Exile (Fictional story)

She turned the music to which she was exercising to up.

 

Her Mom and Dad were arguing again. Instinctively Sarah knew that she would find out about what later on, when she would have to put up with her mother droning on and on, slurring her words as she forced Sarah into being her unwilling confident yet again. But that was later. For now Sarah could focus with laser precision on the task at hand.

 
The half an apple Sarah had eaten an hour ago was filling her with a blind and insurmountable panic. Sarah was convinced she could feel herself filling out.

“Must work harder, must work harder” was the mantra that repeated itself over and over again in her head, adding fuel to the fear induced adrenalin that coursed its way through her trembling body. The bones that Sarah had spent so much time meticulously revealing and peeling back the layers from were beginning to groan under the vile fatness that threatened to overwhelm her. In an hour when the two post eating hours of exercise were over Sarah knew that she would be safe again and back in control and on target.

 
That evening as expected her mother sat on the end of Sarah’s bed giving a blow by blow account of who had said what during that days slanging match. The room reverberated with the wrongs of a man who was not there to defend himself and Sarah could feel a familiar and dangerous rage filling her. Her eyes focused on her favourite poster of Kate and she drank in every detail, the curve of her shoulder bones as they protruded and supported the straps of the dress she wore, the way the silky material clung to the void of her chest. Iconic and triumphant, Kate was everything Sarah wished to be. Her body spoke of cool reasoning and ice cold detachment, a shelter from the world.

 
“He just doesn’t understand me love, he never has”

“I gave the best of myself to him and it just wasn’t enough”

“I’ve cooked and cleaned, put up with his friends and family, and what for?

“Nothing”

“Nothing but being a slave in this bloody house”

“I can’t bear it Sarah love, I just can’t bare it”

“This place feels like a tomb”