We All Fall to Pieces

I went to push my chair back and stand up, ready to say goodbye for the final time. "So that's it. I'm done. I'm all clear."

I didn't know why she was shaking her head, her hands still folded and still, resting on top of the desk. "Not quite, Jenna."

"I'm sorry, what?" My voice came out like a snap, a rubber band as it breaks.

"Not quite done and all clear." In contrast, hers was steady, devoid of any apparent emotion.

"But you just said-"

She interrupted me. "If you'd just let me finish-"

So I interrupted her, angry now. "You've just told me I've got to a healthy weight!"

"I haven't finished what I was saying" was her reply.

"Out of the danger zone, that's what you said." I didn't want her to carry on.

She sighed and read from her notes. "Body mass index of eighteen point five."

"Which is classed as a healthy weight!" It was. She'd told me that, years ago, and repeatedly since then.

"Jenna, if you'd like to just listen to me for another minute or so, then I'll allow you to-"

I broke in half way through her sentence again. "What, you'll allow me to speak, will you? I'm recovered, okay, everyone says so, I got better, I put on the weight just like you told me to. And you still think you can say I'm not done with this?"

Her tone was almost as icy as mine, but less angry and more authoritative. "You'll still be required to attend monthly appointments to discuss your conditions and ensure you continue to maintain or gain weight, and..."

"And?" My impatience was clear. Why wouldn't she just let me leave already?

She raised an eyebrow as she answered. I didn't blame her - most of them would've just given up on me by now and forced me to go along with it. "And I ask that you keep a diary. More of a journal, really, of what you eat and any physical you undertake, to help identify patterns and avoid any risk of slipping into old habits."

"Old habits such as?" It was my turn to raise an eyebrow in imitation.

"Well... limited calorie consumption, excessive exercise, anything which could indicate a relapse into the danger zone. It's common in young patients in the first few months returning to a lifestyle which would be classed as 'ordinary' in simple terms. It's all precaution, a plan developed through careful consideration of similar previous cases, and-"

"Stop there." I broke in once more.

"Excuse me?" She sounded shocked. As though she wasn't used to me interrupting, when clearly she was.

I sighed and repeated myself tonelessly. "I said stop. I've heard enough."

That was when I turned to walk away.

I'm thinking about it like it was weeks ago, when in reality my cheeks are still wet with the tears that began to fall before I even reached the sliding doors. I hate to cry - it shows weakness and I can't let anyone think I'm weak just as I've convinced almost everyone I know that I can be strong. And outside, it's quiet, and my sobs hang in the still air around me, missing a breeze to take the sound away. I wish I could run away, but it's my body making the sound, and I can't run from myself. I'm meant to have stopped wanting to get out of my own skin.

On the street corner, there's a kids' play area, and it's empty and the swings are still. I find my feet taking me there even though I'd rather go home right now. The gate screeches, rusted and stiff, when I open it, and I wince, scrunching my face up like that's going to stop it from hurting my ears.

By the time I'm sitting on the swing, though, my tears seem to have sort of stopped. So I kick my legs a few times, setting myself swinging, and then I don't want to stop kicking so I don't; I carry on, leaning back and making my own breeze. The hair tie works its way free from the lopsided braid in my hair, but if I let go of the chain to grab it I know I'll only end up falling, so instead I leave it alone. It's not like anyone's paying any attention to me here, some blonde girl playing alone on a swing set she's probably far too old for, on the corner of a street where there's a hospital and not much else.

I lose momentum after a while, and let the swing slow to almost a complete stop. I've only been doing this a few minutes, but my legs are beginning to ache, not exactly unpleasantly but in a way I'd rather not make worse. I don't like this part - when my body reminds me of how long it's been since I could last push myself like this and further without someone watching my every move.

The thought comes as the swing comes to a halt and tears spring to my eyes again. I try my best to wipe them away with the sleeve of my sweater pulled over my hand, but they appear faster than I can get rid of them, and soon I've got nothing but a patch of soggy wool and tears on my cheeks and I could really do with a tissue right now, but I don't have one. I don't make a habit of either taking a purse to my hospital appointments, or crying in public for that matter, so I couldn't have been much less prepared for today.

It's so stupid, how just a few words have left me like this, tearful and fragile-feeling, when I should've known they were coming to begin with, should've guessed that nobody trusts me to be okay once they set me free from the hell I've been living in. But the fact that they're keeping me there in that hell, when I've earned my escape even just for one summer out of my seventeen years of life, is a kind of torture in its purest form, because instead of the pressure coming from within, threatening to split me apart from the inside, it's external and it comes from the people who did their best to convince me that they were going to make me okay.

I don't know how long I stay in my thoughts and my quiet tears.

"Uh, excuse me, are you alright?"