Flora to Fear

Chapter One

"Smoke break," I request, in the familiar (yet somehow still uncomfortable) silence of Eating Disorders Anonymous in the basement of St. Paul's Episcopal Church. 
Heather, our illustrious leader, the legendary 'recovered' anorexic, sighs as she answers: "Honored."
The group quickly disperses.  Obviously, not everyone in here smokes—I think, out of the twelve of us, only four are stupid enough to—but everyone wants to get away from the stifling atmosphere of the little room with its circle of chairs.  The only people who stay behind are Heather and sniffling Charity, who must know she's the reason we all need out of there.  She's fresh out of adolescent inpatient, and try as we might, it's hard to feel pity for a girl who has yet to be fully weight-restored.
"Hey," Owen says, and bumps his shoulder with mine once we're outside.  It's dusk, just about, the parking lot barren; we stand in the square of light cast through the open doorway from the lobby. 
"Yeah."  I acknowledge him with a cigarette hanging out of my mouth, trying to shove the pack back into my backpack before he sees I've got a few left,  pawing around blindly for my lighter. 
"Smoke, please."
I grasp my lighter.  "Absolutely not."  I light my cigarette.
He huffs, pulls his jacket tight around him, and leans back against the brick.  There's other little clumps of people a few feet away from us on either side, murmuring in a way that both annoys and comforts me.  Owen pouts, the way fourteen-year-olds are wont to do, bitterly studying my inhales.  I don't meet his eyes, smoking in silence, sort of eavesdropping on other people, sort of just thinking.
I'm half-done my cigarette when I realize he's still brooding in my direction.
"God," I say.  "Talk to Heather.  We'll pool to buy you patches, or something."
"I want something to hold," he whines.  I kind of hate kids.
"Get a pencil.  Or a vape.  High schoolers like vapes, right?"
"You're in high school."
"No I'm not.  Anyway, I'll buy you a vape."
"Yeah, you are.  You're in eleventh grade.  You just don't go to school."
"I'm no longer going to buy you a vape."
"I don't want a vape.  I want a cigarette.  I've got fifty cents, Flora."
"Well, my minimum is two hundred dollars, so that's unfortunate."
He sighs, possibly realizing that if he doesn't let this go, not only will he not get a cigarette, but I will be mad at him and stop talking to him, and he will no longer have a friend.  This is a good thing, because if I stopped talking to Owen, I also would no longer have any friends. 
Is it sad that my only friend is a fourteen-year-old anorexic?  Pathetic, even?
Entirely and absolutely, yes. 
I started out terribly jealous of him, of his fragility and his youth, but it takes quite a lot of brain power to dislike someone so consistently, so I began to tolerate him.  That was about two months ago, early August or something. 
It's autumn now; the chill's coming, ready to eat us all up in one bite. 
How quickly you can disappear in the cold.
I smoke consistently, silently.  Owen gets tired of pouting, instead deigning to quietly hop back and forth on the sidewalk; I can never tell if he's childishly energetic just because, or if he's trying to burn off calories.  I strangle as much life out of the cigarette as I can, inhaling until I can feel the heat of the burning filter on my lips.  If I smoke too far into the filter, I feel sick, so I spit it out when the orange paper begins to turn gray, and ground the dying embers out with my shoe.
"You're not even giving me the butt?" Owen demands, petulant.
"No, because that's gross."
"You're gross."
I slide my tongue over my molars.  They've started aching again, old acid cavities revived due to a poor mimicry of their former life.  With my disintegrating teeth and my ashy devil's tongue, I say, "I know."
"I'm cold," Owen says.
"Because you need to eat more."
Katie, a few yards away, shoots me a dirty look.  Apparently I spoke louder than I'd meant to.  Technically, I'm not allowed to tell Owen to eat.  Or anyone.  It's judgmental and unproductive.
Owen just gives me an unimpressed look.  "Let's go inside."