A Great Big Love

by Alona Jarden

  Almost three years. It's been so long since I last saw this look off-screen.

  Where did Michelle get those eyes from? How could she mimic the light that reflected from them so accurately?

  I thought no one could come close to Sarah's beauty until Michelle came through those doors.

  And her eyes… I might have actually found something worth striving for.

  Chapter 5

  Michelle

  One, two, three, four, five, six.

  Wow. That's a new record. Six sturdy paramedics stood over me as I opened my eyes.

  They sweated with exceeding effort while trying to load my two hundred and sixty pounds onto the stretcher.

  "Ummm... Hello." I seemed to have surprised everyone.

  "Oh, hello, ma'am. How are you feeling?" one of them asked me.

  "Ma'am is my mother. You can call me Michelle."

  "Okay, Michelle. How are you feeling?" He gave me a merciful smile and tilted his head to its side.

  "I feel like a truck hit me. About the way I felt the last time this happened."

  "Has something like this happened to you before?"

  "Oh, yeah. About six months ago. Heartbeat arrhythmia, right?"

  "I'm not really qualified to confirm this diagnosis, but you're probably right." I could see his face calm down from worrying about me. "I still think you should come with us to the hospital."

  "Sure. No problem. And don’t be alarmed." I pushed myself to a sitting position. "Just help me stand up, and I'll walk with you to the ambulance by myself."

  "Are you sure you're up for it?"

  "Yes, I'm sure." The embarrassment from all the attention being focused on me took over. "I bet I know who called you here, so where is she?"

  "Do you mean your—"

  "Is she up? Did I hear correctly? Did she wake up?!" I heard Noel shouting hysterically as she tried to make her way through the group of men surrounding me until she managed to see me sitting and talking to them.

  "You know? Saying you wanted a party was enough, Noel. You didn't have to call an ambulance for that." I smiled at her.

  "Protocol is protocol, Michelle."

  "You are something else." I loved her so much at that moment. "What would I do without you?"

  "You would die."

  "I would, wouldn’t I?" I giggled, but she didn’t find any of this funny.

  "And that's the problem, you see? Did I ever tell you that you're a world-class dumb ass?"

  "Okay, this is a new response from you. Is it that time of the month already?" I managed to make some of the paramedics standing around us laugh on her account and kinda felt bad about it.

  "No, you idiot. I'm experiencing a temporary lack of sanity due to being too responsible and dealing with mental stress. And you're to blame!"

  "Me?!"

  "Yes, you. Do you think it's normal that we have this protocol in the first place? Do you think I can live peacefully when I'm responsible for your life? How can I sleep at night knowing that in the morning, I have to check and make sure that you wake up? Who wants that weight on their shoulders? Not me, that's who!"

  "Listen, Noel—"

  "No!" She raised her voice at me, maybe for the first time since I knew her. "You listen to me, Michelle. I am putting a stop to this right here and now."

  "What are you saying?"

  "I'm saying that if you want to kill yourself, you're welcome to do so. I don’t want to be responsible for saving you anymore, and do you know why? Do you want to know why?" She repeated the question, proving just how hysterical she was.

  "I do. I want to know why?" I played along.

  "Because I looked in your refrigerator." I knew exactly what she saw there. "And then, I went through your kitchen cabinets."

  "You what?!"

  "Yes, Michelle. I know all about the boxes of snacks you hid around the house, and I know you haven’t been eating only fruits and vegetables like you claimed you do. But don't worry." She crossed her shaky arms. "This won't happen again. I threw it all in the trash."

  "And I'm not supposed to be worried? Does that sound like a rational thing to do?" I smirked slightly. "If you ask me, you're in a very unstable state of mind. Maybe these guys should have a look at you while they're here."

  "Go ahead. Laugh. Laugh your ass off. I hope you'll laugh for the rest of your life, Michelle. It's just that your life isn’t going to end on my shift. Do you get it? Do you understand what I'm saying? I can't be personally responsible for your life anymore!"

  The paramedics interrupted our conversation, if I could even describe that yelling competition as a conversation. They supported me as I made my way to the ambulance and asked a million questions about my medical history. I can't say I was surprised when most of their questions focused on my obesity. How expected of them.

  The protocol that Noel spoke of was set six months ago, after the previous time a late-night eating binge caused me to lose consciousness. Back then, before the protocol between us was established, I remained lying unconscious on the living room floor for a very long time. No one came looking for me. When I finally woke up, I tried to get up and found that I had sprained my ankle during the fall. I couldn't move, my phone wasn't within my reach, and actually, if Noel hadn't decided to pass by my house before driving home at the end of her workday, I would probably have stayed there for several days.

  From that day forward, we determined that I'd contact her every morning and night. We set that I would reach out every few hours, just to confirm that everything was fine with me, but it seemed as though she'd had enough of that responsibility. Isn't that a shame.

  "I can't stand it anymore, Michelle." She sat down next to the bed, which was strong enough to hold me, as the ambulance began its drive.

  "Then sit down."

  "Plank jokes? Now? Really?" I failed in my attempt to ease the tension between us.

  "What do you want, Noel?"

  "I want you to wake up and save your life. Now. Before you won't be able to wake up at all."

  "This isn’t about me. You want me to do what will make you feel better about yourself when you're near me. Be honest. This isn’t about me at all."

  "Yeah? Really? Is that what you think? If so, maybe you're right. Maybe I'm a sociopath after all. Maybe me not wanting my best friend to die during this coming year is selfish of me."

  "Maybe." I wondered if I could keep talking to her without getting defensive about this issue.

  "Yes. I'm selfish. I'm probably just thinking about me when I ask that we don’t have a protocol in which I'm responsible for finding out if you're unconscious on the floor or not."

  "I'm actually glad to hear you say that, Noel." A smile crept into the corners of my mouth as I stared at her. "I'm glad you're starting to take responsibility for your recent behavior. I admit it. I wanted to tell you these things long ago, but I didn't know how to start such a conversation. Now that you're—"

  "You're fired," she said, interrupting my attempt to escape to an amused tone, and suddenly my heartbeat accelerated.

  "Stop talking nonsense. You'd never fire me. You need me."

  "I do need you. That's why I'm serious. You're fired." She annunciated each word as she said it.

  "Stop saying that."

  "You're fired."

  "Are you really firing me?"

  "I am."

  "Because I fainted?"

  "No, dumb ass, because I'll do anything to save my best friend, and if working for me keeps you too busy, it's time you start working for yourself."

  "You don’t mean that, Noel. You don’t—"

  "Oh, but I do. I meant what I said. I'm totally serious, but are you? What about you? Are you ready to take your health seriously?"

  "I'm... I mean… I'm…"

  "I... I'm... I..." she puffed in contempt. "I know this stuttering of yours, did you forget? I know you. You're planning on blurting out some exciting sentences about you realizing you exaggerated. You'll probably say that
you're going to get your shit together, but then, you'll keep eating cut-up vegetables in the office while you stop at McDonald's on your way home. Am I right?"

  "You don't understand, Noel."

  "I'm not supposed to understand. You're supposed to explain it to me. We're best friends, aren’t we? Best friends don't pretend and lie to each other."

  "You'll never understand what I'm going through, even if I explain it to you. I've come too far. It's... It's too late for me. It's lost."

  "Excellent." She patted her hands on her thighs in frustration. "In that case, I stand by my executive decision. You're fired."

  "Stop saying that!" I yelled at her.

  "I'm sorry, but I'm not interested in a personal manager who can't manage herself. I guess you're right. It's too late, Michelle. You probably really are a lost cause."

  For a while, exemplary silence prevailed in the ambulance.

  The paramedic sitting next to Noel nodded as if he wanted to applaud her. The radio didn't play any song, and besides the beeping device that sounded my rapid heartbeat, there was no other sound.

  Noel's threats played over and over in my head, and I knew that without her in my life, I'd really be left alone in the world.

  I moved far from my hometown, linked my professional experience to the success of her company, and based my hopes for any social life in her and her family. My whole life revolved around Noel, and I wondered if there would be something left of it, in her absence.

  "You're right." I broke the silence. "I'm not being fair to you."

  "Oh, my God!" She lifted her head and continued after returning her angry gaze to me. "I'm not a part of this story, Michelle. You're being unfair to yourself, not to me. When will you get that through your thick head?"

  "I'm not being fair to me? What are you talking about? I'm fine with how I look, and if you're—"

  "You know what? I'll take it back. You're not being fair to me. If it's more convenient for you to say that you weren't okay when it comes to me, then I'll take it. You're not. You're really not being fair to me."

  "That's what I said. It's not fair on my part to impose such a responsibility on you. It's not fair of me to lean so fully on you as I have done so far, and it's unfair on my part to make you the significant person in my life."

  "Are you being serious, or are you kidding?" She looked at me with an inquiring eyebrow raised.

  "Of course, I'm serious."

  "My goodness, you are, aren’t you?" She stared, laughing. "You're really serious. I can't believe it."

  "What's funny about what I said?"

  "Nothing, except everything you just said. Things are the exact opposite of how you described them, you crazy loon of a woman." She chuckled lightly, folding her fingers in mine and adopting a more sensitive tone of voice than before. "On the contrary, my Michelle. It's me who puts too much pressure on you. It's my dependency on you that won't allow you to lead a normal healthy lifestyle. It is me who relies on you with every significant decision, and it's probably me who adds unnecessary stress and tension to issues that shouldn’t be your interest in the first place. I made you a part of me in my personal and professional life, rather than learning how to become a complete person on my own. Now, do you see what's funny about how you saw us? You have a completely messed up way to look at our friendship, babe."

  "I never knew that that's how you saw things, Noel." My eyes widened in amazement.

  "And I never imagined you saw them so differently." She leaned over and hugged me for the rest of the ride to the hospital.

  A very long time after that, I sat in the back seat of the taxi, on my way back to my apartment.

  I wasn’t at all surprised that the doctors kept lecturing me about the effects of obesity on my heart muscles and the burden that my body fat percentage adds to maintaining my health.

  Noel conditioned my return to work by me taking sick leave as recommended by the doctors before she had to go back home. She demanded that I adopt a healthier lifestyle, one that would help the protocol that existed between us to become irrelevant. She said that I should take myself seriously. Otherwise, she wouldn’t let me return to being her personal manager. That was a price I wasn’t willing to pay.

  I held the letter of discharge and read the sections of the doctor's recommendation for continued care. Unlike the previous time I was discharged from the hospital, during that specific ride home, I read every word carefully, searched Google for the meaning of the different values that appeared as high or low in the blood test results, and delved into the doctors' recommendations vigorously.

  "Medical recommendations for follow-up treatment:

  1. Please set up an appointment with your GP in the coming days.

  2. It is advisable to build a diet plan using a professional dietician consultant.

  3. It is recommended to build a professional exercise program accompanied by a professional trainer only.

  4. Please contact a cardio specialist for follow-up on heart muscle damage.

  5. Blood pressure should be monitored regularly.

  6. In any event of dizziness, nausea, chest pain, or shortness of breath, please immediately return to the ER.

  7. In case of vision loss, immediately return to the ER.

  8. It is recommended to take three days leave for rest.

  9. In the event of any worsening and/or recurrence of the symptoms, you should return to the ER or to your GP. "

  The discharge papers didn’t say anything that I didn't know before, and though I had no intention of complying with half the recommendations noted in it, nonetheless, I knew I had to make some changes in my life.

  I went too far. It's been said to me before, but I finally agreed. I was told I exaggerated whether by my doctor, my parents, or myself, yet I always thought they were mostly thinking of themselves and not of me.

  I always believed that they would feel better about themselves if I wasn't fat around them, so I listened to them, nodded in agreement, and did what I saw fit to do. But suddenly, doing what I had been doing for all those years seemed utterly idiotic.

  I never thought that Noel saw our friendship like that. It never occurred to me that I was a burden on her shoulders. All I saw was the significant and long-standing friendship we shared, and suddenly, when I realized that my way of thinking was completely wrong, I decided to do the opposite of what I intended to do. I decided, for the first time in my life, to take the recommendations written in my hospital discharge letter seriously.

  I re-read the harsh words again, and I could feel my body's anger building up inside me for neglecting it for so long.

  "I'm going to lose all this weight," I said aloud.

  "I'm sorry, what was that? Were you talking to me?" The cab driver looked straight into my eyes through the rearview mirror.

  "I'm going to lose all this weight!" I repeated my words loudly and stared back at him.

  "Ah... Good for you. You know? My aunt suffered once from..." He went on to tell me at length how his mother's sister was an overweight woman who worked hard and finally dropped all the weight off, but I couldn't bring myself to listen to him.

  I was done. I was done listening to others, done saying things just so they'll hear them, I was done.

  It was then that I decided to hear myself and listen to myself and was determined to follow that through.

  "I'm going to lose all this weight!" I interrupted his speech again, and he looked back at the road and said no more.

  He may have realized that my conversation was not with him but with myself, and he may have actually thought that I was mentally unstable and could only put together that one sentence.

  Screw the reason for his silence.

  Suddenly, I didn't care what he thought at all.

  I repeated the sentence in my head with a big smile on my face and became fiercely determined.

  I was going to lose all that weight. I was!

  And I was going to do it for myself and for no one else.
I was going to lose all the weight!

  Chapter 6

  Don

  "Hi, Mom." I answered her phone call almost immediately while I opened the freezer door and craved something sweet. "What's up?"

  "Nothing new, cutie. How about you? Did you leave the house today?"

  "I did."

  "You're such a bad liar." She was wrong, as I actually did leave the house that morning. I went to that unnecessary meeting, waiting for Michelle who never showed up, and then came back home more broken than before.

  "Okay, I admit it. You're right. You always know when I'm lying." I allowed her to feel like I was still the little boy she once knew, even though that part of me died when Dr. Klein walked out of the operating room with teary eyes.

  "So, what are you doing?"

  "Nothing. Just standing in front of the fridge, wondering what I feel like eating."

  "Do you want to come over for dinner?"

  "No, thanks." I shuddered at the idea of returning to my desolate home twice in one day. "I have other plans for tonight."

  "Other plans? What other plans?" She immediately got filled with positive energy.

  "I'm going to a weight loss support meeting at the community center."

  "You are? Really?!" Her voice broke at a high octave, and it was evident that the smile on her face threatened to cross the boundaries of technology and reach me.

  "I am." I found it funny that when I was telling the truth, she called me a liar, and when I lied, she got excited, so I continued in the same direction, amused with myself. "I thought about what you said on Friday, and I decided that you're right."

  "I'm a little scared to ask, but can you explain what that means?"

  "It means that you're right, Mom. I went too far with all the things that I eat. I really should—"

  "Well, now I know you're lying." I was saddened to hear how her good mood changed all of a sudden. "You don't think I'm right. You never think I'm right. Not about that. You're not going to any meeting, are you?"