CHAPTER 5

The effect started quickly.

On the third day, I stepped on the scale and saw four pounds gone. My face looked better, not worse. My clothes sat looser. At work, a coworker said I looked healthy.

Mia did not look healthy.

That night, Mom was making soup when I came home.

"Your sister hasn't been eating," she said. "Take this to her."

I knocked on Mia's door with the bowl in my hands.

When she opened it, I almost did not recognize her.

Three days had hollowed her cheeks. Her collarbones stuck out. The bones in her wrist looked sharp under the skin.

She leaned against the doorframe. "Put it there."

I set the soup on her desk. Three takeout boxes sat unopened beside it.

"Not eating?" I asked.

"I can't." Her voice was thin. "I throw up when I try."

She looked at me. Her eyes were threaded red.

"Clara, do you think I'm sick?"

"Then see a doctor."

"I'm going tomorrow."

I nodded and left.

As I closed the door, I heard her gag.

By the fifth day, I had lost six pounds.

Mia had lost twelve.

The hospital found nothing. Blood work, scans, tests. Normal. Yet she could not keep food down, and the number on the scale kept falling.

On the seventh day, the apartment was empty when I came home.

Mom did not answer until my fourth call.

Her voice shook. "Mia fainted. We're at the ER. Come now."

When I arrived, Mia lay on a bed with an IV in her arm. Her face had no color. Her eyes had sunk deep into her skull.

A doctor spoke to Martin in the hall.

"The weight loss is too fast. She is dehydrated and hypoglycemic. We don't see an organic cause yet. We want to keep her under observation."

Martin nodded. Then he saw me.

For the first time in my life, I saw fear on his face when he looked at me.

"You're here," he said.

"Yes."

"Go see your sister."

I went in.

Mia's eyes moved toward me.

"Clara."

"Yes."

"I've lost so much weight."

"Yes."

"I'm scared." Her voice was a thread. "I can't stop it. I lose weight every day. Food doesn't help."

I stood beside the bed.

I had seen that face for fifteen years. It had always carried a smile. For Mom. For Martin. For strangers. For me.

Now the smile was gone.

Only a twenty-one-year-old girl remained, thin and terrified under hospital sheets.

"Rest," I said. "The doctors will help."

Then I left the room.

In the hallway, Martin stopped me.

"Clara. Wait."

He stepped close, lowering his voice. "I need to talk to you alone. Tomorrow."

His eyes held on mine too long.

He was checking something.

"Fine," I said. "Tomorrow."

Outside, rain fell in cold sheets. I stood in it without opening my umbrella.

This is not your fault, I told myself.

Fifteen years. Every double share. Every toy, every shoe, every room, every look from Mom that said Mia mattered more.

Now the rule had turned around.

I should have felt clean.

I didn't.