Max opened his apartment door and the first thing I noticed, was that it smelled different. Girlier.

And as we ventured further in, I took note of how much colour had been added to his living space. Paintings. Ornaments. Throw pillows. It had character now.

It made me smile.

"Thank God for Amalia," I spun in a slow circle and admired the detail. "This place was worse than rehab before she moved in."

"Was not," he scoffed. "But I won't argue. Thank God for Amalia."

I watched my brother cross the living room with a big grin on his face. He was so in love. And he deserved it. He really did.

"Where is she?" I asked, following him into the spare bedroom.

My bedroom.

It would be for the next month anyway. And then I was free to either move into the Hermosa house or to Texas. But mom wouldn't let me be without spending some time at home with her and dad.

"She went out to get us dinner," he put the suitcase down on the floor beside the closet and slid his hands into his pockets. "She wanted to cook but she ran out of time to get the ingredients. We've both been flat out at work, so she thought she'd pick up some of that fancy smoargasboard stuff. Ya know when they give you a bowl and you choose what meats and stuff you want and you can get rice or noodles and different sauces and wh—"

"Max," I held up a hand to halt his rambling. "Relax. I'll eat. I've been doing that. Ya know, hence I'm here and not still in rehab."

He nodded and looked around the room. "Uh cool. So— um oh— mom knew you wouldn't have a lot of stuff here. Personal stuff. She said to go shopping and charge it to her card if you wanted. She probably told you that."

"She did."

"Cool. Oh I'll show you this—" he slipped past me and crossed the corridor into the bathroom. I sighed and prayed that he'd stop feeling as though he had to walk on eggshells around me.

He opened the vanity door in the bathroom and revealed the clear shelf. "Amalia made a space for you. Whatever you want to put there. Or whatever. Um oh— shit—"

I followed his nervous stare to the space between the vanity and the toilet and saw a set of scales leaning on its side.

"I'll move those. We don't— like who— no one really needs these thi—"

"Max," I snapped and grabbed his arm before he could touch the scales.

His nervous pitiful gaze was almost too much to bare. It felt like a scrutinising pressure. Like I was backed into a corner and although his intentions were good, I hated being fussed over and worried about.

"Please stop," I tried not to get too worked up. "Don't be weird. Don't treat me differently. Please. I just want us to be us. Let's tease each other about our love lives - okay well I'll tease you. Don't tease me. I'm not there - let's watch too much crime channel and eat popcorn and go to weird bars and talk shit about Lucas. Let's just be. . . normal."

His shoulders relaxed and he gave me a real genuine smile for the first time since I'd seen him.

"Yeah. Of course. I'm sorry," he said before his expression became serious and he pointed at me. "No weird bars."

We both laughed and I stepped into a warm big brother hug. Max had a good heart. My entire family did but I'd always been close with Max.

He listened. He understood when something was important to me. He wasn't forceful. This was what I needed.

When I went to use the toilet ten minutes later, the scales were gone.

Max, Amalia and I sat around the little four seater table beside the kitchen. The sliding door to the patio was open, the warm breeze came in and the sounds of the city below were loud but not invasive.

Max had relaxed since we had our chat and I was relieved that things felt more natural again.

"Thanks for the space in the bathroom," I said to Amalia. She was mixing her dinner in its bowl and smiled. "How's work going?"

Conversation helped. Talking while I ate. It helped move the focus so I didn't think about the calorie count.

My mind wouldn't fester on each mouthful and wonder if I should stop before I bloat. I'd changed into sweatpants before the meal so I wouldn't feel the tension on my jeans when I got full.

My mind wanted to obsess over the fact that each bite was more calories and those calories had to go somewhere.

But it was easier than it used to be. The food wasn't unhealthy. The portion wasn't ridiculous. There was nothing wrong with being conscious of good food choices.

Good food choices meant good health and energy and strength.

The conversation helped me not to dwell on the mind games.

"Work is great," Amalia answered, twisting her fork around her noodles. "It's a lot. But it's great. I do have the day off work on Wednesday though. We should do something?"

"Oh," I swallowed a forkful of spiced beef. "Yeah. I'd love to."

"Great," she bounced in her seat and I caught the quick look that she and Max shared.

Great. I was being babysat. Ugh. Whatever. It could be worse. Amalia is nice. It's not like it'd be a hassle to spend time with her.

"So what are you up to now, Max?" I stabbed a piece of broccoli covered in sauces. "You decided to give up on Law?"

"Giving up would imply that I tried it at all," he leaned back in his seat and put his arm on the back of Amalia's chair. "I dunno. I just kind of got a taste for how much more there was out there and I decided a corporate job wasn't what I wanted."

"So what do you want?"

"Well right now I'm managing the Delgado's gallery here in New York while I take an online course. It's a travel writing course. It's just to gain a bit more knowledge. Mostly because Elias has been talking about the possibility of doing a pop up shop tour. Ya know, joining markets and that sort of thing across Spain, Italy, France and expanding if it does well."

"For real?" I was stunned. "I always knew you had it in you. That'll be an amazing experience if it goes well. You mean selling his art, right?"

He nodded and Amalia answered me while she stared at him. "He'd be perfect for it. He's so respectful and a fast learner," she turned to me. "He told me how much you encouraged him to get out of his shell last September."

"Yeah well he needed it," I gave Max a smug grin. "He was going to end up dying alone in this apartment and no one would have known until the smell started infecting the rest of the building."

He winced. "That's real nice."

Amalia finished her bowl of food and then she tore off a chunk of garlic bread and leaned back in her seat with it. Her figure was practically perfect.

No bones protruding but no rolls either. The space around her arms just under her shoulders didn't bulge around her bra but it wasn't non existent either.

She looked comfortable and gorgeous and it killed me that I couldn't look in the mirror and feel for my own body what I could feel about someone else's.

When I was finished eating, Max told me to leave the trash on the table and he'd clean it up.

"I'm gonna go to the bathroom and then I might do a circuit in the gym downstairs," I said, pushing my seat back.

Max paused and stared at me while Amalia slipped away into the kitchen.

"I'm allowed to exercise for one hour a day, Max."

"Alright," he held his hands up in surrender before he carried on collecting up the dinner trash. "I haven't done a circuit either. How about I join?"

I sighed. "Sure. Yeah. That's fine. Give me a second."

In the corridor, I reached for the bathroom door and bumped into it when the handle didn't twist and let me in. I tried it again but it was locked.

"It um— it has to be locked for half n hour after meals," Max was leaning on the hall door frame with an apologetic expression. "Sorry. That was the rules."

"Max, open this door."

"I can't, Abby. I don't make the rules, alright? But I'm going to follow them."

"I need to piss! Open the door," I was on the cusp of a total fit. This was just embarrassing and frustrating. "If I was that desperate to lose dinner, I wouldn't need the bathroom. I'd do it wherever the hell worked. So stop being a pain and just unlock the door or I'll piss on your bed."

He recoiled with disgust.

"Open the door!"

"Alright, fine," he reached into the pocket of his shorts and retrieved a key. "But I'm standing right out here. Be quick."

It took a lot of willpower to remember what Andrea had told me when I was preparing to leave the centre. "They are not trying to hurt you. They care. Never blame them for caring. And never blame them for not doing it properly. They will often not know how to."

Later that night, I declined Max's offer to watch a movie with him and Amalia.

It wasn't because I didn't want to spend time with them, but I was exhausted.

The bed sheets were cool against my skin when I slid into bed and snuggled down. The weather was warm but the air conditioning was on a constant low fan, keeping us from overheating.

My phone light illuminated the dark room as I laid on my side and swiped it unlocked. There were a few new text messages from dad.

Hey princess. Sorry about pushing things earlier. Just miss you a lot.
Love you.

There was one from Lucas.

What up. Hope you're feeling well! Maybe I should come and move in. We can all live together like the old times. Lol.! Can just imagine your disgust right now. Love you dick head.

And one from mom.

Your dad means well. But I'll talk to him. Get him to ease up a bit. This has just been hard on him. He worries a lot. You're his little girl.

Tears rolled over the bridge of my nose and dropped into the pillow. It hurt more than I could handle to know that dad wasn't coping while I was gone and he still wasn't now.

I missed him too. I hoped he knew that. But the fact that I was responsible for his change, for his sorrow and heartache, that felt wrong and it motivated me so much to completely shatter this mind frame that was constantly trying to tear me down.

Having no social media apps meant that I didn't have a lot to do on my phone. I could have downloaded them again but that would be a huge step in the wrong direction. I knew it. I wasn't ready for that.

So I opened my photo gallery and started scrolling through old photos. I went past all of the ones in I'd taken in rehab and the camera roll stopped at a collection from last summer.

Flynn. He was all over the screen and I was torturing myself, for the thousandth time, with photos of the man I'd loved and left behind.

There were selfies we'd taken on the beach. Shots that other people had taken of us before an event, full bodied ones of our outfits.

I looked at my figure in the little orange dress and couldn't understand what I'd seen before or what I continued to see now. These photos looked like a healthy, well proportioned girl. So why couldn't the mirror show me the same thing?

I closed that photo and opened a selfie of Flynn and I at graduation. Our blue caps and gowns on. We hadn't been looking at the camera, but at each other.

No one could ever see this photo and not see love. He looked at me like I was the universe. Infinite and so spectacular that it was impossible to comprehend.

My fingers traced the length of his face. The side of his smile. The hand that he had cupping my neck.

I sobbed and hugged the phone to my chest. "I miss you so much."