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

garden patch near the clinic last year. The scent of grass filled the air and bright poppies blossomed in purple and red. It smelled like it does just before the onset of spring. A wintry gust of air barged in. I was worried. I realized that lately this was the most prevalent feeling within me.

A door slammed from afar. I was making way for myself among my thoughts, getting through another day, and another one. The sun was setting outside. Another day was over and I hadn’t managed to get anything done. I wanted to recoil inwards and forget about all my plans. I broke an egg over a bowl; the yellow liquid poured out, and a rebellious sliver of the shell went in alongside it. I cut up vegetables for dinner, without giving it any thought. Tomato, cucumber, lettuce . . .

Dani

The first day was behind me. We tried to put together a menu for me during the intake with the dietician. An impossible mission. Well, nearly impossible, as it turned out. None of my frightened looks worked on this dietician lady, who continuously repeated herself and pushed me until we managed to come up with a daily menu that almost resembled a normal person’s.

And there I was, again, in the brightly lit hallways, surrounded by colorful girls, some looking like matchsticks, but most of them seeming as though they’re just spending their day either here or at the park. What difference does it make? To the untrained eye, there’s no way to distinguish between them and the staff.

I’ll get out of here way before I reach their state, I thought to myself. Way before they manage to plump me up that much. I’ll just up and leave. I won’t let them do that to me.

A week passed, and I felt that I was in a higher position within this spiral called life. I only realized after a few days that this time I’d arrived at my hospitalization from a different place. That I was making great efforts not to drag myself to dark places. That I was searching for ways to pass the time here efficiently, and not with sickness and self-harming.

I suddenly realized that I had Miko waiting for me at home, and that I had Rotem, whom I’d promised that I’d make an effort. I felt that we’d started something that needed to be continued. But it was still difficult with the deceiving silence of this place − after all, this is where all of the thoughts resurface and make a commotion.

I became friends with Sarit here. She’d actually come here in order to lose weight. She, too, had been at the other end, with self-starvation and vomiting, but then her ravenous hunger episodes began, and she became overweight and realized that she needed to get some serious help, so she came here. I’m reassured by the connection with someone who isn’t as thin as me. There’s also Re’ut, who is extremely underweight, and that’s after being here for a long time. She’s friendly and kind, and she immediately came up to talk to me when I arrived, but I stayed silent and avoided her, of course. She didn’t give up, and I’ve managed to open up to her a little bit.

I see all the girls here and I think to myself that yes, I do want to get closer to them, I do want to talk and open up, but I don’t know how. I want the strict and closed-off Dani to leave me alone for a while, but I don’t know how to force her to make room for a softer, more approachable Dani.

Rotem

“And he rolled the stone from the well’s mouth, and watered the flock.” Biblical passages still occasionally resurface in my mind, despite the fact that it’s been years since I’d even touched a Bible.

Dani didn’t gain enough weight this week to be allowed home for the weekend. She’d looked forward to it so badly. She’s so skilled at overcoming her emotions. For a while now I’ve felt that she’s holding it all inside. And then she came out of the session with the ward staff with the verdict of no weekend at home, and no cutting corners, “Because you didn’t gain a full pound, there’s nothing we can do,” − and that was after she’d tried so hard.

“I gained half a pound and that’s not enough for them!”

“Dani, sweetheart, can you hear me?” I said. She was sobbing on the other end of the line. “I’ll come by. Do you hear me? I’ll bring Miko. He’ll surely help you feel better.”

Miko has been staying with me because her parents said that they can’t keep a dog the size of a horse in their home. I hoped that along with Miko, we’d manage to give her the strength to get through another week. If she sees that I believe in her, then maybe she will, too.

They’re not allowed to do anything on their own there. Even their bathroom time is supervised, so they don’t try to vomit. The head nurse asks them to throw the toilet paper in the trash can. A total loss of privacy in order to battle the cruel anorexia monster and pull them back to our side, the side of the living. At mealtime they’re required to eat everything that’s on their menus, and they are then checked to make sure there’s no food hidden in their pockets. They even have to lick the yogurt lid clean; nothing can be left.

I thought about how hard it must be for Dani to give up her independence, to experience such an invasion of her privacy, and mostly to know that there’s absolutely no other choice. “I trust you that this really is the right thing to do, Rotem,” she kept telling me.

It’s an honor for me to be her bridge back to life. I can breathe more easily now, knowing that she’s in the ward, protected, supervised,