Seph

Ronalda is in the kitchen, cleaning the oven, when I walk in. I swear she cleans it every week and it barely gets used. She does most of our cooking, but my parents order in a lot. She hears me come into the room and looks over, already putting down the scrub cloth and starts washing her hands at the tap.

  "Good morning, Sunshine." She has this big smile on her face that I wish would rub off on me.

  "Yeah, sure."

  "What's gotten you into a mood?" she asks, now drying her hands on the towel by the stove.

  I sigh. "Well, I need a cigarette," I whisper to her.

  Ronalda shakes her head and gives me a disappointed look. "In my coat pocket."

  I slip through the room towards the coat rack and grab the half-full pack from her coat pocket before going back to the kitchen. Ronalda is still staring at me.

  "If your parents finds out-"

 "They won't," I say quickly.

  She picks up the rag and starts spraying and wiping the large kitchen island as she continues,    "How have things been with your new friend?" She is back to smiling at me, which I'm glad about.

  She saw me kissing Kian on Monday, but we haven't talked about him yet.

  "I don't know," I shrug. "My parents don't approve."

  Ronalda shakes her and head and ducks in closer to me. "They never will."

  I don't need to explain any of it to Ronalda. She knows about my eating disorder. She's supposed to report to my mom about how much I eat each day. She knows my parents keep a close eye on me. But she doesn't need to know that Kian is from Riverside or that he sells drugs or that he was in jail. She just wants to see me happy. I don't need to give her any reasons to be against this friendship.

  "I like him. It's just... there's a lot of things stopping us from being friends," I explain.

   "Like?"

  I swallow hard. "He lives an hour away."

  "That's not so bad."

   "He's... financially challenged."

  Ronalda laughs out loud and then shrugs again. "Me too, girl."

  "We're just really different."

  "Josephine, nothing is ever perfect. You may come from money but he might be exactly what you need. You looked pretty darn happy when I saw you with him."

  I smile and pull at the bottom of my shirt. "I have to keep it a secret, if I keep seeing him."

  "What does he think about that?" Ronalda wants to know. I can tell she doesn't really think it's a good idea.

  "He agrees. I think for different reasons, but..."

  "You'll do what's right." Ronalda turns back to the sink to get a new cloth. "Have you eaten?"

  I take in a deep breath. She's not as pushy about food with me as my parents are, but it still gets to me. "I will."

  "How about I make some eggs and we eat together?" she suggests.

  I close my eyes and visually myself eating eggs. It's one of the things my therapist asked me to try. Eggs sounds good. While I'm thinking about it, I hear the front door close. My mom's gone, now.

  I want  to eat. But I don't know how to convince myself not to throw it up afterwards.

  "I know it's hard. You need to be ready to make the changes-" Ronalda goes on, but I interrupt.

  "I do want to," I snap.

  "Okay. Then I'll call you when the eggs are ready." She forces another smile and spins around to pull out a frying pan.

  I nod - reluctantly - and head back upstairs.

*

I eat.

  This morning, it's not hard to eat. Ronalda keeps me calm, overall. She distracts me by asking about my drawings. She wants to see them. I haven't shown her any in while. She asks me more about Kian, but I don't give her a lot of details. When I finish the whole plate of eggs, she looks thrilled. Her eyes light up. I know she can't wait to report to my mom that I ate breakfast. I feel like a toddler being praised for eating. But my biggest feat will be keeping it down.

  Within minutes, I feel the urge. My stomach feels too full. It feels heavy and I feel gross. My brain tells me I'll feel better when I get rid of the eggs. I almost always give in to that nagging feeling. I wish I could just stop.

  "You want to go sit outside with me for a bit?" Ronalda can sense I'm struggling. It's like she makes her job to distract me.

  "You're not my babysitter. I'm nineteen," I tell her plainly.

  She smiles. "It's crazy. I have been working here since you were ten."

  Ronalda knows me very well. She knew me as a little kid. She knew me as a very broken teenager, who was angry at the world. And she saw me as my eating disorder began and continued to get worse.

  She's trying to distract me again. If she can just keep an eye on me, maybe I won't go upstairs and throw up. Maybe this could be my first good day in a long time.

  "You were such a happy child, Josephine," she goes on.

  I scoff and push the empty plate away from me. All of a sudden I can't believe I ate that much. I have to get out of here. I have to go, get rid of that food.

  "I'm sorry about what happened to you, Josephine. You know that. But you should-"

  "What? I should what?"  I shout, already ready to run.

  She's trying to help but she's making it worse. She looks so surprised that I yelled at her, and I feel bad right away. Ronalda never deserves to be yelled at. She's been my sidekick and my friend for years, when I had no one else.

 "Let's go sit outside?" she asks instead.

  I know I should agree to this. It's easy, go sit outside by the pool and don't go upstairs to throw up my breakfast. To a normal person, there would be no question. But it's not that simple to me, and right now I'm triggered.

  "No, thanks." I stand up and push in the chair. I don't want to be rude to her but I have to go and make myself sick. I won't feel okay until I do.

  I'm already out of the kitchen and heading upstairs when she reacts and calls after me.  She can't save me, though, even if she thinks she can. No one can fix me. I want to be ready to change, but it's not that easy.

  I'm in my bathroom with my body slumped over the toilet a few minutes later. I try to talk myself out of it on the way upstairs, but it doesn't work. It's habit. It's addiction. It's the worst curse anyone could experience. It feels horrible and awful but somehow it feels good and right, in the moment.

  Afterward, when I'm running the water for a shower, my heart is beating too fast. I actually thought today could be a good day. Last night was good. I told Kian my secret and he hugged me, he called me beautiful. He should be enough of a reason to want to stop this. But I couldn't break the cycle today and I feel a million things at once - but especially guilt.