The piercing sound of the alarm clock shot through Lizzie's ears, signalling the start of her morning routine. After ten minutes of relentless snoozing, she had managed to drag herself out of bed and had heaved her sluggish body across her small motel room towards the bathroom. A further ten minutes later and she was dressed and pulling on her running trainers in preparation for her morning run.
It had been another late night of trawling through case files and catching up on her admin, yet despite feeling painfully exhausted, this ritual carried great significance and without it she'd fall apart. It had been 8months since Tom had left her lying on their kitchen floor with a swollen lip and a broken heart. Dry, blood shot eyes, aching limbs and callouses on her feet were a small price to pay for the opportunity of solace that this moment gave her. As glad as she was to be rid of him, this time helped her to forget everything that had happened and is still happening in her overly complicated life. She inserted her headphones into the audio jack on her phone, selected her running playlist and stepped out onto her doorstep.
After taking a large gulp of air, Lizzie took the first stride towards the end of her street. It wasn't long before the beat from her music was pumping through her veins and sending her into a familiar trance. With each passing step she could feel her inner strength emerging, pushing away the flurry of thoughts clogging her mind and a welcoming sensation of euphoric creeping in. It was during this time that her mind would so often wander to a familiar face, Raymond Reddington. He had become the bane of her existence and one of the many complications that she was trying to escape, but it was within the privacy of her own thoughts that she'd allow herself to admit that she enjoyed his company. She'd noticed his many lingering looks in her direction and his subtle touches across her lower back and arm, and it was within her thoughts that she could accept she liked the way it made her feel. To be wanted, to be lusted after. She often wondered how it would feel to fully surrender herself to a man like Raymond Reddington and to let him have what he so obviously desired. The thought alone sent a bolt of excitement through her body and reignited the dull ache that so desperately needed to be worked. So far she had resisted his advances, instead enjoying the feeling of being chased, but it had been so long since she had been with a man that had treated her like a queen under the covers, that she had forgotten what real pleasure felt like. Her mind drifted to the last time she had been with Tom after they had renewed their wedding vows and how dirty it had made her feel. As these memories resurfaced, Lizzie could feel her inner-strength retreating and her breathing increasing. Almost instantly, like Tom's crushing blow to her head came the return of the very thoughts she had so longed to escape. How could she have been so easily taken in by him, so naïve? He had humiliated her.
Desperate to forget she forced her eyes shut, anxious to regain control of herself and her breathing. She could feel the lactic acid building in her starved muscles, brought on from her frantic and shallow intakes of oxygen. The warm burn in her hamstrings felt somewhat pleasurable but the prodding pain in her side was too much to bear and defeated she slowed to a walk and eventually to a stop. Bent over in agony she inhaled deeply before whipping her headphones from her ears. Her skin felt like it was crawling and the familiar onset of a headache was approaching. Eager to cleanse herself of all thoughts of Tom, she turned back towards her home in anticipation of a shower. If she was lucky, she could continue her earlier more pleasant thoughts in the shower, before heading off to work.