Always Okay ─ n. romanoff ✓

seventeen

SHE a few more days in the hospital being poked and prodded like a dead animal on a dissection table. The sensors fastened to her chest felt heavier and heavier as more time passed, pinching and pulling at her skin. The tube up her nose was even less enjoyable, and she couldn't stop wondering how many calories it was pumping into her body. Doctors and nurses came in at least once every five minutes, shoving pills down her throat and refusing to explain to her what they were. They had at least helped slow her heart down, though, which made her a little less uncomfortable. By her sixth day, she was ready to kill someone.

"Am I ever leaving this place, or do you have plans to bankrupt my insurance company first?" Sasha quipped when her doctor stepped in for her hourly appointment to harass her. "I've been here for days."

"Sasha, you had an arrhythmia. We don't just let people in cardiac distress out after two hours."

Sasha flopped backwards onto the hospital bed.

"It was an arrhythmia, not a heart attack," she pointed out. The doctor raised an eyebrow.

"It isn't just the heart issues keeping you here and you know that. You're severely malnourished, your BMI is dangerously low, and we've practically had to force-feed you every meal since you've been here. We've been monitoring you and trying to secure you a spot at a residential treatment center."

"What?" Sasha squeaked. "No! Those things can last months, or even a year! It's a glorified prison with worse food!"

"Your mother's already signed the paperwork," the doctor told her. "We're moving you to their facility in a half hour."

She turned to walk away, and Sasha mumbled profanity to herself. When the doctor was out of earshot, Sasha rolled her eyes and mumbled, "This is such a scam. Come back when you can get your--"

"I would not suggest you finish that sentence." Natasha appeared in the doorway, her arms crossed and her lips curled up in a smirk. "You ready to go?"

"That is not the word I'd use." Sasha leaned her head backwards so that she was staring up at the ceiling. Natasha walked over and pushed Sasha to the side.

"Move," Nat ordered. She flopped onto the bed beside Sasha, who eyed her warily.

"Is this a trap?" Sasha asked. "This feels like a trap. Are you on drugs? Did Hydra brainwash you? Is this the apocalypse? Did you join a cult?"

"Sasha..." Natasha looked down. It was killing her to know that she had failed this kid, that she had almost lost the one person she still had left. No, what killed her was that it was her fault. She should have been smart enough to realize that Sasha was destroying herself, and she should have been enough of an adult to do something about it. The shameful truth was that she had noticed. Even she knew Sasha well enough to tell when something was off. But she didn't do anything.

She didn't do anything.

"What?" Sasha asked. "Yo, Natasha? You in there?"

"I'm sorry," Natasha exhaled. Sasha inched toward her

"Why are you sorry? You didn't do anything wrong. I'm the one who landed herself in the hospital and disappoints everyone she knows."

Natasha slung her arm around Sasha. "No, but I should have been the one to stop it."

Sasha laughed.

"You think you could have stopped it? Lady, a team of experienced psychologists forcing food down my throat couldn't stop it! I'm the only person who can control what I do. We aren't having this discussion again, do you understand me?"

Natasha wiped away a lone tear before Sasha could see it.

"Yeah, Sasha, I understand." She let her weight tumble onto the teenager's shoulder. "I'm going to miss you, you idiot."

"I know." Sasha flipped her hair dramatically. "I just have that kind of personality."

Nat laughed. She let Sasha pull her close, secretly thankful someone else was doing the work for her. A man in a paramedic's uniform walked in a few moments later, and the two of them jerked apart. He lifted up his clipboard and ran his finger down the page.

"Uh, An--"

"That's me!" Sasha blurted out before he could finish the name. "Um, can I help you?"

The man pointed down the hall.

"I'm here to take you to the...DC Eating Disorder Center. We finished off our last transport early, so if you're ready, we can leave now."

Sasha glanced at Nat, who nodded.

"I'm ready," she said. A few nurses came in to detach her from all of the machines, finally removing that damned tube from  her nose.

"You're stable, but you have to keep taking those pills," one of them said. "Come on."

She led Sasha down the hall, weaving around stretchers and other patients on their way to the door. Natasha watched with bated breath as they dragged her into an ambulance ("Legal reasons," the front desk had told her when she'd asked why), terrified of letting go. Sasha was the sun, the moon, and the hypercritical stars in Natasha's life. If she wasn't there, what was left? But, Natasha knew, she was doing the right thing for Sasha, for once in her life. She would get through it, and Sasha would too. They were only human. They weren't always okay. But they would never stop trying, not as long as Natasha had anything to say about it.