Basorexia - J.MAGUIRE

[1.15] toto

Ciara found Erin's idea rather hilarious. It was not typical to hear that girl talking about digging up a body so when the suggestion practically burst out of her, Chip couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. She sat and watched the events unfold with one of Orla's Mam's cigarettes balanced between her fingers. In a desperate for nicotine haze, she had taken a singular cigarette from the pack left on the kitchen counter. The girls and James were all digging with whatever they could find whilst Clare begrudgingly watched the kitchen window to see if anyone was headed outside.

"I've got something!" Orla yelled over the commotion yelling of desperation from all parties involved in the digging. Michelle was the odd one out and complained loudly about her ruined manicure, Chip knew for certain that she would be deeply aggravated about that for days. Orla tried to blow the dirt off the top of the cardboard box once it had been pried out of the ground but no soil moved.

Erin took the box from Orla and set it on the ground, trying not to shake it too much, "Right. Me and Michelle go stash him somewhere, and the rest of you fill it back in."

"Open the box, Erin," Peter, who had appeared out of literally nowhere whatsoever, instructed as he ran up the hill. Chip, despite the fact it caused her physical pain to do so, snuffed out the cigarette in her hands and put the remaining half in her pocket to hide the evidence. Thankfully, she was so far away from the girls (because Erin did not like the smell) that Peter was not likely to have seen her instantly.

"Oh, God," Erin sighed as Peter ran out of the hill, eyes fixated on the box in front of her.

"Yes, he is with us. Do not be afraid, child."

Erin, rightly so, hesitated greatly before she opened the box. As soon as the box had been pried open, Clare screamed so loud that Ciara was practically forced by an invisible string to look within the box even though she did not partially want to see a dead animal.

"Holy shit," she muttered upon seeing the completely empty box, barring a few scraps of soil that would have gotten in through a hole in the side of the box. mutters

"Listen I can..." Erin paused as she looked down to the box, eyes widening at its emptiness. "Oh, no, actually I can't. I can't explain."

"Thanks be to God!"

Then, in the midst of her delusion while the others were taking photos for the newspaper that Chip refused to be in, Erin confessed to the priest and everything went to complete shit.

-

The following day, the girls had their make up exam. Sister Michael was keen to get it all over and done with after the scandal and felt it was fair that the girls had little time to prepare because of what they had done. Ciara turned up with them once again, for moral support, and she was off timetable anyway because the make-up exam fit in the time of a history lesson. Waiting with them was better than sitting alone in the library with her own thoughts.

Ciara sat with James on a completely different bench to the rest of the girls who were waiting directly outside the exam room. They were down the hall and through a doorway but both preferred it. James was incredibly nervous and Ciara was too exhausted to deal with more than one conversation at once. She just did not have the brain power for that chaos at that particular moment. But suddenly Michelle appeared next to them, nervously rocking back on her heels as she quietly asked, "Chip, do you have a tampon?"

Ciara nodded and reached for a bag, which had been propped up next to her feet. "Yellow, green or purple?" she asked while pulling out a pencil pouch full of the various period products needed for day to day life. She almost always kept at least something on her at all times, even though she hadn't had a period for a long while. She just wanted to be ready for when anyone else needed one and it created the illusion that she did have them, as to not make anyone ask unanswerable questions.

"Yellow."

Chip fished one out of the bag and handed it to Chelle. She smiled thankfully then ran down the corridor, disappearing into the first bathroom that she found. Then, once the bathroom door had swung closed and her bag had been replaced at her feet, Ciara turned to James and quickly noticed the distraught look hidden in his eyes. "What's up with you?" she quired softly, not wanting to press for information as she knew that would be terrible for him.

He sighed deeply and brushed a hand through the very top of his muddled hair, now completely free of mousse. She definitely thought it looked better this way, not weighed down by far too much product. "Will you be completely honest with me if I ask you a question?"

Chip could not hide the widening of her eyes. The instant he asked that question, her heart started to beat a little quicker and the blood in her body felt hotter than it should. Her palms started to sweat so intently that she was forced to wipe her palms on her thick black patterned tights, not wanting James to see her.

Shit, does he know? Does he know everything? How does he know, I haven't said anything. Shit, maybe he heard me in the bathroom the other day...

"Aye, of course,"she whispered back, trying to hide the thickness in her throat and the insanely strong urge she had to try away the stress of the entire situation.

"Do you think I'm a dick?" he faltered, fully refusing to meet her gaze. "Genuinely."

Ciara smiled softly, partially out of relief but mostly because of the various emotions that flooded her mind at his question. "I never thought you were a dick James."

He, truly not believing her reply, blurted, "You didn't?"

"No of course not...If anything you're the least dickish person in the group," she smiled softly upon noticing the smile that now fell onto his lips, relief lessening the tension within his shoulders. "Ay don't tell Chelle I said that, she'll murder me."

"I won't," he responded softly, the two of them sharing a small smile while looking at the other.

Ciara, gaze still fixed on his, whispered, "You better go take your exam."

"Right," he cleared his throat before standing up from the bench, grabbing his bag from the floor.

"Good luck J." 

He smiled softly, the corners of his lips barely turning upward, before he disappeared behind the exam hall door.