Like Real People Do

35. Liability

TW: EATING DISORDER (PURGING)

!!!THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF PURGING BEHAVIOR!!!

IF YOU OR A LOVED ONE ARE SUFFERING WITH AN EATING DISORDER, PLEASE CALL NEDA (National Eating Disorder Association) Hotline: 1-800-931-2237.

The truth is I am a toy that people enjoy 'til all of the tricks don't work anymore, then they are bored of me. -Lorde

Monday, September 6th

Few things offered Rhiannon more relief than a long drag from a menthol cigarette, and the ones that did were exponentially more destructive. Against her better judgement, she went to Pierre's after the argument to stock up and had a cigarette tethered to her lips with an invisible thread ever since. Something about the repetitive back and forth motion, and the dulling of both the anxiety and the hunger pains was a state of bliss she was unwilling to compromise. With Shane at work until the evening, she could sit on her porch and chain smoke in peace.

He didn't reach out the day after their argument except to check in on her here and there. The only thing she heard from him in the past two days was different iterations of "are you okay?" followed by near complete silence after the fact. He was either breathing down her neck or entirely absent, and Rhiannon was at her breaking point. As much as she hated being taken care of, the absence was so much worse and he was somehow managing to do both. Shane had seen some awful sides of her, but he hadn't seen that until now. Just as Rhiannon had feared, it had been too much for him to take.

With a sigh, she put the butt out in the dirt and reached into the pack for another one. Her fingers fumbled for it without looking, and she quickly realized that she was down to the last one. In the time that she parked herself here and started smoking, she somehow managed to tear through an entire pack. Times were tough, and she was just trying to manage it however she could. Rhiannon couldn't recall a time when she'd smoked this much this quickly, and the head rush affirmed it was likely too much. Still, with the weight of Agnes and Shane both crushing her alive, she'd take the spins and a churning stomach over the anxiety any day. She covered the cigarette with her hand to light it and was met with a wholly unwelcome surprise when she looked up.

Shane had appeared at her feet, still in uniform and holding a plastic bag from Jojamart, while Rhiannon sat with a lit cigarette between her lips.

Excellent timing, she thought bitterly to herself as she took the cigarette out of her mouth and rested her head in her aching hand.

"You're supposed to be on until 5," she deadpanned without making eye contact. Angry as she was with him, she was infinitely more ashamed of the shitshow he had just walked in on.

"I got off early to bring you lunch." He scanned the scene, eyes flicking from the cigarette in her hand to the pile of butts in the dirt beside her. "I guess I missed the memo that we were chain smoking today." There was little use in putting it out now, but it felt wrong to continue smoking in his face. Begrudgingly, she tossed her last cigarette on the ground with the others and stepped on it to put it out. Shane gently set the grocery bag down beside her and took a step back with his hands jammed deep into his pockets. 

"Thank you," Rhiannon mumbled in response.

"Are you feeling okay?" he asked. It was the only thing he'd been asking. The only conversation that they had in two days. Rhiannon was bombarded by constant check-ins, but an astronomical distance sat between them and their source. The truth was that she wasn't feeling okay. She felt like shit, and this obvious attempt to take care of her made it clear that he knew the answer to his own question.