(TRIGGER WARNING: eating disorder)

SEVERAL HOURS LATER, I could feel my limbs start to go numb from tiredness and my eyes feel like I’d been punched repeatedly.

The clock by the table read 2:04.

Mum had drifted off to sleep again.

I could hear Miles talking with someone outside, a voice oddly familiar.

“What happened to the meeting with the art show director?” Michelle asked, I realised, as I poked my head around the door. She looked as beautiful as ever, maybe a little tired with her dark circles and sunken cheeks but my brain was too busy focusing on her words to think much more of it.

They were both sat on the chair adjacent to the room.

“Art show director?” I asked, drawing both of their attentions to me. When neither of them made a move to answer, and Miles looked down bashfully, I connected the dots myself. “You gave up organising that art show you’ve been talking about to pick me up from the airport?” I questioned.

He shrugged as if it wasn’t the biggest opportunity of his life. “You needed me.”

“Michelle?” I asked, tearing my gaze away from Miles. “What’re you doing here? I thought you were with Houman?”

“Yeah,” she said with a humourless laugh, getting up. “That didn’t work out so well.” I watched as she wobbled on her feet for a moment.

“Michelle?” I asked as she continued to sway slightly. She didn’t answer. I was tempted to look at Miles but almost just as I turned my head, she’d crumpled into a pile on the floor. “Michelle!”

I placed her head on my lap, watching her eyes seem to roll for a moment before she’s blinking rapidly. I don’t really know what to do as I tell Miles to go get someone.

“No,” she says, and I feel her hand on my arm. I look to her panicked face. “I’m fine.”

“I’ll get some water and food,” Miles said, turning on his heel and heading round the corner to where I imagined a vending machine was or, remembering passing the large thing earlier, the water machine.

We stayed for a few moments in silence. She had picked herself up into a seating position, and now we were both leant against the wall, opposite the chairs. I waited for her to initiate it, for her to tell me what the hell that was. And by her inability to look me in the eye, I knew she knew I wouldn’t accept a dismissive lie.

She looked at me, green eyes wavering. Her mouth opened as if to say something, but she clamped it closed when a nurse poked her head round the corner from a room.

“You alright, lovelies?” She asked, ageing face wrinkling further as she smiled.

I looked to her then to Michelle. She seemed to withdraw into herself, pushing her body further and further into the wall. “Yes, thank you.” The nurse nodded before hearing a call from her room and returning to her patient.

Again, we remained in silence.

Any progress we made seemed to have obliterated at the nurse’s interruption, no matter her good intentions. It was as if upon seeing her, Michelle remembered where she was. I noticed how she held herself here— a sense of familiarity and yet, like she’d rather be anywhere else.

Miles returned, handing her the small plastic cup of water. His height was emphasised with our seated position. But he lowered himself opposite us and leant his back against the chairs, long legs stretched they were on either side of me and Michelle.

“How was going to see Houman’s family?” I asked. I watched her reaction: the way she dipped her head with a slight shake, and squeezed her fingers together until her knuckles went painfully white.

“Great,” she said, sarcasm lacing her words. I gave her a pointed look. “It really was, until we had this huge fight.”

“What was it about?” I asked, feeling Miles’ eyes on my face.

She scoffed, as if remembering it. “I couldn’t eat whilst I was there,” she admitted, eyes on the floor. “He thought I was being rude.”

I took her hand in mine, so similar to my mother’s before her dramatic decline, but when she was still crumbling. “It’s more than that, Michelle.”

“And you would know, Jolie?” She asked suddenly, nostrils flaring and rolling her eyes. “You would know about my life?” She snatched her hand from mine.

“I’m just trying to understand,” I told her, voice lowered like my mother did so well, able to soothe me in seconds. I prayed it had the same effect on her. “You fainted. That’s not something to take lightly.”

“You need to eat,” Miles spoke up, his calming presence useful in a situation like this. I followed his gaze to the biscuit she was fiddling with in her hand.

“You don’t have to tell us,” I told her, placing my hand on her crossed legs. “Just know we’re here and we’ll support you in any way we can.”

There was a pregnant pause.

“I was diagnosed with anorexia a few years ago,” she said, almost so quietly I didn’t catch it. Her voice cracked when she said the word, fingers busy picking at her skin. She drew her legs to her chest and hugged them, pulling her thick jacket closer.

Everything— maybe not everything, but certainly a lot of things— suddenly made sense.
Then not being with everyone at dinner. Her getting off her head drunk after one or two glasses of wine. And also, her discoloured skin she’d tried so hard to cover with make up.

My stomach churned uncomfortably to think those comments the media had made about her that Autumn had told me about were accountable for, or at least played a part in, her deteriorating self worth.

“Does Houman know?” I asked.

“He was the one that made me go to the doctor,” she said. There was no resentment there, yet no thankfulness either, just something coming close to regret. “It’s just so hard, going to someone and having to have them tell you something’s wrong. I was managing fine. It’s not like I was skeletal. I was average.”

“It’s not about being skinny,” he said, “It’s about disordered eating. Guilt about eating. It’s obsession.”

“We care about you,” I told her. “We only want you to be happy.”

“You shouldn’t,” she whispered. “I don’t deserve people caring about me.”

“You are deserving as much as everybody else,” Miles said, taking his dark hand in her ghostly pale one. “The things telling you you’re not,” he said, finger to his head, “Is the illness talking. It’s lying to you.”

“I know Houman cares too,” I said, taking the packaged biscuit from the floor where she’d put it. I tore open the corner. “He may not know how to show it a lot of the time, but I know he only want what’s best for you.”

A sob racked through her body. I noticed when she cried, her german accent was evermore prevalent. “I’ve made everyone I need hate me.”

I shook my head. “You haven’t pushed them away. They’re all ready to help you whenever you need. Archer,” his name felt like knives in my throat but I carried on after a beat. “Autumn, Noah, Houman all love you. You’d have to do an awful lot to turn them against you.”

“I hope you’re right.”

***

I’d excused myself to go to the bathroom. I checked in on Mum, as I had every fifteen or so minutes. When I came back, Miles and Michelle were talking between each other, and the dragon woman I hardly recognised even managed to smile as he grinned widely, obviously trying out a joke or two.

“What are you doing here anyway?” I asked, as I plopped down beside her, handing both of them a fresh cup of water.

“Getting help,” she said with a shrug. “Or at least trying to, anyway. Fifth floor.”

An involuntary smile grew on my face. “That’s amazing,” I said, nudging her shoulder with mine. “How did you know we were here?” We were on the eighth floor, so her making the effort to come up warmed my heart.

“I saw you both run past,” she said, tucking her large red curls behind her ear. “What are you here for anyway? I thought you were meant to be in France?”

My throat constricted. “My mum,” I said simply, nodding towards the door. “We’re here for her.”

“Oh, I see,” she said. “Is she ok?”

I looked to Miles, finding strength in his dark eyes. I turned to Michelle once more, “She has cancer,” I said. “It’s aggressive.”

Following the intensity of what we’d been talking about, conversation drifted onto lighter topics. She told us about Houman’s home and the country, describing it in such a way that had both Miles and I fixated, the images she was creating clear in our minds. Every time she spoke of anything even remotely to do with the prince, her eyes filled with excitement and then dimmed into disappointment.

I checked my watch.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. “I’ll be two seconds,” I told the two of them. They both nodded, and Miles began asking question after question about the country’s traditions and clothing and even the art, which surprisingly, Michelle delved into great detail on.

“You took your time,” I said to the boy before me, noticing the man hovering not too far away. “Did you get held up?”

“Yes,” he said, eyes flicking to the brisk man with a scowl. “A… security issue.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said with a wave of my hand. “She needs you.”

He held my wrist to stop me as I began to lead the way. The material of his gloves was soft against my hand. He seemed to struggle with keeping his hand there so I wouldn’t go, but then he was too distracted the situation at hand to obsess for much longer. His eyes were fretful. “I said some things I regret,” he told me. “What if she doesn’t forgive me?”

“Houman?” Michelle’s voice broke through the air, seeming to silence the squeaking cart wheel as the male nurse disappeared down the hallway.

His eyes were on her. Good thing they were, too, otherwise he might have been knocked over completely at the force in which she launched herself at him. The man behind him stepped forward but Houman raised a gloved hand. Her arms were around his neck the next second and she was clinging to him for dear life as he wound his arms just as tightly around her.

“I think she already has,” I whispered, before joining Miles once again.

We watched their reunion unfold. They clung to each other like each were oxygen-deprived men and the other was air. Desperate and fervently, they whispered apologies to each other, then laughed and buried themselves into each other’s arms once more.

“Ms Dubois?” I took in his white coat, greying hair, and furrowed brow. Dr Khan was rarely one to show emotion so the intensity of his gaze sent my alarm bells ringing. “Perhaps we should go somewhere private?”

“Don’t,” I said, holding my hand up beforehand could take me to a small room. Not being around people never lessened the blow. “Just tell me here.”

“It’s not looking good,” he said quietly, mournfully. “It won’t be much longer.”

“How long?” My voice was stronger than I’d expected, actual words escaping my lips rather than the distorted sound I’d anticipated. A buzzing was beginning to hum in my ears, increasing frequency with each passing second.

“A week,” he said. “Two at most.”

At most. After all of Archer’s money I’d used for these good for nothing medicines that I’d done privately because the NHS seemed incapable, and I got a few weeks. At most.

The buzzing was no longer a distant hum, but a deafening screeching. My eyes focused on everything but him— the drip being rolled along by a roaming patient, the heart monitors beeping in the room over, that stupid squeaking wheel coming back for another load.

I didn’t care whether the sparse people roaming the floor heard everything if my control dissipated completely and I cussed at him like I was itching to do so, so much.

“You’re sure?” I asked. I wasn’t going to lose my dignity and swear blindly at him. It was all I had. And I knew he’d wanted her to pull through as much as I had.

He nodded. “I’m sorry.” I wanted to ask what he was sorry for. Could you have done more? Do you feel guilty? Did you know this was going to happen a while ago? What exactly are you sorry for? “I suggest you take her home, make her comfortable.” My eyes drifted to her laying in bed, a hollow feeling weighing on me.

I felt Miles’ arms around me and found my face in his neck, wetting his skin with tears I didn’t know I had left in me. I breathed him in. Everything in me wanted to scream, but collapsing into Miles’ arms had just the same relief.