the kind of cold that creeps into your bones

The sun wakes me. Sunshine, for the first time in days. My eyes are so heavy. I have to drag them open. My brain is filled with static. My body feels like it belongs to someone else. It is uncomfortably bright. Sunshine. This should make me happy. Right?

I walk down the stairs, slow and dizzy, and he greets me with a smile. I force the corners of my mouth upwards, but I feel nothing. He's talking, happy to see me awake. I feel like I've forgotten how to be human. My responses are slow, delayed. I sit down on the couch because my legs can't support the weight on my shoulders anymore.

"What's wrong?" He asks, his eyebrows knitting together.

"I'm just tired." I say, and it's true. I am tired. I want to lie back down and never wake up again.

"You're tired?" He raises an eyebrow, laughing a little as he glances at the clock. I've been asleep for a long time. "How are you tired? That's crazy."

I try to arrange my face into what might pass for a sheepish grin, running a heavy, heavy hand through my tangled hair. "Yeah. Crazy."

I can't wake up. I'm trapped in dreamland, slowly drowning.

...

Last night we went to a concert, standing room only. I wore long underwear, my winter coat, a knit hat, and a bulky knit scarf. I spent most of the concert shivering. My friend gave me her gloves with a raised eyebrow. I took them, but I still shivered. I swayed on my feet, but not to the music.

Don't you dare pass out. Don't you dare. I fiercely berated myself for three hours. Around me my friends danced and clapped and sang. I stood frozen and dull with exhaustion.

Finally in the car, he let me turn the heat all the way up. By the time we got home, I'd managed to stop shivering. The few feet from the car to the house set me off again. Upstairs getting undressed, I almost started crying. I couldn't feel my fingers or my toes. I was shaking. He pulled me into bed and wrapped his warm body around me, holding me close until I fell asleep.

I did really good this week.

But today defeated me.

In this haze, this thick fog, I ate. My feet walked into the kitchen. My hands put food in my mouth. I ate and I ate and I ate.

Oatmeal. Half of a gyro. Half a box of hot tamales. Peanut butter. An apple. Popcorn. Chocolate milk.

I ate and somewhere in the back of my mind, I hated myself. I felt guilty. I felt ashamed. But I didn't stop.

I forced myself to workout, pushed myself to speed walk up that treadmill incline for 70 minutes. Punishment. Retribution. Justice.

But really, I feel nothing. I feel nothing at all.