When I open my eyes, for a second I'm able to kid myself that everything that happened last night was all just a dream, but the bedroom I'm in is bright and unfamiliar, the body soft and warm.
Shakily, I get up and go over to the full-length mirror in the corner.
"I can't do this."
"Good morning."
I whip around to see Albert now perched on the edge of my bed. Was he there all along and I just never noticed? Did he watch me sleep last night? For some reason that thought makes my face flush with heat.
"You look different."
"I am this close to losing it right now so I'm warning you, do not push it." I growl, surprised at the sound of my own lilting Scottish accent. I go over to the closet, pulling out the clothes to check their size "Fourteen, sixteen. Fourteen again." I flop down on the floor, close to tears, missing the bony coldness of my own body that I've worked so hard to achieve "How do people let themselves get like this?"
Albert comes to sit down next to me.
"Doesn't it feel nice to wake up and not have to be careful about getting out of bed slowly in case you pass out, though?" he says quietly "This isn't the first time I've been sent on my way to come and get you, you know?"
I turn to him, surprised.
"Last spring." Albert continues "When you refused to eat anything for almost three weeks. If you hadn't taken that soup that your sister begged you to eat, you wouldn't have lasted another night."
"I'd rather be dead and skinny than alive and fat." I sniff "And anyway, my sister works harder than me, she needs the extra energy. I don't like taking food that she could eat later."
Albert says nothing, just gets to his feet.
Suddenly, I realise something.
"Where am I? Where does Hope live?"
"You're still in Manchester." Albert says "Just a few blocks away from where your flat is. The hospital that your body is in is about a fifteen-minute bus ride away."
I nod. That's not too bad.
"Just an FYI." Albert says, going over to the window "I personally think girls look better with a bit of flesh on them. Bones are for dogs." and he opens the window and jumps out.
"Jesus Christ-" I run over to look out, but there's no body broken on the pavement below. Albert has totally disappeared.
I back away again, plopping down on the bed, trying to find the mental strength that I know I'm going to need just to get through the next hour, then I take a deep breath, get to my feet, and open the bedroom door.
YOU ARE READING
Still Life
Tienerfictie"Choose to believe as much or as little of what you're about to read as you wish, but it's my story of how the cold embrace of death, finally taught me how to live." Lila Fort is a lost cause. At seventeen years old, she spends her days bullying her...
