
For the last few weeks Gigi had assumed that the treatment
would fail just like all the others she had tried. It seemed
implausible that a single non-invasive intervention, a one
time injection, would be able to breath life into her sickly
frame where so many more intensive approaches had failed.
There had been an awful lot of consent forms to sign for the
experimental treatment, but the paperwork had been the worst
part. Really, she had been feeling better for the last week or
so, but it was only on the morning she was set to go off to
college that she allowed herself to begin to hope. For the
first time in forever, she felt no pain whatsoever when she
got up in the morning. Her appetite had risen above its
usual anemic levels in the past few days, and when she looked
at herself in the mirror she thought she didn't look quite so
painfully skinny as usual.

College was meant to be a time of self discovery, but Gigi had
been feeling conflicted about leaving home. She had never let
her parents know she had any doubts, not wanting to give up
this chance at independence, but the truth was that she shared
their worries that a girl with her condition would struggle
on her own. She had been viewing it as a daunting challenge
to overcome, but now that the treatment appeared to be working,
she started to imagine herself doing all the things an ordinary
girl would do at college.

She had been assigned a room in a big suite, with one central
kitchen and living room and eight rooms off the main area.
She and her parents arrived before her roommate, so she had
already set up her things and said goodbye to them when,
a girl showed up outside the open door of Gigi's room with
an armload of stuff. "Hi, are you Gigi?" the girl asked.

"Yeah, Lisa?"

"Yeah, so great to meet you!" the other girl said enthusiastically.
If she was surprised at discovering that her roommate was only
4'6" and painfully skinny, Lisa hid it well.

"Yeah, you too! Can I help you get settled?"

"Sure, that would be great!"

Gigi did her best to help Lisa and her parents move in, but though
she felt far stronger than she ever had in the past, she was still
weak enough that she could only carry small items from the car
to their room. Despite this, she found she wasn't even a bit tired
when they had finished and said goodbye to Lisa's parents.

Once it was just the two of them,
