Basorexia - J.MAGUIRE

[3.56] reconciliation

Five days later, the grief had somewhat subsided, but that feeling had never left. The craving to restrict, to feel the pain of starvation and the pure joy of watching the numbers slip off returned in such swift gusts that she could hardly handle them anymore. Thankfully her usual session with Rosa came at the right time, the first day that she had missed one key thing of her meal plan by throwing it into the compost when her Mammy wasn't looking.

They figured out that the trigger of the returning off all the guilty voices, the need to be done with them and the want to focus on something else, was a myriad of things all connecting. The loss of a close friend due to an argument and the tension that brought into her life, the sight of her grief stricken Mammy, Cal's death anniversary and the simple fact that one of her favourite shirts had gotten a little tighter than before. So they spent the entire hour going into each topic in detail, debunking her fears and with each one the voices were silenced just a little. Rosa suggested a new coping mechanism for her to try when the craving started to overwhelm her senses and Chip rather liked the idea of it. She suggested something creative, something which she could fuel her emotions into without causing harm to herself. They landed on the reintroduction of poetry to Chip's life, a long forgotten hobby of her early teenage years.

So after therapy, she walked into town and headed first to the stationary store - to pick out a stunning journal, and second to the yarn store because well... she couldn't resist the deals displaced in the shop window. Plus she hadn't seen the lovely Jeanne in a while and she so loved her infrequent but lovely chats with the grey haired lady.

As she stepped out of the store with far too much yarn stacked in her bag (she had found a stunning, variously coloured green yarn that faded from light to dark randomly and had instantly fallen in love with the jumper that had come to mind) she came to a halt. Michelle stood in front of her, hair wilder than usual while a sort of panicked desperation clouded her eyes. Chip knew that look and how it felt like the back of her hand, yet made no attempt to offer her what she needed. She didn't want to overstep and cause even more of a rift between them.

Michelle sighed deeply and rapidly asked, "You got a smoke?"

"Aye," Ciara responded as she pulled the strap of her bag further up her shoulder. She reached into her pocket, pulled out her half empty packet of cigarettes, then tossed them to her. Michelle quickly caught them and the lighter afterwards, and fumbled to prepare the cigarette she so desperately needed. "You okay?" Chip asked softly within the awkwardness that swallowed them whole.

Michelle, who sighed in relief at the feeling of the smoke entering her lungs, hummed her answer while remaining to stare at the ground. Ciara, getting the sense that she was no longer needed or wanted, began to walk away again. She left without regard for her lighter or cigarettes, knowing she could easily get more and that Michelle definitely needed them more than she did.

"Look i'm sorry but it's..." she suddenly burst out with, stopping Ciara from walking away. It had all simply come spilling out, she didn't have the energy to be away from her anymore and as much as he hated to admit it, James had been correct.

"You have nothing to be sorry about. I was in the wrong and I'm so incredibly sorry for that," Ciara quickly apologised, having thought over the conversation again and again for weeks on end. But with every conversation she had had in her mind, she couldn't figure out the way to go forward. Not at all. "If it's any consolation whatsoever, I really really really really like him."

She cocked a brow, "More or less than Pink Floyd?"

"Way more," Ciara laughed, the awkward tension between them slowly dissipating into thin air.

Michelle almost choked on the smoke in her lungs, her coughs sounded distant like laughter. "Holy shit. Why, he's a total dick?"

Chip, after the concern that Michelle literally couldn't breathe for a good second dissipated from her mind, she chuckled softly and shrugged.. "He's about the least dickish person I've ever met actually."

Chelle scoffed in disbelief, almost jokingly as she wondered aloud, "You sure you're not absolutely off your cracker?"

"No, I'm actually somewhat trying to quit it. Therapist said it was the next step in recovery," Ciara shrugged as she reached forward to take back her stuff as Chelle offered it to her.

"Fuck me, that's a sentence I thought id never here out of your mouth," Michelle laughed, stuffed her hands into her pocket as she had finished the entirety of the cigarette that was now crushehed against the top of the bin near them. "Does this mean I can have the rest of your stash?"

She nodded, and half regretted such a choice. It would mean that the small bag she had hidden under her bed, in a rather difficult place to reach, would not be there if she needed to get high so the voices would just stop. That knowledge of the crutch being there would be completely eradicated. It actually felt like she was quitting now, not just that it was wishful thinking. And yeah, she could easily go and find Macca and get more but that took effort and would be a much harder lie to tell in therapy. "Aye if you want, there's only a bit left though."

"Fucking class," she responded with a grin, one which fell when the silence of unspoken conversations and unanswered questions brewed between them once again. Michelle cleared her throat, voice soft and full of emotion, "I have some rules."

"Okay," Chip nodded, stuffing her hands into her pockets where she could play with her rings without her noticing her nervousness. She didn't want to assume that this meant that Chelle had decided that they would talk again and that she could be with James without it ruining everything. Honestly Chip had never expected it to and had honestly spent many awake hours thinking and trying to choose what to do but she just couldn't. James and Michelle were pretty much the most important people in her life. And to choose between them... well it would be one of the most difficult things. With Chelle, she'd lose a long ass friendship that spanned over years. And with James she'd lose a boyfriend and a friendship that had honestly helped her through a lot of hardships within her life. She couldn't imagine severing either of those bonds.

"If you come and see me, like we plan something, I don't want him to be invited or like, I don't want you to like go and see him and leave me alone."

"I was going to do that anyway," she responded softly, after nodding her head in agreement. Chip noticed, just for a second, that a flash of forgiveness passed Michelle's eyes. It was discrete, silent and she honestly questioned whether she was making things up or not. "Anything else?"

"If you do break up, promise it won't fuck up our friendship. I'll be completely impartial to it all. Oh and I don't want to like hear stuff about like.... Stuff. Promise?"

"I promise," Ciara smiled softly, having instantly disregarded the urge to laugh at her later request. She assumed it would be something they would laugh about later. She honestly could not see her and James breaking up any time soon, if ever. Sure they had small disagreements about general things but they always cooled off and talked it through. Communication and understanding of the others feelings was insanely important to the both of them, that made things significantly easier.

Michelle stuck her hand out and Chip, after fumbling to get her hand out of her jacket, shook it. The promise was sealed and their friendship rekindled, somewhat.