Chapter 89 : Down will come Bella, Mia and all

About 10 minutes later a crabby faced Bella entered the dining room with Andrea attached to her side. Bella didn’t look happy and this unsettled me. Bella was always chirpy, even when faced with her mortal enemy, food.

 “Right then campers,” Andrea said in a jolly voice, her Scottish accent ringing through. “Who’s having the caviar for breakfast?”  I knew when I was meant to laugh at any joke and I knew how to force one even when I was feeling this bad. Bella on the other just sat and stared down the joke like a ten ton weight. I gripped the table tighter. Without Bella’s composure in the face of food, I was losing mine. She was normally my strong point. She had been for the entire week I was in the unit. She had sat with me, held my hand under the table at meal times, comforted me when I cried and cleaned me up when I put my fingers so deep down my throat I spat up blood. She made me laugh. She was chirpy unstoppable Bella. My friend Bella.

 “You’re doing well,” Emmet said softly detaching my fingers from around the table edge where they had gone first white and then a delicate shade of blue. I panicked, truly thinking without holding on to something I would fall off of my chair and through cracks to the center of the earth.

 “Squeeze,” Emmet said again. I gawped at him like he just announced he was going to marry a pink elephant in a tutu. “Squeeze,” He instructed, smiling gently at me and he squeezed my hand as a demonstration. Pleased at the offer to hold on to something I clasped my hand around his with as much force as I could. Emmet smiled. I gulped.

 Andrea placed two bowls of cereal onto the table with a light thud, one in front of me one in front of Bella. I squeezed Emmet’s hand harder. I wanted to run away and hide. I didn’t want to eat but I knew I was going to have to if I wanted to keep up my lie that everything was OK, but it felt like I was drowning inside of myself. Like my stomach couldn’t take any food. I was fat and nasty and horrible and didn’t deserve the food. I didn’t want to eat. I didn’t want any food. I wanted my purity and shininess back. I was dirty.

 “Mia, Mia you can’t! You fat cow, you’re not going to eat that are you? Look at it? Come on count the calories with me. I mean what’s that milk? It must be full fat. Look at the cream, that’s like 600 hundred there probably more because you know how they like to trick you. I bet they hid the calories. Hide it, throw it away. Just don’t eat it!”

 I started eating the cereal slowly, chewing each mouth full with precision and intent exactly 12 times weather it was needed or not  and  I silently gagged on every damn one but I kept going through everything even though Sophie shrieked. Bella on the other hand had not even started and she was normally three to four mouthfuls in front of me.

 "Come on Bella, let’s get it down you!” Andrea said to the non-responsive Bella.” I glanced up at her but she did not move from her position or make any effort to pick up her spoon and start on the monstrous task in front of her. I let mine rest in the bowl for a second too, it seemed I could not face mine without the chewing and crunching of my companion or her hand in mine under the table.

 “You’re doing OK.” Emmet said gripping my leg more gently this time under the table as he effortlessly chucked a spoonful of food into his mouth, chewed then swallowed like it was simple, nothing to be scared of. I picked up my spoon again and started to eat but more slowly. Twelve agonizing chews. I still watched Bella with one eye.

 “Come on Bella, start on your breakfast please.” Andrea said now more firmly.

 “Fuck off!” Bella shouted swiping at her bowl. It crashed to the floor with an ear splitting clang and the ceramic split in to pieces the milk splashing the bottom of my jeans and into the stupid tight socks that I was now being forced to wear to help with my circulation.

 “Bella!” Andrea shouted her cheery voice completely gone; almost all trace of her accent disappearing too. Emmet was also on his feet next to me too; making himself to his tallest possible ready to intervene.

“Bella, you need to calm down.” Emmet said firmly shifting himself away from me to Bella’s side of the table.

 “Fuck you!” She screamed again, her face bright red. “You’re all a load of fucking Bastards! We don’t conform to your normal and you lock us up and make us!” Bella kicked out at a chair and it went flying across the floor, barely missing where I was sat. At that Andrea and Emmet both gave each other a meaningful look and simultaneously pushed their alarms before converging upon Bella in a swoop of action grabbing at her flashing limbs.

 “No you fucking well don’t” Bella said pulling at the restraints of human arms that now held her tight. “You’re not using me as your fucking puppet on a string!” Bella shouted letting out a scream. She sounded like a wild animal. She was terrifying. The same Bella that saved me and was my friend, possessed, and the worse thing was this could have been any of us; any one of use could lose their mind at any moment. Any one of us could fall apart and here it was happening to Bella, strong Bella. I brought my legs up onto the chair and hugged my knees blinking back the tears as I tried to drown out the screaming in my head.

 “Bella needs ECA.” Emmet shouted breathlessly as he thought to restrain Bella as she pulled away again kicking with her legs and Andrea staggered.

 The staff that reacted to the alarm ran in and took their positions around Bella. Bella howled, in frustration, in agony. I knew that scream well I had used it before in my past. It was the scream to end all screams. It was a scream for the end of everything, one to use when nothing else mattered. 

 Finally the staff had her face down carrying her out of the dining room as she continued to scream. The only one left now was Emmet who walked slowly back towards the place where I was sitting, by now I was wrapped up in a tight barricade rocking with my hands pressed over my ears trying to block out the screaming.

 “Are you all right sweetheart? That must have been hard to see.” Emmet said rubbing my back sympathetically.

 “Emmet” I whispered breathlessly through my pouring tears “Emmet please, please I can’t do it anymore.”