Chapter Four: Big Brother

Convinced she had had everyone including her own half-brother fooled, Ziva allowed a slightly smug smirk to come across her slowly thinning heart-shaped face. When she got home, she rushed to the bathroom, eager yet frightened of finding out how much she weighed. Every day of her existence, sometimes twice, she would check her weight. A part of her knew that it seemed a bit ludicrous to expect a change within twenty-four hours, or less, but she could not help herself. She just had to know. She had to. It was as if that very number plastered across the screen of the scale dictated how she would spend the rest of the day… whether she ran five miles, or ten… whether she did one hundred sit ups or two hundred.

She stepped on the scale after stripping down to absolutely nothing and looked down at that number, a fearful yet at the same time exciting number. The scale told her she weighed the same. She still weighed one-hundred thirty-one pounds. Groaning angrily with so much fury, she wanted to punch a wall, throw something; do anything to get her anger out. Whenever the number stayed the same, or God forbid went up, she would become so infuriated with herself. Ziva would constantly think that she had not only failed herself, but everyone else around her. She had to be the idealistic image of perfection. This was what she thought. It was not as if anyone had told her otherwise.

Ziva pulled her clothes back on and stomped to her room, dressing in her running gear. Ten miles today, and then no dinner… just that damned homework which somehow managed to distract her from insatiable hunger which rampaged throughout her system. She rushed down the stairs and went to the kitchen, fishing a large water bottle from the fridge. She drank half of it and put it back inside. Upon shutting the door, she was startled when she saw her brother standing there.

Ari frowned when he saw her wearing her running garb. He knew what this meant. It meant watching his sister leave the house for two to three hours essentially torturing herself by running to the point of sheer exhaustion, burning off fat and calories which she had none of to begin with. It was something he could barely stand to watch. Was he the only one who was catching onto her self-destructive patterns? Was he the only one who cared?

"Want a snack before you go for your run?" He asked, offering her food as a test.

She looked from the veggie platter in his hands to his face. Despite how tantalizing it was and how badly she wanted to take every single one and shove them down her throat, she knew she could not do this. Ziva had, after all, lasted twelve days. To throw all of that away in a moment of weakness would be completely and utterly upsetting. At least, that was how Ziva saw it. That was how it was in Ziva's eyes.

"No, thank you." Ziva said, shaking her head.

Ari held the platter out towards her.

"Come on! Just take one… for the road." Ari insisted.

"No, please. I am fine."

"They're good!" He titillated.

"I said no, damn it!" Ziva shouted, knocking the platter out of his hands.

She then ran from the kitchen, leaving Ari there to stand dumbfounded. Eli, hearing the sound of glass breaking, came downstairs from his office. He walked into the kitchen to find his son looking down at the ground where vegetables and a broken platter lay.

"What the hell is going on in here?" He asked, his accent thickening with anger.

"Ziva got mad at me… knocked the platter out of my hands." The eighteen year old explained, feeling a bit of remorse for upsetting his sister and father.

"Well, clean it up!" He shouted, gesturing towards it. "This is coming out of your paycheck."

"Yes, sir." Ari said compliantly before getting to work cleaning up the mess.

Meanwhile, Ziva aggressively ran down the sidewalk. She pushed herself as hard as she could as music blasted through her earphones. She kept going and going, not daring to stop. The intelligent Israeli knew that if she were to stop for any reason, she would want to quit all together. Quitting was not an option, never was. So, Ziva kept running until she had done her ten miles. Breathing heavily, she walked a few blocks until she arrived back to her house. When she got home, her mother and Tali were in the front room playing. She smelled food cooking. Her stomach screeched at her. Eat! Eat! Eat! Then her mind would interfere. NO! Don't you dare eat! You're so fucking fat already! Don't you dare do it! NO! It seemed to be a constant, never ending battle. Rivka looked up to see her sweat-drenched daughter standing in the foyer.

"Hello Ziva!" She greeted pleasantly. "How was your run?"

"It was great." Ziva replied almost breathlessly. "Toda, ima."

Ziva's mother's voice was so welcoming, warming. It was one of the few things that made her happy in life. She would be forever thankful to her mother for this seemingly insignificant thing.

"Anytime, baby. Are you hungry? Thirsty? I bet you are." Rivka said, standing from the floor.

"Thirsty, yes. Hungry, no. Not really." Ziva lied.

Lying to her mother had been the hardest thing. She knew her mother cared for her and loved her, and Ziva felt the same for her mother… but her mother never seemed to be able to trump her emotions towards food. But, had they really been her emotions? Parts of her always wondered if this was really her dictating her feelings, thoughts, and actions… or if some weird, inexplicable outside force was causing her to be this way. She pushed the thoughts away and went to the kitchen so that she could drink the rest of her water. When she got to the kitchen, Ziva saw her brother standing at the stove. He was cooking dinner. She bit her lip, silently praying Ari would not force her to eat.

"Oh, there you are!" Ari said in a falsely cheerful tone upon seeing his sister. "How did your run go? I trust it went well, yes?"

In reality, he was too worried for his sister to be cheerful about much.

"Yes." Ziva said shortly, going to the fridge.

She grabbed the water and drank it quickly, hoping to shut her stomach up. It was helping… at the moment.

"I am making risotto and chicken." Ari informed her, all the while secretly hoping he would be able to get her to sit down and eat with them.

"Oh." She replied, tossing the bottle into the recycle bin.

Her response said it all to him. She was not looking forward to it. Not even half a month ago she would happy smiled at the idea of Ari cooking a family dinner. What had happened to his baby sister? Ziva left the kitchen, nausea overcoming her. It was not a sickened nausea of any sort like that. No. In fact, she was so hungry that smelling the food had made her nauseous. She went to her room and lied down on her bed, curling up into a tight ball. She took a few deep breaths, hoping to settle everything down and rid herself of the gut churning feeling she had. Ziva was certainly not looking forward to dinner… not… one… bit.