Harper pressed her lips together as she clicked “book.” There was no turning back now—at least not without forfeiting half the thousand-dollar booking fee. She’d spent the past week researching eating disorder rehabilitation options in the Hollywood area. Part of her thought she should go all in Girl, Interrupted style, though she wasn’t prone to hiding chicken carcasses under her bed.

More realistically, the outpatient options seemed like a better fit. There was no way she could afford inpatient, especially now that her insurance had lapsed, and she wasn’t about to let Sean pay for it. Besides, she wasn’t that bad. Am I?

She’d delved into the first-person accounts and binge-watched To the Bone on Netflix three times in the past five days. The feeding tubes, the insane roommates, the banding together to help each other hide the vomiting in the bathroom, it was just all too much. What Harper needed right now was structured support—and Sean. Their situation was already so delicate, and he needed her, too. What would he think if she just up and left for a stint in rehab?

Harper sighed. She’d have to tell him now. Fortunately, part of the therapy process at Golden Hills Rehabilitation was working with family and loved ones in group sessions to complement individual therapy. Although she loathed the idea of spilling her worst secrets in front of him, even filtered through a therapist, maybe that’s what they needed.

She peeked into the living room and saw him curled over one of his sketch pads. Harper shifted her weight from side to side and practiced her opening line. Hey, so you know how I’m weird about food? sounded not serious enough. Guess what, I’m anorexic. But I’m getting help! That wouldn’t do either.

Harper still didn’t know what she’d say as she approached him from behind. Instead, she snaked her arms around his neck and buried her face into his cheek. Sex as a salve wasn’t the smartest idea, but it might make for a better introduction to bad news.

Sean went stiff immediately. “What is it?” he asked coldly.

Harper knew that if she pulled her arms away now, it would kickstart a fight. And it would be a fight where she didn’t have any leverage. “Nothing,” she said meekly. “I just … I wanted to tell you … I’ve booked myself into an outpatient program. For eating disorders.” It was a little easier to tell him like this, not having to see the expression in his eyes. She started at the sketch on the pad. It was her, but she could really only tell from the familiar dress he’d captured. The girl on the paper looked longer and lither than she’d ever be.

“Rehab for an eating disorder,” he repeated. It wasn’t a question. “Like anorexia?”

“Yeah,” she said, embarrassed. “And bulimia, binge eating disorder …” as she let the sentence trail off, she felt a thick veil of shame drape over her.

“And that’s what you wanted to tell me? Anything else?” he asked coldly.

She felt a small piece of her die inside, just crumple up and fall away. This is exactly why you shouldn’t tell him, she chided herself. Now what are you going to do? “No, nothing,” she said meekly. Slowly, she unwound her arms and retreated back to her room. There was no telling when he’d be in one of his moods. And once he was in them, she couldn’t gauge when he’d come out. It could be minutes, hours, or a couple of days.

Harper clicked the door quietly behind her and flopped onto her bed. As she opened her laptop, she clicked through the saved movies on Netflix. She loaded the Thin documentary as she prepared to lick her wounds.

Sean burst through the door right as the opening credits started. “Jesus,” she said and snapped the laptop shut. For a few seconds the music still played from the speakers.

He stood in the doorway, nearly took up all the space. For a moment, he wavered, uncertain. “If you need to get help, you should,” he said finally. “I’m … I’m here for you. I’m sorry, I’m not very good at this.”

All the years of restriction, of fat pinching and measuring bubbled up inside her and began to pour down her cheeks. She was racked by decades of self-hatred and there was no stopping the ugly sobs once they started. Harper reached for words that were buried deep inside her, not even knowing what they were. But the sheer pressure of keeping it all down kept them from coming out.

Sean came to her, sat on the bed and held her close. She cried into his shoulder. “No,” she finally choked out. “You’re full of crap,” she said. “I’m a fucking mess, I know it.” Once the words started, they wouldn’t stop. “You know what’s going to happen, don’t you? I’m going to get fat. Even without the feeding tubes and everything, they make you fat in those places.”

He stroked her back, firm yet soft. “You’re not fat now, and you’re not going to be fat if you get help. You’ll get healthy.”

“Healthy’s just a nice way of saying fat,” she said. Harper pushed her closed eyes into his shirt and let it sop up the saltwater. “And all this body positivity shit that’s going around now. Talking about ‘vanity sizing’ and that fucking shit. People think fat is good now!”

“First of all, a person can’t be fat anyway,” he said. “Fat’s a necessary part of the body. You can have fat, and it can shrink or expand, but you can’t be fat. Second of all, if you’re passing out and making yourself throw up—are you making yourself throw up?”

She couldn’t bring herself to admit that, but nodded guiltily into his shoulder.

He sighed. “Harper. That’s a sign that you’re hurting your body. Maybe permanently. I don’t know that much about all this, but I’ll learn. But I have heard about what bulimia can do. The ruining of the throat, your teeth …”

“My teeth are fine,” she said defensively. It was only partially true.

The last time she’d been at the dentist, months ago, he’d finished the exam and looked at her sternly. “Are you purging?” he’d asked. She was shocked into silence. Harper had never been asked so bluntly before.

“Just sometimes,” she said. “I’m a model, so—”

“You need to stop. The acid is wearing away the enamel on your teeth. And I can tell from the severity it’s not just sometimes.”

She’d kept her eyes on her lap. “Isn’t there something you can do—”

“I’m doing everything I can,” he said. “This is up to you. If you keep it up, though, you’ll be having most of your teeth extracted and dental implants before you’re forty.”

Forty had sounded so old, so far away. There was no way she’d be a model at forty. What was the point in worrying about it?

“Harper.” Sean’s voice brought her back to the present. “I’m proud of you for getting help. I’ll support you in it whatever way I can.”

She started to pick at a cuticle as he cradled her in his lap. “Eating like this … it’s the only thing that keeps me thin,” she said. “I’m not naturally thin like a lot of the models. Nobody in my family is super thin. And I’m getting older. My metabolism is fucked to hell anyway. I don’t want to get fat …”

“You’re not going to get fat!” he said. “And, besides, it wouldn’t matter to me if you did.”

“Don’t lie,” she said. “I know that’s part of why you like me. You really think you would have been into me if I didn’t look like I do? Or did, I should say, when we met?”

“I’m not lying,” he said. “And of course I thought you were hot when we met. I still do—more so, though, because I see you. All the way through, to the core. You think those eighty-year-old couples would find each other hot if they met then? It’s because they love each other. I love you, and to me you’ll always be beautiful. You’ll always look like you did the day we met. That’s just how it works. You captured my heart, and what you look like is no longer part of the equation.”

“Really?” She raised her head and searched his eyes, but could find nothing of trickery in them.

“Yes. Really,” he said.

She raised her mouth to his. He tasted of morning tea and an undercurrent of sweetness. As his hands moved from her waist to her breasts, she raised her arms and allowed him to remove her shirt. But when he went to flip her onto her back, she resisted.

Harper pushed his chest and straddled him as he leaned back on her pile of pillows. She could feel the hardness beneath his jeans press into the thin material of her silk panties. His hands reached beneath her short jersey skirt and he squeezed her ass as she released his cock from the denim.

“Hey, hey,” he said. “Slow down.”

“No,” she said, shocked when he listened. Desperate to have him inside her, Harper reached between her legs and pushed the soaked material to the side. She groaned as she directed him into her.

As she began to ride him, her palms flat against his chest, she knew she should tell him about the pregnancy. But not yet, she thought. She’d done enough confessing for one day.