Free My Secret Life by Leanne Waters Page B

that others surely take for granted as I did before. From making a cup of tea, to dialling a number on the telephone and even trying to write, my hands felt like they were cramping up and just couldn’t work with quite the same efficiency.
    The worst memory I have of being extremely cold was at a friend’s birthday party. It was August and given the fortunate weather of late, said companion resolved to throw a barbecue in her garden to celebrate. It had been only a few hours since the party began when shadows started chasing one another on the ground and the sun was remembered only through the amber and pink remnants imprinted in the sky. Darkness fell and with it, the heat of the sun vanished. Heaters and garden lights dotted the gathering of people and I gravitated toward them, unable to focus on much else. As always, I tried my best to stay perfectly in sync with the chorus of conversation around me. Part of being perfect was to always appear so and with this ideal in mind, I thought it best to simply ignore the distraction of my numb fingers and toes. I laughed and smiled, playing my part faultlessly and still managing to avoid the food passing from plate to plate. But my skin prickled so much that it began to sting. My feet may as well have detached themselves from my body and taken a walk elsewhere, while my nose was about to crumble and turn inwards into my face.
    ‘Jesus!’ someone choked beside me. ‘Leanne, you’re lips are blue! Are you cold?’ I laughed it off uncertainly before making a swift exit from the situation and to the nearest bathroom. When I looked in the mirror, it took a moment to fully appreciate what exactly was looking back at me. Yes, my lips had gone a faded shade of blue-gray and seemed to jump out from my face, which had turned a deathly white. I looked like a porcelain doll, I thought, except for the flawless finish. I had put my make-up on immaculately that evening, leaving no room for mistakes or blemishes anywhere. And yet, something looked different about my face. Something was wrong with it. Aside from the very obvious bizarreness of my blue lips, my complexion was gaunt and hallowed. It reminded me of a cracked painting, damaged through the years of wear and tear. Though you saw no out-of-place contour from my forehead to my chin, the overall composure was ghostly. It wasn’t my face. I stared at my own reflection, convinced that there was someone else in the room with me.
    I was so suddenly stricken with panic. My hands had been shaky and uneasy for as long as I could remember, but now they trembled violently along with the rest of my body. My knees clattered against one another and my pores began to release cold perspiration. Finally, my throat started to close up and I couldn’t breathe. Something terrible was about to happen, I was sure of it. With that one fleeting thought, I was mentally committed to the notion that there was no escaping this horrible event that was about to unfold. It could have been anything; the bathroom door was jammed and I was about to faint with claustrophobia or the roof was about to fall in on me. Someone in the garden was about to fall and hit their head because I left my bag thrown on the ground or someone was about to burst in and accuse me of not eating. It didn’t matter what it was. For some reason, in that moment, I was doomed and the reality of this brought me to the floor. I was nauseous, my head was spinning and I wanted to get as close to the ground as possible. I curled up in a foetal position on the tiles; cold, shaking and dizzy. It was as if I was watching myself from the eyes of a third person. I witnessed everything a split-second after I did it. I saw myself get up, pace momentarily and eventually wrap my arms around my knees on the bathroom tiles. I would have cried but the anxiety had paralysed my body. I couldn’t catch my breath long enough to even do so. Without a doubt, I was definitely going to vomit. I closed my eyes for