This is a spin-off of several works I have completed or are currently underway.
This series of short stories will follow a few of my characters through the rehabilitation process until they have their moment of clarity.
Some issues dealt with in thi...
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"Do you want to talk about it?" Jane Anne asked.
I shook my head, involuntarily sniffling.
"Nurse Emerson said that your phone call with your brother was rather upsetting for you," she continued. "That she eventually had to make you hang up due to your emotional distress."
"It was a lot," I said, quietly. "A lot to think about."
She nodded. "Sometimes our friends and family can offer insight into our personal struggle."
I nodded in response. "I guess so."
"Do you feel any differently?" she asked me. "Talk to me a bit about how that phone call affected you."
It made me realize how selfish I am, how selfish I'd been. "That this has not only caused me pain, but my brother as well."
"What, Emily?" Jane Anne asked. "What was caused you two pain?"
"My eating habits."
She slowly nodded. "I see."
Jane Anne stood up and crossed the room. She ripped a sheet of paper off of the roll in the corner, the paper nearly as tall as her.
"I want you to do something for me," she said, as she laid the paper out on the ground.
"Something else you won't bother to look at?"
She cracked a smile. "This time we'll discuss the results." She beckoned me over to her, handing me a purple marker as I joined her. "I want you to draw yourself with the body proportions you see."
"Like a self-portrait?"
She nodded.
I set to doing so, resting on my knees as I drew an outline of myself.
I handed the marker back to Jane Anne once I was done, the two of us staring at the finished piece.
Jane Anne ripped another sheet of paper off. "Okay, now lie down."
I raised an eyebrow at her.
"I'm going to show you something."
I did as she instructed, and this time she rested on her knees as she outlined me on the paper.
I was genuinely afraid to see an outline of myself. With the feeding tube force feeding me upwards of 1,500 calories per day, I was bound to have gained all of the weight back that I'd worked so hard to lose, if not more.
"Okay, stand up. But don't look yet."
I did as she asked, facing in the opposite direction as I heard the rustling of papers behind me.
"Okay. Look."
I turned to see the two pictures.
The one I'd drawn was in purple. And the one Jane Anne had drawn was in black.
