It was dark outside, the sun had set more than an hour ago and only a slight shimmer of light could be seen at the horizon. Maya had started running aimlessly as fast as she could while Carina's words kept replaying in her head:

"I can see how much weight you've lost..."

These words were somehow making her proud of herself; in fact whenever someone had commented on her weight loss recently it had felt like a compliment to Maya, something she had achieved. Why couldn't Carina see that it was an accomplishment that surely made her more attractive? The less she ate and the more weight she would loose, the better, more worthy and more loveable she would become.

Without having any control over it, the frightening image of her father appeared and she was overwhelmed with flashbacks of her childhood...

"Well that didn't go according to plan.", Carina thought, trying to calm down her breathing, still sitting on the floor in the hallway. When she had heard Maya vomiting she couldn't help but say something; she could no longer stand all of Maya's lies and her evasive behaviours. In retrospect, it probably hadn't been the best idea to confront her right then and there. On the other hand, as Maya seemed to be in denial about having an eating disorder, it might not have made any difference anyway. She didn't know how to feel exactly, it was a mix of immense worry, anger, desperation and guilt. There were too many thoughts all at once that were threatening to overwhelm her. Had this been the first time that Maya had thrown up deliberately? Did this mean that she was eating even less than she had thought? Why wasn't Maya confiding to her or anyone else for that matter? Did she want to starve herself to death? Now that wasn't exactly fair; Maya might be so deep in the throws of the illness that her thoughts weren't rational anymore, she likely wasn't able to see the full extent of her actions, Carina knew that much as a doctor. But why had she run again? Memories of the last time flooded Carina's mind. Both times Carina had pushed Maya to talk about abuse and mental illness, evidently more than she was able to handle. Why exactly had she decided to provoke Maya by cooking Spaghetti even though she had basically known about Maya's struggles with eating? Perhaps she had hoped that Maya would have opened up to her if she just struggled with the meal too much. Looking back, Carina thought that she knew better at this point. While Maya was trying to accept the fact that she had been abused in her childhood, she was still extremely stubborn and strong willed and tended to respond with anger as a mean of self-preservation. Provoking her like that was not exactly likely to have been the path to a calm and rational conversation about her mental state and her feelings. Where was that path leading though? We're had Maya gone? They were in the middle of a pandemic and it was dark and cold outside. Should she go out and look for Maya? Or wait here for her to come home?

"Two pounds heavier than last week? What did you lie about? Are you getting sweets from someone? Did you sneak into the kitchen again? I told you that you have to loose weight for the next tournament in Boston. Are you doing this to humiliate me? There is no dinner for you today. And I promise you that I will find out if you don't adhere to your diet again. I expect you to loose the pounds until next week or you don't even have to compete, if you continue being this lazy."

"Ma'am, can you hear me?"

Slowly, Maya felt the cold, slightly moist grass that she was laying on and heard a male voice calling. She sat up quickly and saw a man looking at her worriedly but still keeping six feet apart.

"Do you need an ambulance?", he asked, his phone in his hand.

"No. No, I'm fine.", Maya said quickly, getting up but swaying and holding onto the tree next to her.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, thank you though.", Maya's authoritative voice had returned.

"No problem.", the man said, giving her one last glance and then walking past her. Maya took in her surroundings and realised that she was about five miles from her apartment. Then she saw a little bit of vomit right next to her. Maya wasn't able to comprehend what had just happened. She just felt numb.