Chapter 3

Emma

I can't sleep. The red numbers on my clock keep ticking past; midnight, one, two, three, four… I can feel that pizza lick a brick in my stomach. 50 calories of grease in my stomach. I get out of bed and turn my night table light on. The lights in the hospital are off, except the night lights that cast a dull light in the hallway. Everyone is sleeping, except the night nurses who are filling out paper work and watching the screen for someone to call in an emergency. This is the perfect time to wake up in this place. No one can judge you. You are alone.

I stand naked in front of the mirror in my bathroom. There are still chunks of fat on me body. Just a few more pounds and I will be perfect. A few more pounds and I won't need to worry about silly boys in silly hospitals because I will be perfect. I've let myself go. I've lost control.

"No more boys." I tell the chubby cheeked girl in the mirror. "No more food." I grab a pair of exercise clothes I keep hidden under the sink in the bathroom. After I slip the tight fitting pants on I take one more look at myself. "And run…" I sigh in disgust, "fat ass."

I grab my sneakers and hold onto them tightly. If the nurses catch me out of my room it won't be a big deal, but if they know I am trying to go for a run they will probably up my therapy and force feed me more grease and cheese. I sneak down the hall and slip into a stairwell, perfect.

Sneakers on and stretches completed I begin running up and down the stairs. It had been a while since I had done this. In fact, the last time I ran like this was the day I got sent to the hospital. I feel myself go numb as the memory replays itself.

It was a normal day, about three months ago. Both of my parents were at work and would not be home for dinner. That would happen often, so it was easy to hide my eating disorder. If they began to get suspicious I would cook an elaborate meal, leave all the dished in the sink, and throw away a large portion of it so they thought I ate.

The night before my mother had sat me down. "Emma, sweetheart, you seem to be getting thinner and thinner. Your father and I are worried. You are eating, aren't you baby?"

I never lied to my mother. "Of course I am, mom". Except when it came to food.

I was making homemade lasagna, a lot of cheese and a lot of carbs, the night I was sent to the hospital. The lasagna was out of the oven and I had a big piece on my plate. Even though I was going to throw it out I would like to sit at the table and pretend I was eating. I sat at my large dining room table all by myself, just the light from the kitchen was on.

My stomach grumbled. I hadn't eaten in days. My stomach was begging me for a piece of the lasagna that I had just spent an hour making. I couldn't resist taking one bite. Just one bite. It was good. It was phenomenal. I felt the cheese slide down my throat and hit my empty stomach.

I sat silently in my dark dining room. I sat there for a long time, maybe even for an hour. Silently I rose and walked to the stairs that led to my bedroom. Without any words, or any lights, I began to run. Up and down the stairs. I blanked out. There was nothing. The next thing I knew I was in the hospital…

My sneakers pounded against the linoleum steps. My breath was burning my chest as it came out in rushes. My head was pounding. My legs burned. I had to keep going. I had to lose that weight. I had to gain back control.

Leo

The sound of an alarm beeping woke me up early in the morning. I hadn't realized I had fallen asleep to the image of Emma in my head. The kid in the room next to me, a new admission, was having another seizure. Unfortunately, things like that happened all the time in the hospital, so I just viewed it as an annoyance. I glanced over at Jordi, who was still somehow fast asleep.

Knowing I wouldn't be falling back asleep I got up and strapped my prosthetic leg on. I may as well practice walking with it if I ever want to be a normal kid again. I put on a fresh black t-shirt and a pair of pants and started walking slowly down the hall. Everyone was still fast asleep in their rooms, I was the only one awakened by the sound of the alarm going off.

With all the nurses busy I decided to attempt to walk up the stairs to go see if Dash was awake yet. If not maybe I'd go see if Emma was up, or sit on the roof for a minute before things calmed down. I opened the double doors to the staircase, but stopped when I heard footsteps.

Someone was running up the stairs at an uneven speed. I stepped into the stairwell away from the door, assuming it was a nurse that would need to get past me. As the door shut behind me I saw Emma run up. The girl never ceases to amaze me. How can someone so smart and beautiful be so concerned about her weight? Just the idea that she not only doesn't eat, but wakes up early to run up and down the stairs, gives me a stabbing feeling in my heart.

"Emma, what the hell are you doing?" I move to block her path so she has to stop running. "It is five in the morning, we don't wake up until eight."

Leaning against the wall she takes a few moments to catch her breath. Sweat is dripping off her frail body. She is wearing tight exercise pants and just a sports bra, so I can see every bone that makes her small frame. I don't think I had ever seen her with so little clothes on in the light. She looks sick. "I could be asking you the same thing."

"You don't look so good, Emma." Her eyes look as if they are fading. "Are you okay?"

She nods. "Yeah." She needs to take another second to steady herself. "You don't need to worry and I don't need to justify myself to you."

Emma pushes past me and starts running up the stairs again. I turn to call her name, but as I turn around I see her fall backwards. I do my best to catch her, but because of my missing leg I fall myself. Even though there is not much weight to her we fall pretty hard. She lands on top of me, seemingly unharmed. But I feel an immense pain in my real leg. I look down to see a puddle of blood beginning to form. Due to the force of our fall, and landing directly on my prosthetic leg, a large chunk of meatal snapped off. My good leg, my real leg, my perfect leg, has a huge piece of meatal sticking out of it.

"Oh crap." I mumble, the pain starts to radiate from the open wound. My wrist starts to throb, I landed on that too. But I am not the main concern here. "Emma, are you okay?" I look down at her, but her eyes have rolled back and her breathing seems labored. She is pale and cold. "Oh shit. Emma?" I try to move but my body won't let me. There is pain all over, and blood keeps pouring from my leg. "Emma?"

She is unconscious. And I am immobile. Even if I wanted to move I couldn't, not without crutches or a wheelchair. Especially with my wrist snapped, I couldn't even crawl. I try to choke back tears of fear and pain but they are falling anyway. "Help!" I yell but all I hear in response is an echo. "Help me! Please! Someone help!"

I feel myself start to grow numb. I look down at my leg again. The once tan fabric is now almost black with blood. My stomach starts to churn as I picture dying here from blood loss. I picture Emma dyeing here in my arms. Tears flood down my face. Panic is setting in. I look down at Emma's face, she is in another world, her breathing almost completely stopped. She is the last thing I see before I too fall into my own world.