Joey had asked, “How?” Because G needed her to be okay, and her parents needed her to be okay, and her firm needed her to be okay.

You just sit in the not-okay-ness and you try to be nice to yourself.

Joey had never thought of herself as a person to whom she owed it to be nice. What her therapist said had felt bold. Soft. True. Sometimes Joey wondered if things would have been different if she’d started with her therapist after Corfu instead of a decade later.

Her therapist had given her steps to take when she felt a binge coming on and also prescribed anti-anxiety meds. You don’t have to suffer, but meds aren’t a cure-all. She’d given Joey homework to do: write a list of her triggers, a list of nice things she could do for herself while allowing a stream of not-okay-ness.

It wasn’t that lighting a candle or taking a bath had solved all her problems, but Joey had begun to meet a stronger, happier self in the nooks and crannies of a life gradually unstuffed. Still, her not-okay-ness returned from time to time. Joey hadn’t had a true binge in years, but it would be easy to slide back down the hole.

Joey eyed the cookie dough. She felt very much not okay.

She unwrapped the yellow cover. Slowly. Then she tore at the dough. She ate and ate and ate. Her stomach throbbed, and she sank to the tile marred by dirty work boot prints and ate more. At first, she tasted all the nuances. Sweet. Salt. And then there was no taste, just more dough, and more.

She’d failed. She’d failed at kicking bingeing, and she would fail at everything else. A minuscule bite remained, calling back all those mind-fuck games of yore. If she left a little, then she hadn’t failed the full extent of the tube. Joey emptied the last of the cookie dough into the garbage and sprinkled salt atop it. And then, because she knew from experience that salty cookie dough could indeed be stomached, even enjoyed, she poured the residue of her morning green smoothie from the blender over the garbage.

That familiar distended exhaustion sent her scurrying to the bedroom. Joey heaved herself onto the bed, furious with herself. After everything, how could she have done it?

A boulder trundled over Joey’s eyelids.