Connie Beauchamp frowned, silent and watching, feet from the bed in which the frail girl slept. Her heart rate was worryingly irregular, her condition unstable, her body so disastrously weakened by years of abuse and the psychological turmoil she had endured that it was a miracle she continued to live… if you could call it living.
She stirred, a scrawny hand moved across her thin hospital sheets and she murmured gently to herself. At twenty-years-old, Connie thought, surely her mother should be there at that bedside, clutching those slim fingers in her hands and thankful every second that her daughter remained alive – for the moment?
The Clinical Lead turned and swept away in the direction of her office, feeling hot tears light up her cold eyes. She blinked angrily, refusing to allow their escape, and breathed deeply as she closed her office door behind her and fell into her place behind the desk. With her head in her hands, she finally gave the tears permission to make their passage down her thin cheeks and they dropped, infrequent, gentle, to the desktop.
Connie was a teenager again. She was a young woman in the pursuit of a prestigious career and the whole world rested on her shoulders as she strove to be the very best she could, to attain perfection. She was desperate to achieve flawlessness in every area of her life, desperate for more. She was skipping meals and weighing herself religiously, she was spending hours in front of the mirror and starving herself for days, weeks on end. She was disgusted with herself. She needed to be perfect. She was not good enough.
A knock at the office door.
"Connie?" Charlie half-entered, his face full of concern as he took in the woman before him, so entrenched in a heart-breaking past she could hardly bring herself to the present.
Connie shook her head wearily, furiously blinking away unshed tears and battling to regain control. "Yes?"
Charlie didn't blink at her curt reply. He didn't blink at her obvious distress. "Are you okay?"
"Yes, I'm fine. I need to do my – job." Her voice broke. Connie rose from the desk, taking her stethoscope in hand and making her way to the door.
"Take a break," Charlie suggested, ever so gently steering the brunette back into her office, "I'll call you when we need our best doctor on the job." He smiled a sad smile, gave a nod of his head in reassurance, and Connie's gaze softened. "You know where I am if you want to talk." The old nurse withdrew, leaving the Clinical Lead to her slowing thoughts of acceptance.
You're here. You're recovered. You had your help and you're here to help other people. You do your best every time and you strive for perfection. She stood quietly, once more the put-together girl-in-charge, but softened somehow.
She stood at the bedside of Lucy, a girl of twenty with anorexia nervosa, and she took the girls slim fingers in her own as she stirred, as she wished someone had for her.