Feeling Empty (A Hey Arnold Story)

"Beforeword"

A/N: Hello there. I hope you're doing well wherever you are out in the world. I just want to thank you real quick for taking a chance on my story. I enjoyed writing it and I hope you enjoy reading it maybe just ever so slightly. I'm just going to say a couple things right now regarding how this story will look and some fair warnings and fun stuff like that.

So I love the Rhonda/Harold ship and while dog-sitting for a neighbor, the skeleton of this story was born. "What if both Rhonda and Harold had an eating disorder that they had to work out together?"

Now I know this sounds dark (trigger warning I guess) but I did my best in this story not to dwell on that part too much. I don't want to spoil anything, but Rhonda's "ed" is completely forced by her parents and not endorsed by herself at all throughout the story. It is not even referred to as an eating disorder since it is completely out of her control.

Harold on the other hand is exactly the same old Harold. I just decided to write him with having dealt with food addiction/binge eating. I wanted to give a slight warning to those of you that it may trigger, though it really isn't as bad as it may sound. I promise I did not put the characters through anything terribly painful or traumatic (maybe just mildly).

I actually did research on some eds to try and get as much knowledge as I could so this could be somewhat realistic.

Something else I realized in the research process was that Rhonda's situation is comparable to that of the actress who played Sam on ICarly (Jeannette Mccurdy). This was unintentional but I guess you could sort of use that for reference if things don't make sense. Also if you have any questions about anything, go ahead and ask. I will get back to you ASAP.

Other notes:
-I see this story taking place during their 7th/8th grade year but I left it ambiguous so you could pretend it's senior year for all I care. I didn't really have a specific time in mind while writing

-Ships are Sid/Nadine, Stinky/Lila, Gerald/Phoebe, Arnold/Helga, and of course Harold/Rhonda

-Recurring friendships are Nadine/Rhonda, Helga/Rhonda, Harold/Arnold, Harold/Rhonda

-I wanted to create a visual representation of how I see Harold looking in this story, so I drew it myself! The title picture is mine so I apologize if it looks bad, but hopefully it helps you visualize Harold better

-I am planning on putting songs to go along with the chapters and maybe making the names have to do with the songs as well. I have a playlist of songs I listened to while writing this so expect a lot. They are from a couple corners of musical genre so I hope you enjoy (maybe I'll take song recs if you want to drop a request).

-This story takes place in a universe where The Jungle Movie and everything else in the show happened, so any prior events are cannon in this story

-This story is pretty tame rating-wise. Would reccomend 13+ for full understanding of eating disorders and such but no language, violence or anything like that. If you're 8 (you probably shouldn't be on Wattpad but anyways) go ahead and read, you should be fine.

As I said before enjoy yourself! I'll try to pump out a chapter every week. I have the story all finished and I will not become one of the "Last Published" people

-Thanks again!

(Here's the true beginning)

    Rhonda Wellington Lloyd had been feeling increasingly empty as the days passed by. Her parents had been subtly limiting her food intake and she wasn't exactly sure why. Whenever she confronted them about it they would just respond with "You're becoming a woman, and women need to eat responsibly." But she wasn't eating responsibly, she was barely eating at all.