Take My Picture

Chapter eight

I was woken up at 7:27 am by some of the younger girls screaming and running down the hallway. I mean at least it wasn't 6 something. Letting out a frustrated and tired groan, I grab my phone and headphones, play a playlist and roll back over hoping to go back to sleep. I guess it worked because I was woken up later by my phone vibrating. I jumped, I guess my phone ended up underneath me while I was asleep. Untangling myself from my headphones, I sit up and run my hand through my hair pushing it out of my face.

When I finally feel awake enough, I pick up my phone to check the time. It takes my eyes a little to focus and when they do I'm sure they're playing a trick on me. 6:19 pm. Surely someone changed the time on my phone to mess with my head. I open my computer to see that it is indeed 20 past 6 in the evening.

I just slept...hang on let me add it up, I slept for 15 hours. Pulling myself out of bed, I grab my towel and new PJs and head for the shower. No point in getting dressed, I'm just gonna be changing for bed again in a couple of hours.

After my shower, I head down to the kitchen to see that Elise has already started making dinner. "Oh, Harriet, nice of you to join us." Us? Just as I was about to ask Elise what she meant, Aggie came out from behind the fridge door. Wonderful, just what I wanted, to be stuck in the kitchen with Aggie with things between us being the way they are.

I look away from Aggie and flash Elise a toothless smile. "What would you like me to help with?" I ask Elise hoping it'll be something different to Aggie, I really don't have the energy to work out what's going on with us. I was allocated the potato salad, Aggie had the pasta salad and Elise had the garden salad and the chicken.

When we all sat down for dinner, I wasn't all that hungry but because Jordan has already previously mentioned the change in my eating habits, to avoid suspicion about the small amount of food I was eating, I grabbed a lot of garden salad as it was mostly lettuce, celery and cucumber. I try to make each of my meals under 500 calories with about 500 calories of snacks throughout the day. That makes my calorie intake about 2000, but with the hour and a half - two hours of dancing I do at home each night, it brings it down to about 1600 calories a day.

After helping with the clean up after dinner, I head straight up to my room and to bed. Laying down in bed with my music on I finally go through my notifications on my phone. I have a few messages but I just text Brinley back and tell her I'm super tired and I'll talk to her tomorrow at school. Not being bothered to check my other messages I swap to checking my emails, there's nothing important. Someone wants more photos edited but I have plenty of time to do it, so I'll do it another day.

I then move onto Instagram. I got a couple new follows and some likes again. When I finished checking my notifications I just scroll through my Instagram feed for a bit. I stop when I see a photo I recognise. Demi had posted the photos I took of her on her Instagram. Wait since when did I even follow her? Brinley probably did it. I read her comment and couldn't help smile a little. '@ddlovato: Thanks for taking my picture 😝 (also answer my text message, you know who you are 😘)'

Opening the message app I realise that the other messages that I didn't look at earlier were in fact from Demi.

Demi - 3:07 am - Harriet, sweetheart, I don't want you to lose my number, are you okay?

Demi - 3:15 am - Harriet if you want someone to talk to don't ever be afraid to message me, I'll help in any way I can.

Demi - 3:21 am - I'm going to sleep now, I hope you're asleep too. I'll message you in the morning.

Demi - 9:35 am - Hey girl, how'd you sleep? Just messaging to see if you got an Instagram I can tag cause I wanna post these pics.