When Reginald got home he greeted everyone with a smile. He hugged Beatrice and kissed Max. Finally, he stopped at Aven.

“Who’s this lovely lady?” he asked. Max pulled him aside and whispered in his ear.He nodded in understanding. “You’re fine to stay with us for as long as you need, Aven.” he said, putting up his hat and coat.

“When are the Johnstons going to arrive?” Max asked. “I don’t know if we’ll be able to cook it all in time.”

“Well, you don’t have to.” Reginald said. “Jack canceled while we were walking home from work. Said his daughter was sick.”

“What about all this food then?” Max asked. There wasn’t enough for two families, but there surely was enough for more than four people. There was at least another person’s worth.

“I know!” Beatrice said. She went to grab a pen and paper, writing some stuff down. Aven peered over her shoulder to see what she was writing, but it was meaningless gibberish.

“Bea, let me handle the letter.” Reginald said. He took a fresh sheet of paper and began transcribing the writing. After years of being her brother, he had learned how to understand the scrawl. When he finished writing he handed it to Beatrice.

“Are you really going to run this to her?” Reginald asked.

“What? Of course not.” Beatrice laughed. “That’s not for ladies to do.” Beatrice called Fluffy over and set the letter down. “Fluffy, to Angel as fast as you can!” Beatrice said with vigor.

Fluffy gave a tiny snake nod and swallowed the letter whole. He slithered out the door at breakneck speed. At least, breakneck speed for a snake.

*   *   *   *   *

When Angel arrived, escorted by Fluffy, they all sat down and began to eat the big meal. They all introduced Aven to Angel, one of Beatrice’s sisters, and caught them up to speed about each other. Angel recognized her and was so pleased to see Aven.

“I’m so glad Max and Beatrice found you.” Angel said during their meal. “You’re such a nice person. You’ve served me so much candy.”

“Oh well, I’m just glad they could find me.” Aven nervously laughed. “I don’t know where I’d be without them. Probably nowhere good though.”

“But now we’re all sisters!” Beatrice butted in. They all laughed and continued the idle chatter throughout dinner.

Beatrice was sitting next to Aven and noticed her particularly large appetite. She certainly ate a lot more and a lot faster than everyone else at the table, and didn’t look like she was listening to the conversation very much. She was distant and somewhere else in her mind while everything happened around her. It was almost the opposite of how Beatrice was eating, which was not a lot. She noticed Aven reaching for more corn when she realized there was none more to reach for; she had eaten the last of it. Her hand trembled at the realization.

“Hey, you can have mine.” Beatrice offered, scooping her corn off of her plate and onto Aven’s. It made her clearly flustered.

“You- you don’t need to-”

“No, but I’m going to.” she decided. “Take it.”

“But you-”

“Take it.” Beatrice glared, giving Aven another frightening view of her paralyzing emerald green gazing into her soul. She gulped and accepted the token of friendship.

“Bea, make sure to eat yourself.” Max chimed between bites of food.

“Yeah, yeah.” Beatrice said, swirling around her mashed potatoes.

“Max is right,” Reginald added. “You know what mom and dad said about keeping up with your eating.”

“And I’m trying.” she said defensively. “It’s just not so easy for me as it is for you.”

“But you know that’s not going to stop us from making you do it.”

“Yeah, I know.” she sighed, reluctantly putting a bit of those mashed potatoes in her mouth. Aven held out a forkful of chicken for Beatrice.

“I don’t need it.” Beatrice declined.

“What about the eating thing?” she asked.

“I’ll be fine.” she said with a forced smile. Fluffy came from over her shoulder and swallowed the chicken on Aven’s fork whole, making them both chuckle.

*   *   *   *   *

“That was a great dinner!” Max said, waving at Angel as she walked home. She closed the door and looked exhausted.

“Too bad Jack and his family couldn’t enjoy it with us.” Reginald regretted.

“More for us!” Max laughed. Reginald swept Max off her feet as they both laughed a little more wildly. Beatrice and Aven laughed at Max’s threats at Reginald for if he dropped her; his knees were wobbling and his arms were starting to give out. He quickly laid her out on the couch so he could breathe a sigh of relief.

“That’s… not as easy as I remember…” Reginald panted.

“What was that?” Max asked threateningly.

“Nothing, honey…”

“No, no, go on. Why’s it harder now?”

“We’ve already been through this, Max. There’s just more of you to love.”

“Mhm. We’ll talk about that later tonight.”

“Oh boy…”

“We should get going now,” Beatrice said, looking at the setting sun outside. “We had such a good time today.”

“We should do it again.” Max decided. “Just the three of us out and about!”

“And what about me?” Reginald asked.

“You can be at work.” Max teased.

“So this is my thanks for working all day?” he asked. “Good to know I’m appreciated.”

“I made you dinner, didn’t I?”

“We made dinner.” Beatrice corrected.

“You chopped carrots.” Max said with a smile.

“I still say it was a group effort.”

“Did you enjoy yourself, Aven?” Reginald asked.

“Oh, um, yes I did.” she said, looking a bit uncomfortable. She shifted around a bit, holding her baskets of new clothing and eyeing the door.

“We should get going.” Beatrice decided, standing up and gathering her new clothes too.

“You two get home safe.” Reginald wished.

“See you two later.” Max waved as they exited the house and went down the street. Beatrice eyed Aven’s baskets. She saw one of them had something poking out from under them, but said nothing.

“I noticed you ate a bit… voraciously tonight.” Beatrice pointed out.

“I noticed you ate… scarcely tonight…” Aven whispered back.

“You wanna talk about it?” Aven shook her head to signal no. “Fine then, another time.”

“Yes, another-” Aven stopped and looked really dizzy for a moment before dropping her baskets and rushing to a grassy area. She let loose and vomited in the corner of the park. Beatrice sighed and tried her best to lift the rest of the baskets, but it was hard.

“Don’t look at me like that.” she hissed at Fluffy, who was giving her a look that said ‘You should’ve listened to me and eaten reasonably.’

“Beatrice,” Aven groaned. “I think I-” she didn’t finish her sentence before getting sick again.

“Shhh,” Beatrice said, patting her back. “Let it out, girl. I’ll walk you back.”

Beatrice carried all the baskets and held Aven up, walking the vomiting girl all the way back to the snake lady’s home. There, she tucked Aven into bed and quietly exited the bedroom and sat on the couch.

She thought about Aven, then about the three guys who had approached them today, then about Aven’s eating, then about vomiting in the park. She recognized the pattern of what happened to Aven, and she wasn’t going to let her friend go through it. Starting tomorrow she was going to give her new friend help.

*   *   *   *   *

Aven dragged herself out of bed and looked around. She was in Beatrice’s bedroom, sleeping in her bed. It was a great deal nicer than the guest bedroom, but she felt bad about taking it from her. She felt worse when she walked out to find Beatrice asleep on the couch, Fluffy curled up on her chest. 

Aven put her hand over her stomach, feeling the aftereffects of what happened after Beatrice had put her to bed. She held nothing but regret but couldn’t do anything about it now. She had to get to work before the candy store opened. She found her men’s clothing, reluctantly put them on, and walked out the door.

*   *   *   *   *

When Beatrice woke up, her back felt like someone had tried to make a balloon animal out of it. She thumped onto the floor and groaned as her back experienced some rapid popping in the process of getting up.

She creeped into her room, where she found the bed with the blankets and pillows strewn about. Aven’s dresses were neatly folded in a basket, but there was no sign of her. She figured she must’ve gone to work. In a fit of curiosity, Beatrice approached Aven’s dress basket and lifted the clothing out dress-by-dress until she found a neatly tied cloth bag at the bottom. When she opened it she found an assortment of dessert pastries inside. Beatrice could tell that the bag was much more full at some point though. It started filling the air with a sickly sweet smell to her. 

Beatrice quickly closed the bag, as if she had released poison into the air. She tied the bag back up and put it below the clothing where she had found it. She didn’t need that kind of food more than once a month. Yesterday’s ice cream was just for Aven. She didn’t really want it herself. Aven could eat what she wanted on her own time, and she could keep it all for herself. She felt Fluffy creep up her leg and around her arm, nudging her to get a move on. 

Beatrice got ready for the day and threw herself into another black dress. Fluffy crawled along her back, tying those laces in the back of the dress that she could never seem to reach. She was pretty lucky to have Fluffy there to do those things for her. If her shoes had laces he’d probably tie those for her too.

When she was finally ready to leave she realized that she wasn’t sure where she actually wanted to leave to. There were a lot of options, but not a ton of people really wanted to put up with her attitude usually.

“Where do you want to go?” she asked Fluffy.

“Hissssssss.” he responded. She wouldn’t normally go there without one of her siblings, but he did have a way with words.

“Fine, we’ll go just to pay her a visit.” she said. “I can’t afford to eat anything there.”

“Hissss.”

“Oh shush. I’m already fat enough.”

“Hissss.”

“Hey! What was that for?!”

“Hissss.”

“Can we talk about this some other time?”

“Hiss.”

“No, I don’t plan on remembering.”

“Hissss.”

“Let’s just go,” she mumbled, not enthused about losing an argument to her snake.

*   *   *   *   *

Aven was not having a great day at all. She could feel herself sweating buckets even though it wasn’t actually that hot of a day. She knew her nausea was mostly prompted by the binge eating after Beatrice put her into bed, then again in the morning. She felt extremely guilty about doing that, especially in Beatrice’s own home; her own bedroom no less.

“Hey  buddy,” one of her coworkers said. “You doing alright? You look like you’re gonna puke over there.”

“No, I’m alright.” Aven said with a forced smile.

“Well don’t push it.” he said, giving Aven a pat on the back. “I don’t want to deal with customer service work for the next few days. Not again.”

Aven took her place as the cashier out front, giving people their candy for money. The customers being so loud was giving her a worse headache and making the nausea unbearable. She just hoped that her shift would end before she had the opportunity to be sick. 

The shop had become fairly quiet and Aven was close to drifting into sleep, hoping to get her forty winks while the shop was empty. Maybe it would even calm down the headache. The door gently opened and the bell sounded as Aven heard a woman walk in.

“Afternoon.” Beatrice greeted, making her way towards the counter without even looking at any of the candy.

“You want to buy something?” Aven asked, confused.

“God no,” Beatrice cackled. “I’m just here to visit you.” They stood there for a solid couple minutes without saying anything.

“So… Do you want to buy something for someone else?” Aven’s feeling of sickness was starting to get worse and she didn’t want anyone in the shop if something happened.

“No.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Just chat. You know, gal to gal.”

“No offense Beatrice, I do like talking normally, but I’m at work.” Aven said hesitantly, scratching the back of her head. “Can’t you talk at Max’s house with her until I’m done with work for today?”

“Max… is busy right now.” Beatrice said, looking away. “I don’t bother her while she’s out of the house.”

“If you stay here, you’ll have to buy someth-”

Before Aven could finish she could feel her nausea symptoms suddenly intensify. She could barely stand and her vision was getting blurrier as her head began to hurt even worse. She only barely managed to get to the trash can before hurling in there. Beatrice looked surprised and disturbed before kneeling down and hesitantly patting Aven on the back.

“You’re going home.” she said, lifting Aven to her feet and walking her out the door.

“Hey wait, you can’t leave your shift!” her coworker said, coming out of the back room when he heard an odd noise.

“Try and stop me, boy-toy.” Beatrice growled. Fluffy reared up on her shoulders and hissed to look intimidating too. “I’m sure you can be compensated.”

“I- Yes, of course, Miss Hawthorne.” he said fearfully, nodding his head.

Beatrice carefully guided Aven out of the shop and down the street. They were going straight to her house. When they had left, another coworker stepped out into the front of the store. He explained what happened to her.

“John, did Hawthorne take the trash can too?” she asked, pointing to the spot where it used to be.

“Would you have stopped her?”

*   *   *   *   *

“Yeah, she just started puking right then and there.” Beatrice said to Max. Aven was knocked out cold in the guest bedroom.

“Do you think it was something she ate?” Max asked.

“Well… last night she hurled on the way back home. It was from all the food she ate at that dinner with us all.”

“Do you think it carried over to today?”

“Well, I found this bag of food that had been heavily eaten from what I think she bought yesterday… so I think she ate that all in the middle of the night.”

“That’s horrible…” Max said, covering her mouth. “What can we do for her?”

“Watch her. Make sure she doesn’t go crazy when eating at meals.”

“What about at night though? Like last night when you were asleep.”

“I’ll just sleep in the same room as her. I can pull up a chair or something.”

“Listen… Reginald’s friend’s family is coming over tonight for sure, and I was going to invite you and Aven too, but-”

“No, that sounds perfect.” Beatrice interrupted. “That way there’s a lot of people to keep an eye on her and make sure she doesn’t overeat.”

“Are you sure?”

“I think so. Couldn’t hurt more than she already is.”