erin explained brightly as if her explanation was better than Michelle's murderous one. However Chip's shoulders visibly sank as her brows raised, looking to Erin with great perplexment as to why she had delivered the information in such a way.

"And here I thought yous had actually done something exciting for once," Chip responded sarcastically, playing with a loose thread on the end of her thick socks. Noticing her friends' collectively stunned expression, she quickly laughed, "I'm joking!"

"Sometimes Chip makes jokes and I don't know whether she's joking or not. It's one of my life's great mysteries alongside the question as to why I feel so lonely," Orla announced dreamily. One by one each head in the room turned in her direction. Chip was rather confused to see her reading aloud from a book but quickly deduced, due to the label on the front cover, that it was Erin's diary. And from Erin's flared nostrils, it did not take her long to realise that this was not going to end well.

"I am going to ram that so far up your-" Erin yelled before attacking Orla, desperately running to grab the diary from her hands. Almost instantly, Chip and Clare both grabbed onto one of Erin's arms and prevented her from doing any more damage. Orla, with wide eyes, slowly slipped the book into Erin's bag without saying a word then leant back on the bed as she had been before. From there, both Chip and Clare let go of Erin and were surrounded in a stiff tension as the silence enveloped them. Chip sank back into her seat and smiled at James, who had appeared at her side having just come back from a walk.

"Anything else remarkable?" Ciara asked with a sigh, once again trying to make herself appear small to help loosen the feeling in her chest.

"Clare broke her fast," Orla stated as she funnelled a gummy worm into her mouth.

"I was starving! Girls, I don't think you'd ever understand such hunger," Clare exclaimed, the words bursting out of her as her cheeks turned pink with embarrassment. Ciara had to strongly fight the urge to scoff then and there.

Not know the hunger? Bollocks. 

But scoffing would give away her secret so she remained silent and, like the others, pretended that she did not see Clare looking to the floor ashamed. "Here's your two pound back," she whispered, hand extended towards Chip with the coins between her thumb and pointer.

"Give it to Kamal anyway," Chip shrugged, not having a need for that money. She had recently bought a new packet of cigarettes and didn't need anything else. The money for her food should go to someone who could actually eat it.

"Are you sure?"

"Aye, course," Chip smiled reassuringly, wanting someone to change the conversation ever so desperately. So she decided to look to Michelle with wide eyes, the signal that they had both created when they were young to tell the other to change the conversation as soon as possible.

Michelle, who had discreetly nodded in understanding, proceeded to ask, "So what did you and Dicko get up to while we were killing a nun?"

"We didn't kill her, Michelle!" Erin frustratedly exclaimed, her eyes like daggers.

"It sounds cooler that way," Michelle shrugged, applying her lipstick while looking in the mirror hanging on her bedroom wall across the room.

"Aye going to prison for murder does sound cool," Erin echoed sarcastically, her disapproving frown only deepening as time went on.

"So?" Michelle pressed, looking to Chip for the answer to the question she had asked previously.

"Nothing much, just the bus ride," Chip responded, briefly glancing to James who nodded in agreement. The secrets between them were already running thicker than honey, sweetening the friendship that budded between them.

Quickly, before anyone could dwell for too long, the conversation was changed yet again, instantly throwing away anyones suspicions to what James and Chip had actually gotten up to. They both liked the secrets between them. To Ciara, it was comforting to have smaller things to hide instead of her big and life debilitating thing and James was just glad to have someone he could have secrets with.