Half and Half

Thinking back, my first thought always tells me that I shouldn't have done it. I shouldn't have let my curiosity get the best of me, shouldn't have looked up from the book I was reading, shouldn't have dropped the book and lost my page when I saw her, shouldn't have stood from the table, shouldn't have looked into her chocolate brown eyes and ask her to sit with me.

My second thought comes from my gut. I was right to cringe at her, feel bad for her, at the sharp angles her bones made, the ribs I could count. I was also right to treat her to coffee, half and half and two sugar packets, and a stack of pancakes. I was right to talk to her, force her to eat, encourage her to talk back, I was right to do what I did.

Because it changed me, changed her. It changed us both.

----

The first night was the hardest. I followed her out to the parking lot, waiting for her to head to her car, but she didn't have one. I moved her to my own car, securing us inside, driving home.

I unlocked the door to my apartment, allowing her to step inside, closing the door behind me. She looked around, down the hall, into the living room, at the closed door. Her hands fell to her stomach, which was bloated and puffed out now that she'd eaten. It was weird to look at; her slight frame, her angular shoulders and protruding, stubby ribs and then that swollen stomach. For a moment, I couldn't look away.

She darted down the hall, literally throwing herself into the door frame of the first room. It didn't occur to me that she could break something, steal something, jump from one of my fifth story windows to land on the deadly concrete below. Or shut herself into the bathroom.

I walked slowly to the door, knocking. "I'll be, uh, in the living room." There wasn't a sound coming from the room. I turned and returned to the front of the apartment.

When she didn't come out after fifteen minutes, I was worried. I stood from the couch, walked quietly to the bathroom and waited for ten minutes. I never heard a sound. I wrapped my hand around the doorknob, turning slightly; she hadn't locked it. I stuck my head inside for a moment.

She was asleep. Passed out, maybe. Her arms were wrapped around the base of the commode, the bowl filled with the disgusting mixture that had come from her stomach. I didn't understand how she could put down so much food, only to throw it back up. I stood above her, flushing the contents of her stomach down the toilet.

I lifted her from the ground, carefully pulling her into my arms and backing through the doorway. My bedroom was the next door on the opposite side of the hall. I tucked her into the bed best as I could before returning once again to the living room, making my own bed on the couch. I tried to sleep, but slumber was hard to find when I considered the following:

There's a girl in my home, in my bed. A sick girl. A girl who's name I don't know. A girl who seems to already be causing me trouble.

----

The next morning when she stumbled into the living room and found me awake, she didn't run. She didn't steal any of the junk around us. Her hair was a mess, a dark brown, tangled nest atop her head. Her expression was flat, her lips pulled into a fine line.

"I'm Eleana." This was the first time I'd heard her voice. It surprised me, really. I had thought her voice would be small, like her; tiny, sweet, broken. Or, maybe, it would have been strong and loud; something that could contrast with what her illness had done to her body. Her voice was both of these things, but not. She spoke softly, but her words sounded as if they were being choked out. Permanently broken, flowing from her mouth in tiny fragments.

"Clark," I say. She nods, motioning for me to move my feet from the end of the couch. I do. She falls into the cushions, her body sinking into the sagging couch. We sit for a moment, in silence. Her hands move to her stomach again, touching it gently. I associated this movement with pregnant women; I'd seen my mother do it many of times when she was pregnant with my brother. Eleana looked toward me, her brown eyes catching mine. She shook her head once. She wasn't pregnant.

"Can we have breakfast?" she asks, her voice falling off in the middle of 'have.'

"Promise not to throw it up?" I ask, head turning questioningly, eyes narrowing.

"As long as I get tiny portions." She quickly explains that she can't make the food come back if the amount of food eaten is small. She doesn't like all the work it takes, for something so small. I nod my head, as if I understand, pushing myself up and toward the kitchen.

----

Eleana was right. She could eat in small sizes and not throw it back up. At first I hated it because it was like she was killing herself, starvation over purging. Though she ate like a bird, the pounds started to weigh upon her. After a year I could still see her bones, still feel every tendon under her skin, but her face was brighter. Her skin looked healthier, her cheeks rounder, the small pooch of her stomach present under her ribcage always. I was proud of her, of myself, of the proof that she was getting better.

I was surprised when she became significantly rounder; she'd still been eating like a picky child. I was so confused. I didn't understand. Until Eleana woke me early one morning, her smiling face only inches from mine. She was pregnant. She hadn't realized because she was so used to not having a menstrual cycle; her body hadn't produced such a thing for months.

It was such a scary thing, finding out that she was with child. Before I did anything else that morning, I called my doctor. I wanted to get her in for an appointment. I wanted my baby to be safe and healthy. I wanted my baby to be what I'd been trying to raise Eleana to be.

It was hard for Eleana to keep food down for the next nine months. It wasn't just morning sickness, it was her. She wasn't eating for two, she refused, but she was worrying herself ill. She cried at night, cursing herself for doing this to herself, to her baby. She hated how her old habits had damned her to this, to killing her own child.

She didn't kill her baby. Jacob was born two weeks early. His skin was soft to the touch, his hair dark and full, his fingers and toes all perfect. He had large brown eyes and fair skin. He was so beautiful. He was so amazingly perfect. Eleana was so happy the moment she laid her eyes on him. I sat beside her in her hospital bed as she cradled our baby boy, continuing to run her fingers over his skin.

"I want you to marry me," I said, staring at Jacob. He looked up at me, eyes wide. I smiled slightly. His mouth curved upwards; it most likely wasn't a smile, but it was enough for me. "I love you, Eleana. I want you to be my wife."

I looked at her face. She was staring up at me, her eyes large like Jacob's. Tears were brimming and she was grinning. "Of course," she whispered. I tightened my arm around her.

Jacob was discharged the next day, ready to go see the sky and the world and his new home. Eleana wasn't allowed to leave. She was being kept for tests. They suspected cancer. They were right.

----

"You're Mom changed me, Jake." My arm was wrapped tight around his shoulders. I heard him chuckle once. He wasn't making fun, only making movement. "I'm not exaggerating, either. I know many people only say that because they were in lust and then love and everything else.

"When I met your mom I didn't intend on letting her stay in my house. I didn't think when I ordered her food that I was committing myself to her. I wasn't, not at the time. All I was thinking was that buying her a meal, after looking at her, was the humane thing to do. She was so sick. She had started purging when she was in high school. The year she was required to take health class.

"She learned about the metabolism and how it slows down as we get older. She thought she looked good enough the way she was, she was tiny enough. Perfect size. She didn't want to grow up and gain weight. She wanted to stay young. Forever. Her bulimia was under control, for the most part. I took her in when it was like this; I tried my best. I wanted her to get better. I needed her to get better. I didn't need her on my conscience.

"But then I fell in love with her. I worried about her, not just for myself, but because of who she was. She was truly such a great person, under it all. She was broken. I didn't know it then, but my life was empty; mundane. I woke up in the mornings, went to work, came home, ate dinner and went to sleep. I didn't have friends that I hung out with often. Then Eleana was suddenly in my life and I was busy; taking care of her, listening to her. I was happy.

"I loved it - being happy. Then suddenly we were having you and my life was better than ever and I was planning on asking her to marry me and it was perfect. We were gonna be happy together. We were. For a few years. Until the cancer really set in, when her time ran out."

I looked down at Jacob now. He was looking up at me; he was only a head shorter now. Tears slip down my cheeks. He looks so much like Eleana. His large brown eyes, his dark hair, his skinny frame.

"I miss her," he says. I smile. I miss her too. It's been fifteen years since Jacob was born. Eleven since Eleana passed. Too long since she took my heart with her.

"She changed me," I said again, a sob rising in my throat. My son nods, squeezing my arm. "She changed me."