A homeless thief breaks into a house that has nothing worth stealing - except for the heart of a lonely man who is obsessed with time.
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Blake has been living on the streets for...
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-Jordan-
When the new day arrived, and my alarm clock went off at 6:28, I was already wide awake. I hadn't slept much that night, but when I heard the dull beeping, my whole body relaxed completely for the first time since yesterday morning.
"Finally," I sighed and got up.
I made the bed in less than a minute and then made my way into the bathroom. I checked the time after stepping in, got undressed and stepped under the shower. Before turning it on, I closed the curtain and tossed my braid over it so it wouldn't get wet. Six and a half minutes later, I stepped out fresh and clean.
I grabbed a towel from the rack, keeping my eyes on the clock, and when it turned 6:38, I exited the bathroom and returned to my bedroom. Exactly a minute later, I was fully dressed, and stepped back into the hallway. I grabbed a yoga mat from a closet next to my bedroom and went to put it down in the middle of my living room floor.
When I sat down, I let out a deep, content breath. I knew how wrong it was, but doing everything exactly according to my daily plan made me feel so good about myself. It gave me a twisted kind of pleasure. It made me feel safe, and powerful, and good.
Of course, it was all a lie. I knew that, but after yesterday, I needed to do everything perfectly today. I needed to feel good, no matter how damaging it was for me and my mental health. Right now I couldn't even think about living without my daily plan, even though it was the biggest dream, the most desperate wish I had.
I just... I was too weak. Sometimes I was ready to give up on getting better just because I couldn't handle the way I reacted. It was exhausting.
Yoga helped me to relax, as it always did. It really had helped me during my slow recovery. Even now it was easier to stop feeling so proud over performing my tasks correctly, and focus more on the fact that I had survived yesterday without major hiccups.
Therapy, medication, my mother's unconditional support, yoga, power words... I had a long list of things to help me stay calm whenever I missed my schedule or freaked out over something else. I was all kinds of crazy, but I was so much better already. I needed to remember that. I needed to stay focused on the goal: to be fully healed.
It would take a very long time. It had already taken me seventeen years to get to this point. But after so many years of letting my disorder consume me, control me, and ruin my life, I was finally recovering. It was such a long time ago when I was still just a normal, happy six-year-old...
And then I became this mess. I was still having nightmares about that night.
"One more minute Jordy, then we can go. Just one more minute."
I breathed out, trying to ignore those memories. I already spent the previous day thinking about it. There was no use dwelling in the past today as well.
