𝐒𝐊𝐈𝐍 & 𝐁𝐎𝐍𝐄𝐒 | ❝You want to eat everyone you see and I don't want to eat at all. Sounds to me like we'd be great friends.❞
In which an anorexic girl believed losing was the only way to win the game. Or, alternatively, Rory Swan's road to re...
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WELCOME TO PHOENIX, ARIZONA. The words stared at Lorelai Swan—haunting her, mocking her, taunting her. Emotions washed over her as though they were the rain in the skies, or rather, lack thereof. Was it nostalgia? Was it resentment? Was it something more bitter than sweet, or was it more sweet than bitter? She couldn't put her finger on it. Maybe she could if she hadn't been so worried about her baby sister.
Anxious. She was anxious. Of course, she was. She had been since her father received a call from Rosemary Hospital in Phoenix stating Bella's admission. They didn't close specifics, only that she was alive. It was funny how that was all Lorelai originally wanted to know, but now, she was aching for more information.
Being in Phoenix, of all places, didn't make this any easier. For a long time, this was home. Half of her life was spent here: racing Bella down the street, baking with Reneé, sharing a bed with Bella when either of them had nightmares, holding Reneé's hair back after a long night out, fighting with Bella over who got control over the TV remote, waking up to strange men creeping out of Reneé's bedroom and pretending to ignore them. This was the place Lorelai began to skip meals, argue more, cry more. Phoenix held no warmth for her.
And still, it held most of Lorelai's girlhood. There were good memories here. She could quietly accept that. Reneé went through phases when she wanted to be a mother and when she wanted her life back—considering she'd become a mother at such a young age. It was hard to decide whether she hated Phoenix or secretly missed it. Maybe she just missed being naive.
Lorelai didn't reject happiness. She felt it every now and then, like when Bella moved back to Forks or when her dad tried to explain football to her, only to fail. She even felt happiness when she went on walks through the woods with Jasper.
But those memories weren't consistent. Those memories came tangled with the thought that she could have another depressive episode at any given moment. Lorelai always feared her happiness would be taken away from her, and that was why she was never truly happy.
Lorelai found herself thinking about what Jasper had said to her. He said she was strong, but she didn't feel like it. But deep down, Lorelai wanted to accept that thought as a fact rather than an opinion. After all, she'd been fighting long and hard for years. That had to mean something, didn't it? Maybe she was strong; she just had to bring that strength to light.
But what did it mean to be strong? To recover?
In the past, Lorelai had feared recovery. She feared the change that would come with recovery. She had been so used to living this kind of lifestyle that she was afraid that attempting to recover could change everything. She feared attempting to recover only to relapse. But then again, she'd never actually bothered to try.
