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＊＊＊closed thread for @thecreativecastle (Leo)＊＊＊
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I'm not better, okay?! I'm not better! And I keep waiting for someone to figure that out and they don't! I mean, of course, they don't 'cause as long as I say the right thing and I act the right way, they're **happy because that means that they cured me, right? **
【》ＦＡＳＴ ＦＯＲＷＡＲＤ》】 ｔｈｒｅｅ ｙｅａｒｓ ｌａｔｅｒ．．．
Emma sat on the edge of her seat checking her emails. The therapist called her in twenty minutes past four. She had been out of school for over an hour and had shown up for her regular weekly appointment like normal only to find out her doctor was running behind. It made her anxious. Almost four years after the mainspring of her eating disorder she was still going to therapy. Her doctors had said nearly two years ago she could stop, but change threw Emma out of sequence. She didn’t enjoy it at all.
“Emma,” the woman at the front desk called. Emma practically jumped out of her skin when she heard her name called, “Your doctor can see you now.” She walked back down the hallway towards the office that she spent more time in than her favorite coffee shop. She knocked on the door softly and waited as her doctor opened the door sitting in his rolling chair with a pen behind his ear.
They went through the formalities of every session. He asked her how she was, she would talk about every time she struggled that week, or any accomplishments she had made. He would ask her if she was stressed and she would talk about starting college and how it changed her. He would ask her about food, and she would be quiet, like always, so he decided to ask her a new question.
“Emma, when you were first diagnosed with Anorexia, how did you get better?”
Oh god, here it comes. “How did I get better? What do you mean like my treatments or my medications?” Emma snapped back confused. Her stress level was dramatically high this particular day and she didn’t feel like talking about that.
“No, what was it that drove you to get better.” Her doctor asked, hoping whatever it was could help her cope with the levels of Anxiety and Stress she had been experiencing.
So then she began to reminisce on it all.
【 ||ＰＡＵＳＥ】
＂I'm not better, okay?! I'm not better!＂
＂Full disclosure, I stole this out of a guys rooms.＂
＂Why can’t you admit it? I liked you so much more than you liked me.＂
＂I want to help you. I want us to get out of here, together.＂
＂...After a while I got used to it I guess. And I liked having the extra time to study. And the more I thought about it, the more I figured, If I don’t need lunch, maybe I don’t need breakfast or dinner either...＂
【 ► ＰＬＡＹ】
Emma forgot how much of that year she had blocked out. She found herself standing up and looking at her doctor. “Nothing drove me to get better. I did what the doctors asked and I’m better. I don’t think I should continue therapy.” She said picking up her phone and walking out of the office as a tear rolled down her cheek. Her doctor stood up and tried to follow her down the hall but she was already gone.
She didn’t take the bus back to her apartment that she had gotten the day after graduation, instead she walked the 12 blocks in crowded LA by herself. She hurried up the stairs once she unlocked the door and slammed it behind her.
“What the heck is wrong with you Emma?” was all that could run through her mind. She sat her bag on the counter and looked over at the refrigerator and opened it to see her usual stash of food. two apples, a quart of orange juice, half a pound of spinach, greek yogurt, a dozen eggs and flavored water. Emma took everything out of the fridge and began pouring it all down the sink and throwing it away (after throwing it across the room). It wasn’t much, and it didn’t take long.
When it was done, she was still mad, she wanted to get rid of it all. She took her jacket off and walked into her bathroom to see the scale on her floor. She hadn't weighed herself in weeks, she didn’t feel like she needed too, quit frankly she didn’t want to. She washed off her makeup and looked in the mirror as something caught her eye in the reflection. A picture, in her bedroom taped to her wall along with many more, this one was different because it was from the “When I was sick” era.
Emma walked into her room and pulled the picture off the wall to look at it. Leo’s bald head had a sun glare that made a flare in the picture, it had made her laugh every time she looked at it, but tonight it made her want to cry. His arm was draped around her shoulder and she was smiling. It was one of the only pictures she had of them together. It was special.
By fate or chance they had fallen apart after Emma left the hospital when she started “getting better” Leo hadn’t been in the hospital much longer, and they had hung out a few times after, but whatever was there before, had faded. They sent each other text messages on their birthdays and Christmas, but other than that there was never a word exchanged.
Emma took out her phone and took a picture of the photo and looked at it for a long time as she sat on her bed. She contemplated texting him, but she felt bad for reaching out to him just because she was feeling down.
It was a little more than down. Emma couldn’t make herself admit that she was two seconds away from a mental break down. A text message would be too insensitive.” So she dialed his number and called him.
She didn’t expect him to answer, and as the phone kept ringing she thought she would just hang up, but he would see a missed call from her and call back, so she should probably leave a message saying she just wanted to say hi and that nothing was wrong.
What would she even say? “Hi Leo, how are you? I’m fine. I hate we haven’t spoken in four months.” She was regretting even calling him but she needed to tell someone. She needed someone to understand before it got worse. Before she found herself falling backwards again. She needed someone to see she wasn’t okay. She needed an anchor to hold her still before the waves tore her apart and let her sink into the sea.
“Hi, Leo...”
【 ■ ＳＴＯＰ】
