RENT 1. Hiding it

"Honey, where are you going?" asked Joanne while Maureen jumped up from the chair.  
"Toilet" the diva muttered, striding towards the restaurant's bathroom.  
"But you went just a few min…" started Joanne, but Maureen was already gone. The lawyer let out a sigh and looked at the food in her lover's plate; it was almost intact except for some nibbled chicken wings. That night Joanne had proposed to Maureen to go to their favourite restaurant and spend a good Sunday night in the hope of cheer her up a little, since she noticed Maureen had had a strange behaviour during the last few weeks. She wasn't crazy and hyperactive as she used to be and she didn't even want to make out or have sex! That night Maureen looked even sadder and paler than the other days and she had barely ate her dinner. Joanne called the waiter and asked him to take away their plates. When Maureen came back, she found a big creamy slice of berry cake on her plate. "What is this?" she asked, pointing at the cake and looking at it as if it had eyes. Joanne smiled. "A tasty dessert for my tasty honeybear". Maureen didn't smile back. "I don't want it". Joanne's face fell. "But honey, it's your favourite cake!" "I said I don't want it" replied the diva with a tone that made no compromises. Joanne shrugged, feeling a cold shiver down her spine. "Alright, no one forces you". "Shall we go?" Maureen said, already grabbing her coat and bag. The lawyer had no choice but pay and follow her outside.

"What's wrong, sweetheart?" Joanne asked while they were making their way home. Maureen clenched her jaw, then smiled.  
"Nothing, pookie, I'm fine. I'm just a bit tired"  
"You did nothing all day long…" thought Joanne. "Okay. Then we'll go straight to bed so you can… "rest"", she giggled, already foretasting her lover's lips on hers. Maureen only nodded and they walked in silence until they got home.

Even under the thick blanket and with Joanne warming her, Maureen was still as cold as a corpse. Joanne turned on her left side and hugged her tight, rubbing a hand on the diva's arm to warm her. She then passed her hand on Maureen's waist and hip. Joanne's brain froze for a second and she brusquely retired her hand, letting out an exclamation of surprise.  
"What?" Maureen asked, turning her head to a terrfied Joanne. "What?!" asked again, seeing that Joanne didn't answer.  
"Your bones… I could feel all your ribs and your hip bones… Why are you so thin?"  
Maureen seemed confused for a moment, then her eyes became slots. "Do I disgust you?"  
Joanne felt even more surprised. "Honey, what are you talking about? You don't…"  
"Yes, I do, I see it in your eyes!" She stormed out of the bed. Joanne grabbed her wrist.  
"Maureen, don't you dare do your usual diva things and look at me!" she said with firm voice, making her lover turn and look at her.  
"What's wrong? Talk to me! You know you can!"  
Maureen pushed her away, her eyes filled with tears. "I don't wanna talk! I'm tired, it's late and I wanna sleep, just sleep, CAN'T I?!"  
She shouted the last words and returned to the bed, tucking her head under the blanket and facing away from Joanne. Joanne was stunned: what did just happen? She slowly sat on the edge of the bed and lay on the cold mattress. She already knew she wouldn't have been able to sleep that night.


	2. A discover

When Joanne woke up the next morning, Maureen was still asleep. She got out of bed and went to make some breakfast. She had just finished to make some pancakes when Maureen entered the kitchen tottering and dragging her feet as if they were made of lead. Joanne looked at her as she sit at the table, undecided whether to speak for first or not. She risked to put a cup of coffee in front of her, hoping she wouldn't make a scene again. But Maureen just took the cup and sip. After a few minutes of silence, Joanne cleared her throat and asked: "I made some pancakes, do you want one?"  
"Yes" answered Maureen, to Joanne's surprise. Maureen took a few bites of her pancake and sip another bit of coffee, then finally raised her eyes and gave Joanne a sweet smile that was asking forgiveness for the last night. The lawyer felt her heart melt. "Oh, honey…" she murmured, feeling a lump in her throat.  
Maureen jumped from the chair and hugged her lover, hiding her face in her neck. "I'm sorry, Joanne…"  
"Don't worry, my love. It's my fault too, I shouldn't have acted so rude. Let's forget everything, shall we?"  
The two women kissed for a long, long time.

Joanne left the apartment to go to work, glad that she and Maureen had made peace. She was still worried about the diva's thinness, but she was sure things would get better. She rummaged in her bag for her car keys. "Dammit! I forgot them!" She ran up the stairs and open her apartment door. Maureen was nowhere to be seen and Joanne thought she had got back in bed. She found the keys and turned to leave, but some strange noises catched her attention; Joanne cocked an ear and found out they came from the bathroom. She flung the door open and froze on the threshold. Maureen was kneeling on the floor with her head in the toilet bowl. Her face was cerulean and she was coughing hard and throwing her soul up. Puddles of vomit covered the floor all around her.  
"Oh my God!" shrieked Joanne running towards her. Maureen threw up again and her body stiffened in Joanne's arms. Joanne was terrified and the stink made her guts wriggle, but she hold her lover tight and made her sit against the wall. "Breathe, honey, breathe!" said Joanne as Maureen kept coughing. When she finally stopped, she put a hand on Joanne's chest and tried to pull her away, but she had the strenght of a chick. Joanne pushed aside the hair from Maureen's soaked forehead and hugged her. She was shaking. Maureen burst into tears and so did Joanne.  
"It's okay, honey, it's okay. It's all over now…" whispered Joanne lulling her lover. Maureen cried like she never did before, letting out deep and long moans of pain and despair. They stayed on the cold floor for a long time until Maureen slowly quieted.  
At one point she raised her head from Joanne's chest. "I stink, don't I?"  
Joanne giggled between tears. "Just a little bit"  
"I'm such an idiot…" Maureen said, laying again her head on Joanne's shoulder.  
"Don't even think that. You're not an idiot" said the lawyer caressing Maureen's hair. "You're not". Maureen shivered.  
"Come, let's have a good warm bath" Joanne stood up and filled the bath with hot water and scented bubble soap. She helped Maureen to get in it and felt tears rolling down her cheeks again while she watched her beloved girl fiddling ruefully with the soap foam.  
"My poor, poor honeybear…"


	3. Fix my heart

**LITTLE BORING PREMISE (please read, it's very important for me. Thanks). Here I am with the last part of this painful story. It is based on my own experience, even though it's impossible to fully explain the suffering that anorexia carries with her. Words are not sufficient. I was (I am) like Maureen: jumpy, worried, alwats wanting to be perfect, to fulfill people's expectations. I got the inspiration for this story from some lines sung by Joanne in the musical version of the song Rent: "Hey, hey, hey: did you eat? Don't change the subject, Maureen! But, darling, you haven't eaten all day! You won't throw up, you won't throw up!", and I suddenly felt a deep connection between me and Maureen. My mum says me the same things. I don't know if Maureen's character is meant to really have trouble with food or if she was just nervous about the protest and couldn't eat just that time, but I suddenly understood why Maureen is always so over the top: she tries to hide her pain, to show the world she is strong. I understood because it's exactly what I did (do). Maybe this awareness will lead me on the path to recovery. Finger crossed for me, people! ;) Thanks for reading. Love ya all.**

"Do you feel better?"  
"Yes, pookie, thank you" Maureen and Joanne were sit on the couch, wrapped in their favourite blanket.  
"Joanne, you don't have to miss a work day because of me" said Maureen with a voice that betrayed all the guilt she was feeling.  
"I'm sure they'll manage to survive a day without me" said Joanne, sweetly smiling to her girlfriend.  
Maureen's color had come back, but the red on her cheeks was mostly shame. Joanne pulled her closer and hugged her, feeling again the thinnes of that tortured body, the thinness she hadn't been able to notice.  
"I'm sorry you had to see me in that state…" said Maureen.  
"No, I am sorry. I'm sorry because I couldn't help you. I was too busy with my work and I didn't notice how you were getting thinner and sadder. For how long?" Maureen breathed deeply. "Three months".  
"My goodness…" soughed Joanne. "Three months… How could I…?"  
"It's not your fault, Joanne. You know I'm good at disguising my painful emotions. I had to learn". Maureen's voice started shaking.  
"For two months I managed to hide the fact I didn't eat because it's not as difficult as people think. You get used to it. But I slowly started to feel weaker and weaker. I didn't have the strenght to do anything, neither things I love doing, such as have sex with you" A little Maureen-esque smirk came to the girl's lips, but fainted immediately. "I knew that sooner or later you would have discover everything and the thought of it made my guilt even bigger, but I kept doing what I did. How selfish I am…"  
Suddenly came to Joanne's mind all the memories of Maureen's little warning signals she had been too shallow to get: evenings without dinner ("I'm not hungry, pookie"), hours in front of the mirror examining every single centimeter of her body ("Do you think these trousers make me fat? They do, do they?"), the obsession with thinness ("I wish I was as thin as Mimi. She's so perfect…"). The lawyer felt her eyes filling with tears.  
"Oh, honeybear… How did all this start?"  
"When I was a little girl", explained Maureen, "I had troubles with my weight. I wasn't fat, just a little overweight , but my classmates started to make fun of me. They were so cruel, Joanne… For some years I managed to ignore them, but when I was fifteen I started to feel it was my fault that I was that way. I looked in the mirror and saw an ugly whale. I desperately wanted to be like all the other girls around me. Food became my archenemy: I threw up whatever I ate and soon I got thinner. Boys liked me and girls congratulated me for my enviable silhouette. After some months I stopped throwing up, but I kept eating very little and I still do it" "Then why did you start throwing up again all of a sudden?" asked Joanne.  
"Well, one day I found out I had fatten up. Not much, just a couple of kilos, but something happened in my mind. The old fear of getting fat took hold of me and I decided I had to be harder with myself and don't allow my body to lose its perfection. I was still deeply sad for Angel's death and highly worried for Mimi. I felt I'd never been able cope with all that". Maureen was crying and she had kept wringing her hands while talking.  
Joanne hugged her tighter than she had ever did before. "Maureen, I'm so sorry you had to go through all this… But why didn't you ask me for help? You know you can always rely on me"  
"I know, but you are so busy with your work and I didn't want to be a baggage".  
Joanne felt her heart melt. "Honey, you're not a baggage! You mustn't be ashamed of your feelings. What kind of girlfriend would I be if I considered you a baggage just because you have some troubles?"  
Maureen smiled between tears and kissed Joanne. "Thank you, my love" she whispered, her voice full of emotion. "Thank you because you are my strenght and my will, and thank you for all the times you have to put up with me and fix me up every time. You're my salvation".  
Maureen wasn't usually one for sentimentalisms, but Joanne knew Maureen was speaking with her heart that time.  
"Maybe a psychologist could help you. Do you want me to make an appointment?" asked Joanne.  
Maureen smiled tenderly. "Sounds great".  
She then rest her head on Joanne's shoulder and she was soon asleep. Joanne watched her troubled, loved girl for a long time and thought of how much she loved her. Then she gently rest her head on Maureen's and follow her girlfriend into a world of happy dreams, no longer nightmares.

**R &amp; R, thanks!**


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RENT, Angst, Hurt-Comfort