Truly, Madly, Like Me - Jo Watson Page 0,13
Insta, Twitter, then check my emails, WhatsApp. Then go to my list app to see what I had planned for the day. Log my mood. Start the pedometer to count my steps. Then go to the app that planned my social media posts, my app that prioritized my daily, weekly and yearly goals, my motivational app that provided me with thoughtful daily motivation, the app that tracked my heart rate; I might even check the weather for the week to start thinking about the kinds of outfits I could wear for my posts, and then, if there was time, spend some time interior-designing a room . . . but I needed the internet for all of those.
“Shit!” I paced some more. Everything felt wrong. I felt like I was free-falling. All the things that held me together and kept me in place were gone. And I needed to be kept in place. For most of my life I had felt out of control, and it wasn’t until I decided to lose weight that I finally understood the importance of control. The importance of routine and repetition and all the small things that I did every single day that kept me focused and made me feel calm. And now all of that was gone, and I felt like I was falling apart.
Screw that elevator!
This had been the elevator’s fault. If I hadn’t run late for that shoot, I would still be with @TheKyleWhite101. We would be happy and I would still have my car and my followers and I wouldn’t have made such an embarrassing public spectacle of myself, and I would not be here in this dark and dingy room with no bloody internet feeling like I was quickly unraveling. I walked over to the window and flung the curtains and—
“Youuuuuu,” I rasped, dragging the word out as I caught the dark, lurking figure on the opposite side of the road. He was sitting there right by my car, as if he’d been there the whole time—which really made me question my mind. He was looking at my room, waiting and watching like a creepy little stalker. I mustered my courage and walked over to the door. I flung it open, but it hit the wall and then came flying back towards me and hit my arm.
“Crap! Ouch,” I winced and looked down at my arm. A small cut had appeared and it was bleeding. I rushed to the bathroom and ran water over the cut and then dabbed it with some tissue paper. But then, I froze . . .
I turned slowly. He was sitting in my doorway now.
I grabbed onto the bathroom door, ready to slam it if he came rushing towards me. Only he didn’t. He stood up and started wagging his tail. I wondered if this was some kind of ploy to lure me into thinking he was a nice dog. I didn’t trust that tail wag at all. And when he stepped towards me, I slammed the bathroom door shut. I stayed there for at least five minutes before I opened it and peered outside. And when I did, I wasn’t surprised to find him mysteriously disappeared once more.
I went to breakfast at around ten a.m. I’d spent an hour doing my make-up and straightening my hair—I needed to play out at least one of my usual morning routines to make me feel somewhat normal. But, even so, I was feeling anything but normal by the time I dragged myself there. Breakfast was one of those buffet vibes. Sausages, mushy scrambled eggs, bacon and mushrooms—nothing that looked Insta-worthy at all. Usually breakfast for me was a two-hour affair. I would wake up early to make it, usually a smoothie bowl. Do you know how competitive the #smoothiebowl art world is on Instagram? Getting likes takes hours of planning; cutting your fruit into cute heart shapes and placing it together perfectly with edible flowers, sprinkled chai seed patterns and then lighting it and getting just the right shot at just the right angle!
But lately it had been getting harder and harder to get likes. I mean, this one girl was making bloody unicorns out of frozen yoghurt. And this other vegan blogger was making her bowl look like a beach scene with turtles made of fruit on a beach of granola next to a swirling green and blue spirulina smoothie sea, for heaven’s sake! It was no longer enough to put frozen berries on your smoothies,