Chapter 52 : Rage against the crystal

I tried to eat my lunch but my swallowing reflex seemed to go AWOL (absent without leave). I did want to eat. I did try. I felt terrible seeing Bella’s hard work trying to get the food down, to eat her way back to being healthy, to eliminate PEG, to control the illness the way it tried to control her but it was different for me. I didn’t need to eat, I wasn’t ill and an illness didn’t control me. I controlled the food. The only thing left that I could. Food was for the week.

“Mi if you refuse to eat your food you have to drink the Ensure. Now stop wasting my time and get it down you please!" Crystal’s eyes flashed as she tried to keep her temper. We had been in the damn clinic room once again for nearly two hours but I could not swallow the damn Ensure. The smell, the consistence and everything else about the substance at hand made my stomach flip with nausea.

 “I…”

 “Mia!”

“Mi,” I hissed at her through my angry teeth. “I hate Mia.”

“Please Mia it’s just a name. Besides, Mia sounds so much better any way.” She showed her shining teeth in a fake smile. It was a smile of her winning as my anger faded to sadness and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to keep up the fight. I sighed and took a tiny sip of the Ensure. It was vile. This was the strawberry version of the drink and it tasted twice as awful as the chocolate. The pale pink glop slopped back into the cup and wobbled like a soggy blamonge. I spluttered gagged on the coating it gave to my mouth and throat. It could only be compared to drinking charcoal the, black vile tasting drink they forced down you when an overdose was taken.

“Mia hurry it up please I do not have all day.” Crystal snapped actually stamping her foot on the floor like a spoilt teenager.

“I ate half of my lunch dam it!” I yelled. Her hand shifted to her alarmed wrist. With crystal I didn’t care. If I was going down I was going down with a fight.

“Mia!” Crystal snapped now more angry then I had seen her before. I recoiled back bringing my knees up to my chin, wrapping my arms around them tight. I decided with Crystal a barricade was a good idea. “You have to eat everything in front of you and the calories you miss in your meal have to be made up for! Now drink the drink, shut your mouth and stop your bloody moaning I want to leave on time,” Crystal yelled.

I lashed out and pushed the cup of glue onto the floor, it splattered covering the bottoms of Crystal’s ghastly white trousers. I saw red now. The control I had was slipping away and I took in to flight mode. I bounced off of the table with my hands and ripped past Crystal to the other side of the room to the box that had always got my attention when I was in here before, the sharps box. The little yellow container that had in it what I continuously sought the blades to open up my skin.  I turned the yellow container on its head and shook it trying to look for anything that I could finish myself with, as the Low yet load and urgent polyphonic beep filled the room around us of crystals alarm I knew I only had seconds. I scrambled around on the Ensure covered floor searching with frantic eyes for a razor blade, a piece of glass, anything to make all the pain go away before I looked up and came face to face with Emmet.

Come now Mi,” he said, placing one of his giant steady hands on my shoulder. “Stop this.”