Chapter 253 : with my mothers eyes

 My body shook as I crawled unsteadily across the floor towards Esmee. I chose not to sit on her actual lap again but close by her side. She was so diminutive it seemed almost abusive to actually sit on her with my height and my new absurdly big weight to my name.  She looped her arm around my shoulder excepting my choice.

“Now Mi I need you to take deep breaths with me OK,” Esmee said, her voice smoother and less harsh now.

“I…I…I can’t.”

“Yes you can, now breathe in through your nose with me and then breathe out through your mouth.” I saw Esmee shoulders smoothly rise and fall in big circles as she emphasized her breathing. I tried to copy her. To expand my lungs against the gunge and elastic bands that kept them constricted but none of the badness would brake inside of me. Her soothing didn’t even touch the edges of my despair, but I kept trying. I kicked with all my might towards the surface of the water that was drowning me but there was no let up, there was no brake. I was going to drown and I almost wanted to. I was only fighting for her anyway.

“This is stupid!” I growled at myself between my teeth before punching at my stomach again. Esmee made a grab for my hands but I was quicker than her. She winced as the pain shot up through me. I refused to feel it like somehow my nerves should have been less sensitive then the rest of the world.”

“Mi, you have to stop doing that…” She wrapped her arm over my shoulder again and pushed my hands against the floor with hers so I could land the punch that had been aiming for my thighs. I hated her for that, for taking away the last things that I had left. She had been one of them to make me fat, she had thought nothing about holding a cup of feed in the air and watching as it drained away to feed a body that I hated anyway.

“Push her away and if she won’t let go slap her, punch her! Hell, bite her if you have to. She did this to you.” The voice scared me more than usual It wasn’t Sophie, just my own thought, amplified.

“I can’t OK! I can’t fight and I can’t breathe! I am not like you Esmee I am not strong!” I yelled pushing her away from me.

“Esmee’s eyes changed turning through the emotions she needed to feel until they settled somewhere between irritation to… to… anger. I could see the ruby red bolts appearing through the back. She had identical eyes to my mother’s when she was angry.

 “Mi, when I first got my period back after two years of weighing less then you do now and being force fed through a series or drips and NG tubes I went insane. I pulled my NG tube out putting a tear in my oesophagus. I kicked one male staff nurse in the crotch and I broke a female nursing assistance nose before stealing their keys skipping the hospital and cutting my arms so badly I needed a full blood transfusion and over one hundred stitches. So what do you think Mi? Do you think I felt strong back then?” Esmee snapped her breath heaving inside of her chest.

I guessed that probably was a no.