Draft:

He would not wait with her.

-

The quaint wooden coffee table and cushioned seats didn't fool her – magazines lay dusty and the faint buzzing of the air-conditioning served only to heighten the silence. Strained whispers rustled past her with an awkward cacophony of scratching paper, and the ironic shrieks of small children in the next room made her blood pulse louder in her ears as her head spun and she waited, numb except for a small itch on her left wrist that she dare not move to ease. She, as the others, watched each other from the corners of their eyes as the receptionist cheerfully greeted a couple at the front desk: “Hi! You’re the 7.30? Just have a seat, read and fill these out and bring them back to me.”

They would keep telling her it was hers to choose. But she knew better than that.

-

“Is she sleeping?”

She opened her eyes slowly, making sure she stayed perfectly still. She was still dizzy from the anaesthetic. Straining to hear footsteps on the carpet outside the room, she inched herself upright and reached into her bag lying open on the floor beside the bed to check the time on her phone.

One message, from her sister: “How was breakfast with John?”

-

Her mind hung like oil on dishwater, temporarily at uneasy rest. She stared, glassy-eyed and pale, deep into the drain of her bathroom sink as she held her hair back with one hand and wielded a toothbrush with the other. Her thoughts, detached and empty, slunk quietly through her head. I’m just brushing my teeth. It’s no big deal.

It was often that she stepped out of the shower after too long standing motionless under the scalding spray, as hot as she could stand it, wishing she would melt away. And she would put her track pants back on and know that she had to get ready to leave but instead she would sit, quiet on the floor of her room in her underwear, watching her pile of clothes like maybe something would fit her today. But if, after endless blank staring, she could muster the courage to pick something up to put on, the sight that greeted her in the mirror would knock the courage back out from her body and again she would sink to the ground while her phone began to ring and once again, she missed her deadlines.

-

She stared at the wall, brow furrowed, cross-legged on the bed. The blank light of her laptop monitor threw faint, cold shadows across her cheek as she sat silently. She wasn’t crying tonight. She was thinking.

Text scrolled haltingly up the screen – small, quick movements calling her attention with limited success. She wasn’t there.

-

There were the beginnings of an ocean on her pillow. But at least she had learned to cry silently. Her routine had been set, anyway. She would finish that day as she finished the previous – standing, shivering, hopeless and disappointed. She would ask herself to be happy, but she had given up believing in happiness. She could not be. Not until she could count them in the mirror, rib by hollow rib. And probably not even then.

-

She felt no outrage as he spoke. His words washed over her like acid rain, but she felt no pain. She felt nothing.

She had nothing else to offer. His hands on her wrists and his mouth over hers - as if to silence her - told her as much.

They would keep telling her it was hers to choose. But she knew better than that.

She shut her eyes.

-

Grit your teeth. Bite your tongue. It’s not important.

Her memory was fading in shallow breaths and vacant expression. She would try, occasionally, to recall what came before. But they had taken more than unwelcome lives that morning. And that second morning. Each morning colder than the one before. And perhaps, her hopes slurred, the next morning her body would wake just as cold.

They would keep telling her it was hers to choose. But she knew better than that.

-

She watched as the wind flipped rudely through her planner as if searching for something important. The pages were increasingly empty these days. Pretty though.

She could hear people passing her, close but unseeing. Their laughter, thrown like bricks to shatter her silent glass; questions not seeking an answer. These conversations had no purpose. She simply slipped through the crowd; a broken grain of sand through a bed of careless rock and no one stopped her.

-

Her footsteps were slowing now. Faltering. She knew but her conscious was wearing thin. She would dream and she would lie there – for now. And pretty soon, the red would fade.

They would keep telling her it was hers to choose. But she knew better than that.

¾

Damien was pleased about taking her out for dinner tonight. She always made such an effort to dress up and even though she was always running late and he had to wait in the car in front of her house every time he picked her up, when she walked out of that door she always looked excited and amazing. Then they would head to a local restaurant and she would spend the time joking, laughing and eating even more than he could. It was refreshing to spend a little time with a girl that didn't order “just a salad, hold the dressing” and spend the meal pushing leaves around her plate.

And he didn't mind waiting while she rushed off to the bathroom right after the meal clutching her bag, because she always returned with her eyes glistening, makeup touched up and stomach almost too flat to have eaten as much as she did. Then they would go for a drink and she would always want dessert. How she stayed so thin he didn't know, but even though he knew she saw other guys, he enjoyed the heads turning and the jealous eyes of the boys he passed on the street when he was with her. The best part was that she was genuinely beautiful and fun to be around. Of course he never said that to her face, only that she was “pretty hot”. But surely she knew.

-

It was Friday again, Mark was exhausted and it was 5 minutes into his shift at work. Busy unpacking stock, he turned and spotted his friend, smart in her black shirt and tie, checking the To Do list on the whiteboard intensely.

‘Hey! How was your day off?’

She turned and her face transformed. Her smile was like a mask lifted off her face and pure sunshine shone out. She beamed at him.

‘Yeah, not bad! You look chipper,’ she chuckled. ‘Don’t worry, only 8hrs to go!’

Mark groaned and laughed as she literally skipped out of the room to look for the vacuum cleaner.

‘How can someone be so happy at 6:30am?’ he mumbled to himself wonderingly as he turned back to the mess of boxes.

-

Phil spotted her, stopped at a light on Springvale Road last Tuesday. Or at least he thought he did, because it looked like her only she looked so tired. She looked so blank and pale, but that wasn't like her at all. ‘Must not be her,’ he thought to himself as the light turned green and the car slowly took off down the street. It swerved a little, like the girl that must not have been her at the wheel was maybe drunk or falling asleep at 3 o’clock in the afternoon.

-

Brian was her boss, but he was more like her friend. And he knew she hadn’t eaten today.

‘You’re on break, beautiful. It’s been 7 hours and you know you’ve got at least another 5 to go, so go grab something to eat!’

She fumbled in her bag and he noticed that her purse, slightly open on the table, looked odd. It looked empty, but she tucked it into her jacket pocket before he had a chance to see for sure. Black pants hanging loosely on her increasingly slim frame, she crossed her legs on the chair and pulled out a compact to powder the dark circles he suddenly noticed under her eyes. She giggled mischievously and blew her foundation at him.

‘Nah I had something before. I might get something later; I’m not hungry now anyway. And the shop is so far!’ she complained. She laughed again. ‘Maybe I’ll just ride this office chair there so I don’t have to walk,’ she joked. She flicked open the magazine in front of her.

-

She was meant to meet Karen at 12:30pm for lunch but it was 12:45pm and she was nowhere in sight. Not that this was an uncommon occurrence, and Karen knew that. She was always late and it was annoying as hell but at least she was consistent about it. Karen called her phone again.

-

Cameron found them by accident. She’d left something in her car so she let Cameron into the house and ran back to get it, and when he walked into her room he found the pamphlets tucked behind her pillows at the head of her bed. “Suggested exercises for abortion recovery.” “Symptoms of post-partum depression.”

‘None of my business, I guess,’ he muttered, confused. He turned to walk back out of her room, not seeing the tri-folded letter that had slipped to the floor beside the bed.

-

But one day Alice walked past the bathroom and heard some strange noises. She tried to open the door but it was locked, but after hearing the tap run for a minute, her sister opened the door and peered out.

‘Sorry, thought you were asleep.’ She smiled, eyes red and tired.

‘I heard something, are you okay?’ Alice asked, concerned. ‘Were you throwing up?’

Her eyes flickered as a shadow seemed to pass over her face, just for a split second. ‘I’m fine,’ she shrugged. ‘Just a cough or something I guess.’

Alice nodded and watched her sister shuffle back to her bedroom. She’d heard that noise more than once in the last few months when her sister brushed her teeth.

-

Her vision was blurry. She could make out lights and some distant echo, but aside from the cold hardness of the floor and a dull ache, her senses seemed not to be working.

They could no longer tell her it was hers to choose. It was too late, and she was so tired.

She closed her eyes again.

-

Alice was crying. Her sister’s friends, gathered around the hospital bed, simply stood in somber silence.  In her hand, she held the doctor’s letter the termination clinic had sent through her sister to the GP, marked Confidential Referral. It was meant to be delivered unopened but she’d found it, fallen to the floor beside her sister’s bed.

“Patient Advisory:-

Initial diagnosis is Severe Clinical Depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder stemming from domestic abuse; Presenting suicidal tendencies; High risk of other anxiety disorders including Anorexia/Bulimia.”

Her eyes fluttered open, the pain obvious. Her face had grown pale and haggard, and there were scars on her knuckles where she’d grazed them on her teeth in her efforts to “purge”. They could see where she’d scratched marks into her wrists and the bruises on her stomach from grabbing and pinching in disgust and desperation. And there was a smudge of ink on her hand from the pen that had leaked when she collapsed, gripping desperately the worn blue book they recognized as an increasingly regular installment at her bedside the last ten years. Words etched of agony and despair that only she had read.

‘Emma.’

She shook slightly in her attempt to smile.

How could they not have seen?