Whatever You Want

Chapter 11

Adrienne lay flat on her back, on the unfamiliar bed with its scratchy sheets and overly warm duvet. She rolled onto her front, shuffled, rolled back and let out a sigh. She tried plumping up the pillows and rolled over a few more time before throwing the duvet on the floor and sleeping on the floor. It was pointless. The mixture of coffee, hunger and nicotine withdrawal made rest impossible. She had to have a cigarette. She would give her right arm for one puff.

The neon green display on the digital clock told her it was too late to sneak out to the corner shop. Maybe Zach was asleep, and she could sneak into his room, find her tobacco in his jean pocket and sneak back out undetected. Stealth had never been her strong suit, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

Every single footstep, no matter how delicately placed, caused the floorboards to creak and pop. Adrienne winced as she tried her best to summon her inner ninja on the long walk to Zach’s room. She pulled the handle down as slowly as she could, baring her teeth and closing one eye in concentration. As the door swung inward Adrienne heard the whirring of a computer fan. The room was lit up by the glow of three computer monitors.

“Adrienne, you’re live,” Zach hissed, spinning on an oversized computer chair to face her.

Adrienne blinked, trying to adjust her eyes to the light. “I’m alive?” It Seemed an obvious thing to point out.

“Live on air,” Zach corrected with a smile. “I’m streaming.”

Adrienne peered over Zach’s shoulder as he spun back to his screen and began furiously tapping keys and clicking his mouse. A small reflection of her face appeared in the corner of his screen as she leaned closer.

“She is just a friend,” Zach spoke to someone via his microphone.

“They’re asking about me?” Adrienne wondered aloud, perking up somewhat.

“Look here,” Zach pointed to one of the monitors.

“She’s fit.” One comment read.

“Why are you playing games when there is a girl in your room?” Another asked.

“Why are you in my room?” Zach asked.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Adrienne said. It wasn’t exactly a lie. She really couldn’t sleep. The fact she had been planning to steal back her tobacco did not need mentioning.

“You should get some sleep. You will need it for tomorrow.”

###

Every muscle in Adrienne’s body was on fire. The pain in her chest was so vivid and crushing she thought she might cough up a withered, smoke-blackened lung.

“Just five more sit-ups to go. You can do this,” Zach’s face smiled encouragement from between her knees. He held her feet firmly to the floor as she strained to lift herself and failed.

“No more!” she gasped. “I can’t. I’m gonna choke up a lung.”

“You can. You only have five more and that is the one-hour session over, I promise,” Zach assured.

“One hour!” Adrienne cried. “It’s only been one hour? Because it literally feels like we have been doing this forever. Like, I was born... and then we started this exercise set.”

Zach laughed. “Yeah, well, it would have been an hour for me. It’s been more like two.”

“This is hard,” Adrienne whined.

“I told you it would be, but you won’t get anywhere without putting the effort in,” Zach reminded her. “Come on, last five.”

After the brief respite to have a moan, Adrienne managed to recharge her batteries enough to force the final five sit-ups, before collapsing into a heap.

“Don’t you feel so much better? Like you’ve accomplished something?” Zach asked.

Adrienne felt sweaty, sore and like she was about to vomit all over herself, but she had to admit that she also felt the tingly warmth of pride. When she’d agreed to let Zach take charge of her weight loss plan, he had warned her it would be hard, so hard that she would want to run screaming and never return. She’d promised that she would stick with it, no matter what, but that hadn’t been enough for Zach.

“I need your biggest secret. Something you would never want anyone to know,” he had told her. Adrienne had sent Zach the one and only photograph of her sister's boyfriend and herself engaging in activities that others—particularly her sister—would frown upon. Perhaps it had been a mistake. She barely knew this guy, and she had given him the ammo to ruin her life if he wanted to. He said he wouldn’t. That if she stuck to his advice and did everything in his plan, she would lose the weight, be healthier and he would delete the picture from his phone and his mind. The plan had sounded perfect in theory, but the reality was far more painful.

“Please, can we eat now?” Adrienne asked as she finally pulled herself into sitting position, hoping that dinner wouldn’t be more raw veg and smoothies. She flashed her most winning smile at Zach.

“Vegetable stir-fry,” he informed her with way too much enthusiasm for a vegetable-based meal.

Adrienne slumped back onto the floor. “I can’t move downstairs unless there is meat in it for me.”

“Then I’ll carry you,” Zach said, picking up Adrienne like she weighed nothing. Being held in his strong arms made her feel small and light for the first time in ages.

“Is it possible to get carb withdrawal?” Adrienne asked, “Because I’m sure I have it. I need a fix. Just one bag of crisps?”

“No begging for food. That is a new rule,” Zach told her as he plopped her carefully into one of the dining table chairs. Raven was at the table doing homework or revising for exams within a mote of textbooks, notebooks and an assortment of coloured marker pens.

“Want some stir-fry?” Zach offered Raven.

“Oh, yes, please I’m starving,” Raven exaggerated.

“But you can eat crisps, or chocolate, or-” Adrienne strung off a list of favourite treats but halted when she realised Zach had stopped faffing with pots and pans and was glaring at her.

“Sorry, sorry,” she conceded, putting up her hands.

Oh, the things I would do for a bar of dairy milk, Adrienne thought. She watched Zach dreamily, wondering if he would take a bribe. As her mind wandered down a slippery slope into depravity if occurred to Adrienne that she hadn’t obsessed over Matty since arriving at Raven's house three nights ago. This point of this whole losing weight thing was to get Matty to notice her, yet it was Zach on her mind.

‘He is helping me, spending the whole week with me, putting all his time and effort into making me a better person,’ Adrienne realised. ‘Maybe he likes me in the way I liked Matty.’

Adrienne frowned to herself. ‘Wait? Liked Matty?’

Adrienne conjured an image of Matty in her mind's eye, the cutest, most gorgeous snapshot from her memory bank of Matty images, trying desperately to convince herself that she still adored him. She couldn’t imagine not being completely in love with Matty; she had been infatuated with him since primary school.

Lately she dreamed about Zach more than Matty. She would analyse his face, noticing the line of his jaw or the way his full lips were ever so slightly top heavy and down turned when he wasn’t smiling, which was rare. Zach usually had the slightest hint of a smile, and he smiled with his eyes as well as his mouth. This meant it was a true smile, or so Adrienne had learned from a f*******: post.

It was hopeless. Adrienne had seen Zach show pictures of his girlfriend to the guys. She was probably a supermodel or lingerie model or ... some variety of wildly exotic model.

“Zach? You have a girlfriend, right?” Adrienne blurted.

He put down the spatula and turned from the spitting fat to give Adrienne a weird look. “Why?”

Adrienne shrugged. “You never talk about her.”

“The girl I showed to Matty? She’s boring. A girl I bang because she’s hot and willing to do whatever I want,” Zach said. “But that makes me sound like a complete d**k, hence why I only really talk to the guys about it.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry...”

“Yeah you did,” Zach said, throwing a soggy noodle at Adrienne’s head.

“Hey!” Adrienne wasn’t sure what to think about Zach’s response. On one hand, it was a relief he had no feelings for the girl, but on the other, it was scary to discover how the male mind worked.

“When’s Alissa back?” Adrienne asked. She knew Alissa was back on Friday night but wanted to change the subject.

“Friday... Isn’t it?” Raven replied. “Are we really going to do this?”

Adrienne shrugged. “It seemed like the perfect plan last night.” She was honestly more concerned with the smells wafting over from the hob though the annoyingly loud extractor fan was sucking up most of the amazing aroma. She couldn’t wait to eat even if it was veg.

‘I don’t think I’ve been so hungry,’ Adrienne thought. ‘At least stir fry is fast to make.’

“It just feels...” Raven shook her head slowly. “It feels mean ... you know?”.

“That’s kinda the point,” Zach said as he passed Adrienne the most glorious plate of food she’d ever seen.

“But ... You aren’t really going to do it ... right?”

Zach paused for a moment pretending to ponder the question before shaking his head in feigned disbelief.

“Right.”