A Room of Their Own by Rakefet Yarden (best summer reads of all time .TXT) 📕

less frequent. I managed to take all my exams, but my average has dropped. Never mind. . . As long as Dad doesn’t find out.”

“Why? Why do you care if he knows?”

“Are you crazy? He’ll start with that lecture about how I won’t get to be a surgeon if I’m not the very-very best in the class. I don’t want him to know about anything that I’m going through. He’ll get on my case and then he’ll get Mom involved and she’ll definitely start pressuring me − you know exactly what they’re like. And then they’ll say that it’s just like with Aunt Fania, from Grandma’s side, whose career was utterly demolished because of some mental health problem . . . With Mom, things always end up with some familial catastrophe. So God help me if either of them finds out about even a smidgen of what I’m going through.”

She kept talking and talking, and I wasn’t sure if it really mattered to her whether or not I was listening, but I could definitely feel the anxiety surging inside her. It was scary.

“So you’re basically doing better?” I asked.

“I don’t really know. Recently I’ve had a lot of weird thoughts − well, kind of like dreams. Like strange memories from the past, only I’m not sure whether they’re dreams or reality. Never mind, it may just be from the pills I’m taking. Who knows what they do to your brain?”

I tensed up. I was amazed. It can’t be that Tal and I are going through the exact same thing, I thought to myself. No way! The realization started seeping into me, and I felt a lump of ice in my chest start to spread out and turn into a cluster of flames.

“Dani, is everything all right?” Tal asked. “Come on, how about you tell me what’s up with you? When will you gain some weight already? How about ordering something to eat?”

I didn’t answer her, and just gave half a smile in disgust.

“Come on, you’re doing that silly thing again, aren’t you?” she continued.

I nodded my head.

“Why do you have to keep messing with this thing? Isn’t it time you moved on?”

For a minute, I didn’t really understand what she meant. I looked at her, our eyes met, and then I lowered my head towards the ground. I felt the lump in my chest become a ball of anger.

“I think that you just need to make a decision and tell yourself that’s it, that you’ll start eating like a normal human being and stop playing the poor, self-denying person who thinks that looking like a skeleton is beautiful. Get your act together. Look at how worried Mom and Dad are. You can’t go on like this . . .”

I couldn’t take it anymore and interrupted her. “Why don’t you get your act together, with all these episodes of yours? Can’t you just stop it? You’re going to waste all the money that Mom and Dad put into your education just because of some panic attacks that you’ve made up . . .” I said it all in a mocking, sarcastic tone, in the hope that she’d get the analogy. Still, I couldn’t believe the words that came out of my mouth.

“How can you even compare . . .”

“How can I compare? It’s exactly the same thing. Yes, what I have is a difficult issue. You think that I feel nice about not eating all day long and wanting to vomit every little thing that gets into me, even this coffee? Do you think that it’s fun to live with voices that tell me how fat I am, calling me a huge cow all day long? I can’t escape from them. They’re always there, telling me how disgusting my body is, how worthy it is of destruction, how I’m never good enough. I never fully follow through with this destructive mission, not sufficiently, but only because I can’t.”

I was shaking like a leaf. My eyes were glazed over and my throat felt choked up. I wanted to cry but I couldn’t. That’s not me. I looked up and saw her light blue eyes glazed over just like mine, her lips tense and saddened. I saw a different Tal. One who had been touched.

“That really does sound awful. I’d never thought about it that way before.”

“I think I need to be hospitalized again. Just to stabilize my vital signs. Maybe I’ll also find a reason to work hard and want to live. That’s what Rotem says. She’s my therapist.”

“Of course. If that’s what’ll help you.”

“I’ve already fainted twice this week. I can feel my body starting to cave in.”

“Where did you faint? How did it happen? What do you mean?” the doctor within her cried out.

“It happens once in a while. I feel it coming, so I lie down or sit. It’s a kind of drop, and I feel my heart pounding really hard, and then everything becomes black and white and my head gets heavy, and then it’s like a sudden sleep, and I wake up feeling as though I’d slept for hours. Afterwards there’s a kind of heaviness . . .”

“Dani, that’s really bad. It shows that there’s a problem with your heart, like the beginning of heart failure, or something along those lines. You have to go get checked.”

“I don’t want to because I know that they’ll immediately send me to the emergency room, and from there they’ll recommend hospitalization. I want everything to be done at my own pace. I want to be the one making the decisions. I haven’t decided yet if I’m ready for it.”

“I think that you have. Do you want me to go with you?”

I was surprised by her suggestion. I didn’t answer her. I just lowered my eyes. There was a long silence.

“Do Mom and Dad know that the situation is so bad?”

“I don’t think so. I haven’t been there for three weeks now. Precisely because of this. Last time I went