The Art of Drowning

Chapter Six

Song for this chapter - Animals by Maroon 5

It had only been around three hours since I had last eaten, yet my belly was still growling uncontrollably. I suppose that's one of the drawbacks of hunger; not only is the belly-growling incredibly embarrassing but it serves as a constant reminder of the food I can't allow myself to eat.

Obviously, I eat. I eat plenty. Rice cakes, eggs sometimes, fruit, Lily's Salted Ice Cube Diet. I'd almost forgotten about that since we went back to our rooms. I couldn't trust Lily fully yet, but she seemed nice enough and I doubt she'd give me any tips that weren't useful. The diet definitely sounded like I couldn't gain many calories from it, and I was sure it would serve as a good substitute, for times like now, when I was feeling particularly hungry.

Scheming had never really been my strong suit, even as a child, I had always left any kind of plotting or scheming down to Karen. She was just better at it. She was definitely a better liar because she had a naturally believable face; she'd always looked so innocent that people just wanted to believe her. I, on the other hand, was the exact opposite; I just looked exactly like the poster child for dishonesty, and the first image you'd think when you think of a shit stirrer. Not that I actually was. I was a bad liar - come to think of it, I think I only started to lie when I got sick.

My mum has a sister too, Allison, not that we ever see her. From what I remember of her, she was actually pretty cool; she was a lot younger than mum, only eight years older than me, actually. Maybe that was the reason she was a lot easier to get along with. Even Karen genuinely liked her, and Karen doesn't really like anyone; she just sort of pretends to most of the time.

Every Christmas and every birthday, Allison sends both Karen and I a ten pound note, inside a card that usually has a picture of one her dogs on the front. We used to see her all the time, she always used to come round to our house, mainly to drink wine and gossip about people my mum hated at work. We haven't really spoken to her at all actually since my diagnosis. I wonder if she knew about it, and if it was her or my mother that was the resident schemer when they were young.

It was probably my mum.

Meanwhile, my belly was still rumbling and it had just past 2.30am. Most of the time, I avoid staying up this late, partly due to the fact that I have absolutely nothing to do, but mainly because this is generally when the hunger starts to ramp up. You see, I've been doing this long enough now where the void in my stomach can normally go unnoticed throughout the day, but at night it's a totally different story. The emptiness just sort of consumes you when you have nothing else to think about.

At least tonight, since I wasn't going to be able to sleep, I could try out Lily's technique. Lily said all that you have to do is put salt on ice cubes and suck on them, which seemed simple enough. The problem was actually getting into the kitchen in the first place. To be honest, it didn't seem that difficult, but as I've already mentioned I'm not very good at being sneaky, and I was pretty sure that if I got caught I would be in trouble. Not that the nurses would dislike me sneaking into the kitchen to eat; in fact they might even be happy about it considering my normal meal patterns. They would definitely have something to say about what it was I was eating though - I don't think anyone here would actually class it as a meal and they would probably start to get worried over nothing. No, it was better to keep any midnight snacking on ice cubes a secret.

I walked across my room to the blinds. Having already closed them to make sure the nurses thought I had long gone to bed, I slyly pried open two of the slats to peer into the common area. Squinting in the darkness, I watched as Dr. Collins and some of the other nurses began to pack up their things as they got ready to leave the hospital. It must be almost three.