Blessing In Disguise

Sequel | Prologue

Lily leads Demi and I to the examination room. My stomach feels as if it's doing one of Maddie's aerial routines. I clench my fists tighter around the handles of my luggage to ignore the fact that my hands are shaking. The walls are a baby-blue color, and if the color is supposed to be tranquil or peaceful or whatever, it's failing. Besides Demi, Lily, and myself, there is a male nurse in the room as well as a male doctor; however, my attention isn't focused on them. My attention is focused on the tall scale propped up against the wall across from me.

"Demi,-" Lily starts.

"Yeah, I know the routine," Demi heaves a sigh, dropping her bags and beginning to unzip them.

"What are you doing?" I copy her actions.

"They're going to search our bags, but you get brownie points if you cough up your stash early."

"Brownie points?"

She shrugs with a crooked smile, continuing to search through her

bags.

"Anything sharp. Anything that you could potentially harm yourself with. Anything to induce or encourage weight loss, such as laxatives and purgatives. Um, any drugs or alcohol, which you shouldn't even have by the way," she lists off, giving me a pointed look on that last one.

I want to run, get far away from here as fast as possible. I want to burst into tears. I want to scream and curse and fight as if my life depends on it which, in a way, it does. I have been in this routine for so long. I have grown dependent on my routine. My blades are my best friends. Starving myself makes me feel somewhat pretty; it makes me feel weightless. My goal in life is to get that number on the scale to go as low as possible, even if it means killing myself in the process.

"I can't do this," I whisper. "I can't do this," I repeat in a louder tone. "I shouldn't be here!" I turn to run out of the room, but two arms wrap around my fat abdomen.

"Don't try to fight this, Sierra," Demi's voice soothes me. "You and I both need this; we need to be here, and you know it."

"No!" I thrash wildly in her arms. "No, no, no, no! I don't need to be here! I don't belong here! I'm not crazy!"

Demi manages to sprawl me out on my back on the cold, tiled floor. She hovers above me in a straddle position, pinning my wrists to the floor. I take deep breaths, calming myself down.

"So, I'm assuming you enjoy being on top, huh?"

She rolls her eyes.

"How do you still manage to make sarcastic, sexual remarks?"

"I consider it a talent, my coping mechanism that can't get me sent to the looney bin," I glance around at my surroundings. "And it obviously failed. That's a nice ceiling by the way."

She releases her grip on my wrists, rising to her feet and extending a hand out to me. I allow her to pull me up onto my feet.

"Now," she points towards my bags. "Search."

She returns to her own luggage as I glance around at mine. There's no way that I'm willingly going to hand over my blades.

"No."

"No?" Demi looks up at me, arching an eyebrow. "Sierra, don't be stubborn. It'll only make it more difficult for you."

"I don't care," to my surprise, my tone is calm. "I'm not going to willingly cough up my blades, and nobody can make me do it either."

"They can, Sierra, and they will."

I'm shaking my head before she even finishes her sentence.

"Neither you nor them can make me do anything. I don't belong here," I repeat.