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“You’re perfect, thank you,” I say, sitting on the ground while pulling Blue’s plate next to me.

“You’re welcome. You know I had to get it from Tony’s.”

I nodded, glancing at the box as my stomach growled from a whole day avoiding food and only drinking coffee and water. “Stop it, I’m so excited.”

A smile appeared on my lips to reassure her. Hayzel is a good friend. She knows how this works, I pretend everything is okay, and she does something like this to comfort me even if she thinks I don’t see the worry in her eyes. It’s strange really. Some days I think I’m fine and then I realize I haven’t eaten all day long and it’s already night again and all I had was cigarettes and a line of coke.

Not today though, even if the need is still here, under my skin, begging to be fed.

Hayzel laughs before grabbing a slice and taking a bite. Her eyes widen and she lets out a long breath, “I swear Tony never gets the cheese wrong.”

I take a bite too, while Blue is devouring his food.

“He asked me about you, he said where is your other half? She doesn’t like my pizzas anymore?”

I laughed and shook my head at this, “I’ll probably see him on Friday. Planning on eating there with Milo.”

Hayzel looked down at Blue, smiling. “Why is he eating with us?” she asked, genuinely curious.

“Cats like eating with their humans,” I said. “Makes them happy.”

“That’s cute,” she said, scratching behind his ears. “He can always eat with us, then.”

“Of course he will. He rules the place,” I replied, watching him sniff the pizza box and then settling on his food again.

We ate quietly for a while. She talked a little, and I gave her small updates about Edna.

“I’ll call her once I’m in my bed, might ask her to sing me a lullaby so I can have a good night,” she said, taking a big bite from her last slice.

“You’re so stupid,” I laughed.

When we finished, Hayzel stood, stretched, and crouched to kiss Blue before blowing me a quick kiss at me. “You need to sleep tonight,” she said, pointing at me with her finger, “promise?”

“Yeah, promise.”

“I love you, to purgatory and back, remember?”

“To purgatory and back.”

She hummed a long goodnight as she left, closing the door softly.

I stayed behind, folding the empty boxes, cleaning up the room a bit and pouring some food on Blue's plate for the night. I changed his water too because surprisingly enough, Blue loves drinking water.

Talking about him, he jumped onto the bed mid-cleanup, circling once before curling up and closing his eyes.

I sank onto the floor once I was done, my back against the side of the bed. After a while, I pushed myself up and took a shower, standing under the hot water until it started to cool.

It didn't help.

The makeup bag stared at me, but I kept looking away.

Give up. Give up. Give up.

Fuck...

I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, then at the wall, then back at the ceiling again. Every time I closed my eyes, my mind found something else to chew on. Home, Milo, mom, the house, the pills, whether I'd made a mistake coming here.

The numbers on my alarm clock kept changing.