A Room of Their Own Rakefet Yarden (top 10 novels of all time TXT) 📖

and receiving the appropriate care. Another round in the battle against this cruel disease. This time there’s an entire staff of professionals fighting alongside her, and I’m just someone joining them.

I brought Miko along as backup. When she spotted him, her smile grew even bigger, filling her entire face. I wasn’t offended.

“My love! You didn’t understand where I’d disappeared to, huh? Have Rotem and Snoopy been taking good care of you?”

I left the hospital with a huge lump in my chest, put there by all of Dani’s replicas flickering before my eyes. So many intelligent girls, eager to appease, with lives that froze on top of the scales. Young women who spend their days struggling to gain weight, meal after meal, and then enduring prolonged sitting so as not to miss a single calorie getting absorbed. A sour feeling built up within me, which I eventually interpreted as my feeling pathetic.

What were you thinking, spending months trying to battle it with her alone, I thought to myself. Look at how dedicated the staff here is to fighting this battle. Did you really think that you’re smarter than everyone else? Look at how difficult it is for you to lose a few pounds or to stop smoking, no matter how much you detest the smell of cigarettes sticking to everything. Stop it, I answered myself. Lay off me. I thought she just wasn’t interested, and after all, she’s not a minor and she’s not psychotic.

The army of girls in the bodies of starved women, who simply yearn for validation and love, kept flickering in my mind, flocking to my gates. And at once, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Emily. I want to go to her.

I found her group’s website. A new workshop was beginning the following day and someone had dropped out, so there was an open spot. The forms asked for a declaration of mental stability or a permit from a therapist. I decided that I was sufficiently stable. I signed the forms, which included my committing to act in accordance with the rules for the entire duration of the workshop − avoid killing any and all living beings, avoid stealing, avoid any sexual activities, avoid lying, avoid any and all intoxicating substances, avoid decorations and sensual pleasures, and avoid the use of fancy beds.

I looked for the payment section and discovered that the course, including the meals and sleeping arrangements, is a gift from those who had taken it before us. Only those who complete the course and want to enable others to experience it pay a fee. Everyone works for free. I wondered what Omer would think of their financial model, if that aspect would calm him down. He was incredibly busy at the hospital, since all the interns had to help with the COVID-19 crisis, and he didn’t have a minute to himself, so I decided not to even try to reach him.

On the spur of a moment, I decided to take the golden trolley down from above the closet, open it up and put it on the bed. I threw in a few shirts and my jogging pants, then remembered there’d be no jogging there and took them back out. I was better off taking comfy, loose pants. Underwear, bras, and socks. Almost forgot my contact lenses liquid − I haven’t yet fulfilled my dream to get a new prescription, and meanwhile my distance vision got worse, too, which lowered the motivation altogether.

Instead of calling Omer, I dialled Yulia’s number. “I’m going to Emily. There’s a Vipassana workshop starting there tomorrow.”

“Bring them right over,” Yulia said.

“Are you sure? There are three of them: Yotam, Snoopy, and Miko.”

“They’ll all be at home either way. Come on! The main thing is that you go already. You’ve been tossing this idea around for months now,” she cut to the point in her graceful manner. “And if I perish, I perish.” Yulia, too, had gone to a religious school . . .

The Dietetic Meeting

Tuesday arrived, and with it the dietetic meeting, as they call it here. I was already familiar with all of the definitions and terminology from my previous hospitalizations. The same forums existed at the other wards I’d been in as well, although sometimes with different definitions. In any case, I found it easy to get used to it and to know what was expected of me.

This week was my third dietetic meeting, and I’d decided to tell the staff about my desire to be released. Since I’d already gained a little bit and was no longer at a life-threatening weight, they didn’t have the option of threatening me in any aggressive manner anymore. It’s not that I was expecting total support for my subversive plan, but I’d hoped for at least some sort of agreement.

I walked into the meeting room near the nurses’ station in the hallway. There were three dieticians, two nurses, a psychologist, a social worker, two doctors, and the head of the unit, Dr. Tzur.

“Hello, Dani. How are you? How has your week been?” the chief dietician started, and I was immediately filled with despair. There was no way I’d manage to talk in front of all those people.

“Fine,” I answered, my eyes fixed on my knees.

“There’s been a slight weight gain. Not major, but sufficient. We’ve received reports from the dining room. Would you like to say something? Or ask something before we continue?” she said once she’d realized she wasn’t going to get much out of me.

“I want to be released,” I suddenly heard myself saying. I couldn’t believe that I managed to say anything in that forum.

The room went silent.

“Dani, this is your second time here with us, and you’d been to other institutions before that. Do you think that it’s appropriate to leave before completing your treatment?” the chief dietician asked.

“I’ve made my decision. This time it’s different. It’ll be different. I have a plan and I have things waiting for me out there and I