Demi Lovato Imagines

The Retreat pt.2

Kate awoke to the sound of singing birds and the soft breeze of Italian air blowing through the open curtains. Stretching her arms above her head, she froze when her hands met the smooth carved wood of the headboard. The other times she'd pass out during one of her benders, she would crawl to an unused mattress in some basement, the smell of smoke and damp curling around her body. She opened one eye. 

Memories of the day before came back as if through a drip-feeder. The flight. Chen. The blood sample. Frowning, she twirled the wrist band around a few times wondering which situation was worse. Whichever one was, she was sure her parents would think differently. Although, to be fair, they had very different ideas about what constituted 'bad' and 'good'. For Kate, 'good' meant a clean batch and a cheap deal. For her parents, it meant not having a daughter addicted to heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines, LSD, and Ecstacy which led to her dropping out of college and doing nothing but drug runs in the car that they bought her for her eighteenth while they laid a third place at the dinner table every night that never got filled. 

To them, Dollar House looked good. 

To Kate, it looked very, very bad. 

When they handed her the printed email of 'Requirements for 14-Day Rejuvenation Programme', she thought they were having a laugh. Sure, they could have sent her to one of those boot camps where they hold your head underwater until you swear to never touch an illegal substance again and make you run ten kilometres every morning. But this thing sounded even worse. She'd screamed. She'd threatened to tear up the tickets or not go to the gate after they dropped her at the airport. They told her that, if she did, they would cut her off completely. 

She made it to the gate. 

When she really thought about it, two weeks wasn't so long. Not long enough for her to lose all her contacts back home and all her special 'discounts'. She would grin and bear it and give her parents the middle-finger to say - 'fuck you, you really fell for it'. She'd held up her side of the deal, they now had to hold up theirs. It was her life and if they didn't like it, they should have thought about that before they decided to move her across the country right in the middle of her senior year to a city where she had no friends, no happiness, no life. 

She sat up at the sound of a gong that vibrated through the walls. If she remembered correctly, that meant breakfast time and one of the weird things she rolled her eyes at when she read the email. No alcohol, no sugar, no technology, and a bloody gong to get summoned for meals? Was this place for real? But her grumbling stomach staunched the flow of grievances for a moment as she swung her legs off the side of the bed, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands. Where were her clothes? She didn't remember putting them away last night nor did she remember where she kicked her suitcase. She must have, though, otherwise she wouldn't be sitting there in her pyjamas. Her eyes lock onto the wardrobe and she padded over with a mix of anger and uncertainty. None of this felt familiar, yet, upon opening the doors, she found all her clothes neatly hung up, her shoes placed in a neat row underneath. Had she really been that tired the night before that fatigue erased all memory of doing this? Seemed unlikely considering Kate was never the person to take much care in the maintenance of her clothes. The suitcase she brought was mainly filled with new garments her mom had bought while she lay in bed protesting that it was a cold, for God's sake, not a hangover. The gong sounded again and she hurriedly pulled on light-wash jeans and t-shirt, gritting her teeth. She had no doubt her mom was burning her all-black ensembles as she followed the metal plaques in the direction of 'Dining Room', if she hadn't already. But that was only one of many things she was going to have a go at them about upon her return home. 

"Ah, Miss Giles. Welcome."

Kate stood in the doorway, cheeks reddening as she counted every other guest who was already seated. Chen smiled warmly, beckoning her to the last space. She cursed so loudly in her head that she worried someone else might have actually heard. Pulling the chair out from under the table, she didn't miss the slight shuffle Demi made as if to pull herself away from Kate's atmosphere. The chatty woman from yesterday had vanished and, although she desperately wanted to deny it, Kate felt a sense of regret at having ruined a potential friendship.