Carla stares at the ceiling and shifts for the thousandth time in bed. There's no clock in the room for her to confirm the hour, but her eyes are tired and her joints hurt from being awake for so long. This is when, until three days ago, she would have snuck out for an early morning run, but since Nick had awoken one morning to find her half collapsed body on the sofa Nick hasn't let her out of his sight.
Even after their heart-to-heart this didn't stop Nick and Michelle from attaching themselves to her like parasites. Carla should be grateful. She should be thankful that they're caring for her. But she's suffocating.
The air inside the flat is hot and sticky, making Nick's shirt she stole cling to her bones and stick to her skin. She throws off the quilt and shifts once more. If only he could sleep
The urge to get up and move becomes too strong for her to resist, rolling of the bed she glides down the hallway. She's light and lithe, not making a sound on the carpeted ground. She lets herself into the bathroom and clicks on the overhead light. She wants to inspect, scrutinize, criticize, but even the thought of seeing her body at the moment makes her want to die.
Carla leans against the wall and stares. She doesn't lift the shirt up, doesn't pinch or examine her stomach or legs. Rather, she looks at the dark circles under her eyes and the hollow of her cheeks. Not even the exhaustion evident in her face can match the exhaustion in her bones. She opens the bathroom cabinet and pulls out the packet of tampons she had cleverly hidden the bottle of illicit diet pills inside.
"Carla?" Nicks voice calls her urgently from the other side of the bathroom door, not that Carla hears it from where she's locked herself in, she barely hears it as she pushes pill after pill down her throat because she's been taking them on and off for weeks now, she needs more now though because they're not working fast enough
She's not sure how long she stands there. It could be second or days, or anywhere in between. She's in a trance, only to be pulled out of it by an insistent rapping sound on the door. Carla opens her mouth. "What?" she croaks, voice cracking from disuse. She's back in the present now. She hadn't realized how woozy she was until she tried to take her weight off the wall.
Nick keeps pounding on the door. "Let me in," he shouts through the wood. Carla doesn't think he would break it down, but she's not sure, and she's certainly not in the mood to test his theory, she places the pills back in the cabinet before unlocking the bathroom door and stands back to let in Nick. She's surprised by the harsh sunlight that suddenly floods the bathroom. How long had she been standing in the bathroom? In the moment it is very cold and her body is shaking.
"you had me worried when I woke up to an empty bed, I thought you may have gone for a run until I realised you were in here and then..." He stops. He doesn't need to say what he thought his girlfriend was doing locked inside the bathroom
"I wasn't. Not what you think. I just couldn't sleep" Carla trails off
"Ok. I trust you" Nick admits as he grabs her frigid hands and winces at their chill.
"Let me run you a Shower? You're freezing" He whispers
Carla nods slowly. Clinging on to his hands for support
"Sit" He mutters. Past events flashing through his mind of having to help her clean herself up after he first found her purging...
Nick turns the handles on the shower and sets the water to a comfortable temperature before returning to a fragile Carla.
"Are you going to take MY shirt off then? Nick smirks. Attempting to lighten the mood
"I can shower myself "Carla mumbles
"Carla, you can barely stand on your own. Do you really think I'm going to leave you " He raises one eyebrow
'T-shirt off,' Nick says patiently
'No,' says Carla. Nick folds his arms. Slowly, very slowly, Carla grasps the hem of the t-shirt and pulls it over her head.
Nick instinctively shuts his eyes to try and think but has to open them again. He cannot stand one more second of the image of Carla's body. The sight was even worse than before. Last week he got a mere glimpse before Carla had turned the light in the bedroom off. Now he understood why she wouldn't get changed infront of him. Why she insisted on keeping a shirt on when they were in bed.
Nick was forced to stare at her body with morbid fascination, unable to avert his eyes. If Nick had thought Carla's ribs were prominent, her hip bones proved to be even worse. No fat on her upper arms, no fat on her legs, and seeing her vertebrae sticking out like that was far worse than feeling them through Carla's clothes. She was a walking skeleton
He doesn't know how Carla expects him to pretend that this isnt happening. He's tried looking online, searching website's designed to help family and friends of those with food issues, but mostly he found mothers begging others to make their teenage daughters eat.
"Nick?" Carla asks hesitantly as she grabs the discarded shirt from the floor and covers her body
"I'll get you a clean towel" He replies. Adverting his eyes away from her body
He makes sure Carla safely gets into the shower before he pulls the bathroom door open. The sound of the lock clicks with far more noise than should be possible, and then silence falls. Nick puts his head in his hands
He had just reinforced everything bad that's going on in Carla's head right now. He could not have had a worse reaction.
Twenty minutes later and a hand appears through the tiniest of crack between the door
'Clothes,' a voice says quietly.
Nick recognises the command in the tone.
'Back in a minute,' he says, voice a little rough from holding back tears
When Nick reappears back on the landing two minutes later, the hand has not changed position. It is, however, trembling slightly. Nick has no idea what do to but for now he will play it as normal as he can
'Here you go,' he says lightly, draping the clothing over the outstretched arm "Breakfast?'
'No thank you,' the hand withdraws and the door shuts with a snap.
Nick knows a dismissal when he sees one. He goes into the kitchen and clicks the kettle on. He places a hand on the loaf of bread before launching it towards the wall in frustration
How could he have missed this?
He had been watching her so closely the past few weeks. She had been eating a bit more recently. He thought they were finally taking a step in the right direction
He was certain she wasn't purging still. Surely he would have noticed if she had been throwing up after every meal?
Then again, he hadn't noticed his girlfriend wasting away in front of his own eyes. Nick closed his eyes and pressed his thumb and index finger against the root of his nose before shaking his head. This had gone on far too long. He needed help. Carla needed help.
"Dev. Can I have a word?" Dev stops and turns. Gary is standing about twenty feet behind him, looking concerned, and Nick knows immediately that he does not want to have this conversation.
"Hey Nick, what's up?" Nick shifts and takes a couple steps that put them within normal talking distance. Nick looks down at his feet for a second before looking back up at Dev. He's clearly nervous. Dev opens his mouth, but Nick cuts him off. "Can we talk?"
Dev leads him towards the front desk, away from anyone else. "So, what's up? Nick just looks at him. He considers walking out and dealing with this later, but finally responds.
"I need you to cancel Carla's membership "
"Uh.." Dev blinks. Slightly taken aback. "She would need to come in herself and do that"
"Why?" Nick sharply replies. Something in Dev's expression makes him think that he isn't going to be able to just play this off
"It's just gym policy..." Dev stops "Look. Is everything OK?"
"Oh it's just great" Nick laughed. His voice heavy with sarcasm. His fists clenched in response to the negative thoughts. Unbeknownst to Nick, Gary notices as he makes his way over
"If this is about the pills, Dev had no idea"
"Pills? " Nick cuts Gary off
"Didn't Carla.. Look, it was nothing Bethany and her friends had them. You know what girls are like about their weight. And they were unopened" Gary frowned up at him
"Bethany? What are you on about? What pills?" Nick glared at him, and Gary was sure that in a moment he was going to argue, so he hurried on before he could do so
"Diet pills. Carla said she would sort it out "
"You gave my girlfriend diet pills?" Nick bellowed, grabbing Gary by the collar of his shirt
"It wasn't like that!" Gary pushed Nick off
"Cancel her membership now, and I'll forget that your colleague here supplied Carla with pills" Nick spat. He took in the information he had just received and stormed out of the Gym. He leaned against the wall, steading his breath before hopping into his car. He needed to see Carla