Ltfl: Definitely :-)
A: They are. Sorry about that, but I did delete it. I've got a few stories with the same plot and I didn't feel as if it was my best work. Also, I tend to write about Lily and Iain more now so I was just tidying up my profile a bit.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
"Would you like me to take over?"
Connie observed Lily's shaking hands and sucked in a breath. She suddenly had this horrible image of the needle going straight through the gentleman's arm; blood everywhere, ear-piercing screams echoing throughout the department, both from the patient and the staff. She knew that she needed to stop Lily before she did make her vision come true.
"I...I can always do it," Alicia offered, as she too had noticed Lily's tremors.
None of them could blame her. It was her first day back after being off for a week, and she had an appointment scheduled with Mary for later on that day, so she was bound to be feeling nervous. Connie didn't want to tell a perfectly good doctor how to do her job, but sometimes it was necessary.
"I...I'm okay," Lily stammered.
Her gaze was fixated on the needle but her mind wasn't completely focused on the patient. All she could think about was how easy it would be to jam the needle into her arm, how much pain and blood that it would let out. The needle slowly slid from her fingers and Connie could obviously tell what she was thinking, as she placed a hand on her shoulder and slowly and carefully steered her away from the bed.
"Doctor Munroe, could you take it from here?" Connie asked, removing the equipment from Lily before handing it over to Alicia.
"Of course," Alicia said and gave Connie a promising nod.
"Have I got doctors or monkeys operating on me? The patient snapped, shocked and quite appalled at Lily's behaviour.
"No Sir, all of our doctors are fully trained," Connie said, holding a hand up to him. "Doctor Munroe, I will get Doctor Knight to assist you. Lily, out."
Lily reluctantly followed Connie out of the cubicle, head hung, hands in the pockets of her black trousers. She could tell by the tone of her voice, that Connie was angry, and she had every right to be as well.
"Do you not want to work here anymore or something?" Connie asked, folding her arms over her chest. "Because Mary will be here in ten minutes to see whether you are fit for work or not, and you just tried to cut yourself in front of a patient, whilst performing a procedure."
"I didn't," Lily whispered.
"Don't lie to me," Connie said. "Come on, we'll go to my office and you can wait in there until Mary arrives. I think that's probably for the best."
Lily's chest tightened, as she walked with Connie to the office. She didn't want to chat someone about her problems, she didn't want someone else to decide whether she was able to work or not. Connie looked angry still, but also scared. Maybe she was worried about the outcome of the conversation, maybe she thought that Lily would have to be booked off.
Lily sat on the sofa with her hands in her lap, whilst Connie rummaged through paperwork on her desk. Lily watched her out of the corner of her eye but she felt too scared to say anything. The door creaked open and Gem walked in with a tray of drinks, thankfully interrupting the awkwardness.
"Fancy a drink?" Gem asked. "I um...Well...Iain said that you had your appointment today."
"Thank you," Lily whispered, taking a cup of tea from the tray, before searching for some money in her pocket and handing it over to Gem.
"You don't have to pay," Gem said, handing one of the other mugs over to Connie.
"I want to," Lily said, sipping at the drink. She noticed the puzzled expression on the teen's face and says, "you owe me £1.80 in change."
"Right. Thanks." Gem nodded at her, dropping the change into her hand, before turning to Connie. "See? You can't book her off work. She's my brain, I need her here."
"We'll decide that, thank you," Connie said, with a small sigh. "Is the other drink for Mary?"
"I thought she might want one," Gem said, placing the spare mug on the table.
"That's very kind, just leave it here with us," Connie said, clearing her throat and flicking through some notes. "Thank you, Gemma."
"It's Gem!" Gem shouted in frustration and stormed out of the office, slamming the door on her way out.
"So..." Connie sighed, placing the paperwork down on the desk. "Lily. Have you thought of anything that you might want to speak to Mary about?" Lily just shrugged her shoulders, tightening her grip around her mug until she could feel the warmth burning her skin. "Well, what's your main worries at the moment?" She asked.
"Court," Lily confessed. "What else?"
Connie nodded sympathetically at her. She was about to speak when Elle walked in, closely followed by a woman who looked as if she was in her fifties. She had brown hair and was dressed smartly in a suit. She held a handbag in her left hand and clutched a pile of folders and books to her chest.
"Connie, this is Mary," Elle introduced the woman.
"Of course, thank you Doctor Gardner," Connie said, allowing Elle to leave the room. "Mary, take a seat. Our lovely colleague, Gem has left you a cup of a tea. I have sugar in my drawer if you did want it."
"No that's fine, thank you," Mary said, a little too happily, and turned to address Lily. "Lily Chao, is it?" Lily just faintly nodded her head, as Mary sat down on the sofa beside her. "Well I'm Mary, I'm sure Connie has told you about me. Don't be scared, today's just a small chat and at the end I will decide whether you should be working or not."
"I'm okay to work," Lily told her. "Really."
"I don't think so," Connie scoffed, receiving a look from Mary. "There was just a little incident in cubicles earlier."
"Okay," Mary sighed, flicking open one of her folders. "Would you like to tell me a bit more about that?"
"No, not really," Lily whispered, avoiding eye contact with the nurse.
She couldn't breathe, she just wanted to remove herself from the office. She thought about the needles and the scissors and the scalpels that sat in cubicles, and she thought about the chocolate bar that hid at the back of her locker. She hadn't thrown up at all last night, that was over twelve hours ago, she needed to get back into her routine again or she was never going to lose the weight that she'd put on.
She kept her eyes straight ahead and dug her nails into the arm of the sofa, counting slowly to ten in her head, over and over again. She scanned the office, but there wasn't anything that she could plunge into her skin, not that she could see anyway.
Her heart was telling her that she should stop, but her brain was saying something completely different. It was as if she'd become obsessed with harming her own body.
"Lily?"
She snapped out of her trance and glanced across at Mary, who was watching her with sad and worried eyes.
"Is that true?" She asked. "Did you try and hurt yourself in cubicles?"
Lily hadn't even realised that Mary and Connie had been talking about her, she'd been so involved in the best way to hurt herself.
"I just..." Lily set her tea down on the table and wiped at her eyes. "I hadn't done it in a while."
"Okay," Mary said, scribbling something down. Lily was desperate to know what she was writing. "Tell me about this thing with eating. Why do you feel the need to make yourself sick?"
"I can't explain it." Lily shrugged, looking across at Connie who was too busy, or pretending to be, looking through her paperwork. "When I'm hungry, I eat. I eat until I'm full, then I...I just know that I have to get it all back up again to lost the weight that I've gained. I'm not crazy, I just don't want to be fat."
"Do you skip meals?" Mary asked.
"No," Lily lied, after some hesitation.
"The truth," Mary sighed and when Lily didn't answer, she turned to Connie. "Mrs Beauchamp. Could you maybe answer the question?"
"What?" Connie asked, looking up, and glancing suspiciously towards the young registrar.
"Does Lily often skip meals?" Mary asked.
"Well," Connie sighed, folding her arms across the desk. "I know for a fact that she doesn't eat much at all during her shifts, and on a number of occassions she has missed out on lunch."
"I was just wondering because people with eating disorders tend to skip meals," Mary said. "And people with bulimia often schedule times for a binge session when they get hungry, often at night, before throwing it all back up again."
"I don't have an eating disorder," Lily whispered, clenching her teeth together. "I just want to lose weight and look good. What is wrong with that?"
"There's nothing wrong with losing weight, Lily," Connie said. "But you do it in a healthy way. Eat fruit and vegetables, exercise, that sort of thing. You don't even have to lose any, you're perfect as you are."
"Stop saying that!" Lily shouted, standing up and kicking the coffee table over.
The mugs of tea went flying and both Mary and Connie fell silent. Lily burst into tears and curled up on the sofa, burying her face in the back of it. She held her hands to her face and Connie stood up from her chair, mouthing a small apology to Mary. She cleared her throat and sat on the other side of Lily, a hand on her upper back to try and comfort her.
"Would you like any help cleaning up?" Mary kindly offered.
"No," Connie whispered, shaking her head at her. "I'll sort it later."
She rubbed Lily's shoulder and slowly turned her body so that she was looking up at her with watery eyes. Lily was just hysterically crying, something that Connie hadn't seen much of, from her before. It brought tears to her own eyes.
"Eating's the only thing I have control of," Lily sobbed.
"What do you mean?" Connie asked gently, trying not to cause another meltdown.
"When...When I was with Archie," Lily hiccuped, and a single tear rolled off of the end of her nose. "I had no control in the relationship. I...I don't feel perfect and I know that I have to do something to fix it, what...what goes in my mouth is the only thing that I feel like I have control over. I may not have been able to stop Archie, but surely I can stop myself gaining weight."
Neither Connie nor Mary spoke. They just sat and listened, as Lily tried her best to explain everything.
"People don't think I'm hungry, they think that I don't want to eat but that isn't true," she cried. "I'm starving! I do want to eat, but I just can't. B...Binging just makes me feel calmer and less anxious, and...It makes me feel more in control of my life."
"Come here, sweetheart," Connie soothed, pulling Lily in close for a hug. "You did so well explaining that to us. I'm proud of you."
"Lily," Mary sighed. "You are extremely ill and you're only going to get worse if you don't get some help for it. Now none of us want that to happen, and I know that you don't want it to happen either."
Lily shook her head, tears continuing to stream down both sides of her face.
"I'm going to book you off work," Mary said. "Four weeks, and then we will decide what to do re going back. In the meantime, I'd like you to see me twice a week. I'm hoping that myself and your friends and colleagues will be able to help you."
So this chapter took a lot of research and I'm still not sure on whether I got it right or not. I needed Lily to explain the reason behind throwing up and honestly I didn't understand binge eating that much. I understood anorexia but not binge eating, so I did do a lot of googling.
I hope it was okay and please let me know if there are any changes I could make, or if I didn't get it completely right. Let me know please and I'll amend the chapter if I need to x
Also, I'm really really sorry if the story is dragging. Things will start to speed up soon, I promise.