Phoenix didn't take long in the office. She was on the verge of eating almost half of the clay. If it hadn't been for Anna, she would have finished the whole bowl.
"What happened?" Anna asked after taking the bowl which she counted the rest of the clay left. It was less than twenty. Anna glared at her wide a surprised look. Phoenix was not ready to answer her question.
"Were you reading the contract?" She asked again. She received a nod as an answer.
"Why'd you consume so much?" Anna knew she was an addict to the clay.
Yet, that didn't mean she should eat it as breakfast and lunch!
Phoenix herself knew she had gone too far. Just reading the contract made her to eat more than thirty pieces of the clay. She rarely ate it while working. Or sometimes took not more than five of it at work.
The contract sounded insane and very assuring. She would take a new piece when getting to a paragraph.
The highest she could go for a day was exactly hundred and fifty pieces. That's mostly when she's bored and sad. What happened today was solely the contract's fault.
But she couldn't blame the contract too. The clay really did things to her that she never felt like she was once a lonely savaged girl.
"Call it a day," Anna told her. She wasn't happy with her friend at all. She had a clue that the clay was perfectly fine in her system, but it was too much. How could she consume over thirty pieces in less than three hours.
She couldn't even finish one in a day when Phoenix had handed her a piece last week. It is sweet scented and yummy. But... It was clay and a baked one on top of that as well.
"I thought of that as well," for the first time Phoenix agreed with her on something not relating to work. She showed a big smile to her friend while swooping her off her seat.
"No time wasting. You can continue this tomorrow. There's plenty of time to consider it," she took the contract from Phoenix and handed her cell phone and purse to her.
They both went out of her office.
"Bye..." Anna waved her friend goodbye after ensuring that she got into her car. She didn't allow her to drive and rather gave the car keys to Bob, one of the guards to drive Phoenix to her flat.
Phoenix sat in the backseat watching the retreating back of her friend.
She didn't have the urge to work. Her of all people.
The taste of the clay still lingered on her tongue. She wondered what Julie placed in it to make her want it that much.
Phoenix instructed Bob to return her car to the company. She wouldn't get out of her shell anyway.
Bob waited till his boss entered the tall building and into the elevator before driving away. Anna had instructed him to see to it that she got into the elevator before he left the place. She didn't want her friend going back to that family mansion.
Phoenix unlocked her flat with a card. She stood behind the door after closing it. Staring into the empty space of her thoughts. She removed her heels and got into a bunny slippers, and strode to the couch she had left cold behind when going to City A.
Phoenix took a small neck pillow supporting her head with it. She lay in the couch lazily. Just walking up the staircase to her room was a problem.
This place is where she calls home. She moved in here when she began Uni. Her crazy mother had falsely accused her of stealing Phoebe's place in one of their holiday travels. She had angrily walked out of the house when her father whom she thought would say something on her behalf also repeated his wife's mistake.
The place was very spacious like somebody's three bedroom house with everything they dreamt of having in the house. She had everything that she used to have back in the mansion there. A library, gym, swimming pool, her study room and still had the three bedrooms intact.
She liked it very much, having her own life and willpower, which sometimes she would be bored or sad for being such a lonely jerk. The only solution is to vent her anger on the clay. There and she would eat as much as she could to take away her boredom.
She didn't eat normally like people did. She was healthy but in her own eyes she saw nothing. Her kitchen was filled with the clay. Its boxes and bowls. The fridge was filled with clay products. Julie had supplied her everything. She had clay face max, clay body smash, clay powder for heavy massages.
Her fridge would only be filled when Willmar, her closest friend visited.
Willmar would throw away all the clay products and fill the fridge with eggs, vegetables, fruits and fill her freezer with prepared foods.
Her phone began to ring. Just the person she wanted to talk to.
"Hey girlfriend, how's it going?" Willmar asked teasingly. She was the first to know about Phoenix and Phoebe's ride to City A. She knew it didn't go well and wouldn't even ask.
"I feel lazy," Phoenix blurted out. For all her life on earth, after the old lady's departure, Willmar had been her guide. If it hadn't been for her, she would be in a mental asylum the rest of her life.
"Wait for me. We are going out," Phoenix smiled to herself.
"Real,"
"Yes," and she hangs up. They two met at Uni. Well---they were roommates. Two knights from different kingdoms in the same hut. It wasn't easy in the first semester. But both managed to confront the other. Willmar was also an addict. Hers was most crazy. She could smoke two packets of cigarettes a day. She too had a similar background as Phoenix, and managed to be herself.
Phoenix helped her to overcome smoking and later quit it. Willmar in return also helped Phoenix by talking her out of committing suicide everyday. At the end of their second yaer at Uni, Phoenix had a tattoo of an eagle underneath her spinal cord and her boobs as well almost on her cleavage.
Willmar was surprised as in why she hadn't chosen the bird of her name. Her answer shocked Willmar.
The eagle is the king of all birds and she wanted to leave long after her friend delivered her.