Around her, I wrote a cloud of compliments:
Good listener.
Silly.
Laughs at my jokes.
Asks to see my drawings.
Loves hiking.
Great at science.
“What’s more important?” Zelda asked when we were done. “The body itself? Or what makes the person inside that body so special?”
I stared at my drawing. Zelda’s right. I don’t care what Josie looks like. I do care what I look like, though, even if I shouldn’t. That’s why the next part of Zelda’s assignment will be impossible. She asked us to draw ourselves.
“I don’t want you to draw your bodies, but I do want you to draw your faces. Draw yourself as you look when you’re the happiest. When you’re content and accepting of yourself. Capture that feeling and think about what makes you that way.”
“But I’m not accepting of myself,” Laura said.
“I don’t want to draw myself,” Brenna said. “Even if it’s just my face. I’m way bigger than everyone here.”
But you’re beautiful.
I wanted to say that to Brenna, but I knew she wouldn’t listen.
Because I wouldn’t have listened to me, either. I don’t listen to me.
Brenna’s not the only one who doesn’t think she’s beautiful. I’m not the only one who criticizes herself. We’re all messed up. Even though sometimes I don’t feel like I belong here, it’s nice to get reminders that I’m not the only one who feels like I’m drowning.
Like I’m flailing in the middle of the ocean with two life rafts in front of me: one will save me and the other will deflate the second I grab it. One life raft is recovery. The other life raft is staying sick. I just don’t know which is which.
Maybe everyone else wonders this, too. When I hear them crying at night, maybe they’re as scared as I am. We’re all sick. But will we all get well? Will I get well?
Willow says that’s up to me.
I know I’m strong. I worked hard and made the track team. I worked hard and lost weight. I could work hard and recover. I could eat food. I could rest. I could hang out with my friends and be a normal kid.
Maybe I could.
DAY SIX: SATURDAY
I shouldn’t have eaten breakfast.
I want to go for a run. I need to go for a run. I can’t go for a run.
I hate my flip-flopping brain. Didn’t I tell it that I might want to get better? Last night, when I was lying in bed, I even thought that maybe I’d hit that “turning point” everyone talks about, the moment when I realize that life without anorexia is better than life with it.
Then Ali started doing crunches. At first I told myself that I wouldn’t join her. Then Ali whispered across the room, her words bobbing in the air between our beds. “You’re doing them, too, right?”
I wanted to say no, but her face was a threat.
You can’t back out now, it said.
I wanted to say no, but her words were a challenge.
Don’t be weak, they said.
My mind swirled like a whirlpool pulling me in. Willow says that strength is standing up to the eating disorder. My head says that strength is movement, strength is giving in.
I tried to use the Ed/Healthy Voice dialogue they taught us, but it didn’t work.
Ed: You don’t want to be a failure.
Healthy Voice: I’m not a failure. Resisting my urge to exercise is a victory!
Ed: Doing nothing when you could be doing crunches is a failure, too. You can’t get out of shape. You have to make regionals!
Healthy Voice: I need to get healthy. I need to gain weight.
Ed: Julia’s skinny and she’s healthy.
Healthy Voice: Julia’s different than me.
Ed: Julia is different than you. She’s better. Stronger. So is Ali.
I did the crunches, but now I want to cry. For a little while yesterday, I imagined what life might be like without these thoughts running through my head every second of every day. I thought I could be okay.
I was wrong.
Why is this so hard? I want to be better. I don’t want to be sad anymore.
* * *
I got an e-mail from Emerson! Finally!
Riley!!!
I miss you tons. Track is boring without you. Talia keeps bragging that she’s going to win the 400 in our meet next week. She might, but only because you’re not here. You rock at the 400!
I think Tommy is going to ask me to the Spring Dance. He keeps staring at me in science class. At first I thought it was because my hair was sticking up, but when I checked, my hair looked awesome. So I think he likes me.
Jacob already asked Talia to the dance. Like a “date.” She’s bragging about how they’re going to dinner before at a fancy restaurant. That sounds boring. I’d rather get a hamburger and fries.
I miss you! School isn’t the same without you!
Hugs,
Emerson
Jacob asked Talia to the dance. Of course he did. Talia’s perfect. Talia’s skinny. Talia isn’t so clumsy that she drops her notebooks in the hallway. Talia doesn’t get tongue-tied when Jacob tries to help her pick up her papers.
I wish Emerson hadn’t told me about Jacob. I wish she hadn’t told me about track or the dance. It reminds me of what I’m missing now and what I missed before.
I wish I had a magic wand that could send me back in time. I’d laugh during track practice instead of thinking about burning calories. I wouldn’t skip our weekly sleepovers to avoid the Chinese food Emerson’s mom always orders. I’d go to Josie’s birthday party no matter what. Even if I had to eat two whole pizzas myself. Two whole pizzas with pepperoni and the greasiest cheese in the universe. Cheese so greasy that it drips from my fingers like slime.
I’d eat slimy cheese to get Josie back in my life.
I sent Josie an e-mail before my computer time was over.
Josie,
I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I know I’ve said it before, but I need to say it again. I was a bad friend. I made a mistake. Please don’t punish me anymore. Let me make it up to you.
Love and hearts,
Riley
* * *
I finally talked about my friends during today’s session with Willow. I told her how Emerson and I were in a baby playgroup together. How Josie and I were in the same kindergarten class and fought over the orange blocks until the teacher persuaded us to share the red and yellow blocks so we could “make orange together.”
How Emerson convinced me to try out for her track team after I didn’t make the art show. How running made me forget about how untalented I was. How I got better, but Emerson is always faster, no matter how hard I try.
How Josie does Girl Scouts and is into science experiments. How I kept her secret when she peed the bed sleeping over at my house in fourth grade and she’s the only one who knows that when I was in first grade, I wanted to marry Clifford the Big Red Dog. We planned a wedding between me and a huge stuffed animal and Josie has never made fun of me for it. That’s being a good friend.
“I’m not a good friend, though.” I started crying, right in front of Willow. Huge tears that plopped onto my cheeks and rolled onto my shirt. Willow gave me a tissue and waited. She didn’t laugh at me, like Camille did when I teared up after the BMI testing. She didn’t tell me to stop crying like Dad does when I’m not being “positive enough.” I think that’s why I was honest—completely honest—about what happened with Josie.
I skipped Josie’s thirteenth birthday party. The thirteenth birthday party that I helped organize. That I sent out the invitations for and helped decorate for and picked out the food for.
I wanted to go. I’d been to every single one of Josie’s parties since we’d met. I’d slept over after them, too. But I couldn’t be there this year, even though everyone knows that thirteen is the most important birthday ever.
Because when Emerson and I went shopping, she made me buy everything I’m scared of: Cheese puff
s. Those chocolate-chip cookies from the bakery that melt in your mouth. M&M’s. Ingredients for the make-your-own pizzas Josie was so excited about. Ice cream.
It all looked so good. It all looked so bad.
So I pretended to be sick.
At first I tried to be brave. I ran extra the day before, so I could let myself eat “normally” at the party. Then I spent the whole night before imagining how it would feel to eat all that yummy stuff. How I would feel after I ate all that stuff.
I couldn’t sleep. I kept weighing myself instead.
I called Josie an hour before the party. I coughed a lot and made my voice sound all weak. I told her I’d been sick ALL DAY LONG. She was disappointed, but I knew she’d get over it. Then stupid Mom went to the stupid party to pick me up. Because I’d been the stupidest person in the whole stupid world and forgotten to tell Mom (who had been at work) that I was “sick.” And Mom told Josie that of course I wasn’t sick, I’d gone for a run just that morning!
Busted.
I didn’t have to eat the pizza or those yummy cookies, but I lost one of my best friends. And right now, I’d rather have Josie than be this skinny. I’d eat ten cookies just to hear her giggling over a silly kitten meme or to read one of her texts.
“So you’d eat ten cookies to get Josie back?” Willow asked me.
I nodded. “I’d do anything to have Josie back.”
“What else would you like in your life? Or out of it?”
We brainstormed.
1. Art without stress.
2. No more calorie counting.
3. Running for fun. (Or maybe no running at all.)
4. Sleepovers.
5. Ice cream. Pizza. Sandwiches. Cake. Peanut butter. (I stopped myself from spending an hour listing foods.)
6. Maybe a future as an artist? (I said this really quickly, in case Willow said I was being silly. She didn’t say I was being silly.)
I kept wanting to make snarky comments to Willow. I kept wanting to tell her that the life we were describing wasn’t realistic. That no one is that happy.
I wasn’t a brat, though. I “worked at therapy,” as they say here. I told myself that for one session, it was okay to believe that I could get that life one day. Willow believes I can be that person, too. She even told me how to get there. It’s the answer I’ve been avoiding this whole time.
“So if you’d eat cookies to get Josie back, can you take things one step further? Can you eat your meal plan and recover to get your life back?” she asked me.
I think I can. I think I want to.
(Oh my god, is this place actually working?)
* * *
Ali’s in a check-in now. I bet she’s complaining about how her parents are coming to visit today. Ali says her parents spend too much time with her. They ask too many questions about her life. They want her to eat all her meals with them. (Except for that last part, it sounds kind of nice.)
Maybe I should use a check-in, too. I can’t stop jiggling my legs. I already got yelled at for it three times. They think I’m trying to burn extra calories. I’m not; I just feel like my heart is going to burst out of my chest. Like my skin’s too tight on my body.
Mom and Julia are visiting today, too.
Mom promised she’d be here. “No matter what,” she said on the phone. “Even if my car breaks down and I have to rent—no, buy!—a limousine. Or a jumbo jet. I’ll be there.”
“I’m sure the hospital has a helipad on the roof.”
I imagined Mom landing a helicopter on the roof, and I laughed. The laugh bubbled to the surface like something rising from the ocean. A shipwreck, revealing itself after years buried at sea.
A treasure.
* * *
I’m so bored. Brenna has been gone all day. We get to do that once we’ve been here awhile and are “making progress.” Brenna’s going to see a movie and get ice cream. She didn’t seem that nervous, but I’m totally freaking out for her. Ice cream is scary. It’s so good, though. I can almost taste an Oreo cone now. That’s what I used to order at Sully’s Ice Cream Stand: two scoops of Oreo with rainbow sprinkles. Yum.
Brenna brought a book with her, in case the movie is boring. I’ve never heard of anyone doing that before.
“Isn’t it too dark to read?” I asked her.
“Not if I use my flashlight app.”
“Doesn’t your mom get upset you’re not paying attention? Or complain that the light is distracting?” That’s what my mom would do. She’d say that we paid good money for the movie and it’s our responsibility as social citizens to set a good example in the movie theater.
Something like that. As long as people don’t think we’re doing anything “wrong” or “improper,” Mom is happy. I’m still not sure who these “people” are. Mom is always super worried about what they think, though.
What if the critics don’t like my new show?
What if Julia’s leotards are more faded than all her teammates’?
What if my boss sees you and notices how skinny you are?
Mom’s head is as busy as mine.
I guess Brenna’s mom isn’t like that, though. Because Brenna shrugged and said her mom doesn’t care as long as Brenna’s quiet during the movie.
“She’s in all these movie fanatic groups online and watches the Oscars like my dad watches the World Series. Mom doesn’t like to miss a second of any movie.” Brenna rolled her eyes. “That means she drags me to see all the serious and boring ones.”
I agreed that a book is way better than sitting through all that. Especially the one Brenna is reading, a graphic novel called All’s Faire in Middle School. I wonder if the author of that book drew when she was a kid like me. I wonder if she was bad once, too.
* * *
Mom and Julia came! They didn’t even have to rent a helicopter. They were here at the very start of visiting hours, too, which is so not like Mom. She’s always late. But today she wasn’t!!!
It’s little, but it’s something.
When Julia sat down on my bed, her eyes wandered around the room, from the bare walls to the scratched dresser to the locked bathroom door. I don’t know if she was judging me, but I was judging me. I’m supposed to be the big sister. I’m supposed to be someone Julia looks up to, someone who’s grown-up. I feel like a total baby, though, one step away from someone wiping me after I pee.
Maybe that’s why I snapped at Mom when she asked me how I was doing.
“How do you think I’m doing?” I didn’t tell her how I might want to get better now. I didn’t tell her how I wasn’t mad at her for sticking me in here anymore.
Because all of a sudden I was mad. I was mad that Julia is skinny and athletic and healthy. I was mad that I’m stuck in these cement walls where counselors tell me what to do and where to go. I was mad that Dad didn’t come. I was mad that Mom was probably going to leave and go right back to work, even though it’s a Saturday, because that’s what she always does.
“You don’t have to be so mean, Riley.” Julia’s lip trembled, but I bet she was totally faking. Julia is the master at fake crying. She tears up when Dad says she can’t go to a PG-13 movie, then stops crying the second he changes his mind.
“Riley, be nice to your sister.”
Just like that, the old Mom was back. The one who blames me instead of Julia. The one who notices I’m angry but doesn’t ask me why. At least this time she caught herself and gave me a hug.
I pulled away from her. I don’t want Mom feeling how skinny I am. I don’t want Mom feeling how fat I am.
“Let me give you a tour!” The words came out in my fake cheery voice, the one I used at school when teachers asked me if I was okay with those concerned looks on their faces. The one I used at home until Mom and Dad found out the truth and everything fell apart.
When I showed them the dining room, Julia asked why my name wasn’t up on the wall under the picture of Elsa.
“I haven�
��t graduated yet. Or been discharged. Whatever they call it here.” I picked up one of the snowflakes and tried to imagine what I’d write on it eventually, what I’d “let go” of.
My worry about getting fat? I’d like to do that.
Being so lonely? I’d like to do that, too.
Can I do it, though? It seems impossible.
In the group room, Julia asked if she could use the art supplies. She drew me a picture of a hydrangea, her favorite flower. Aunt Tricia’s beach house on Cape Cod has hydrangea bushes all over the front yard. When Julia was little, she couldn’t say hydrangea, so she just called them “pretty.” Aunt Tricia’s yard had “yulips and rosies and pretties.”
I drew a picture of Julia. I should have tried to draw my face again, but every time I try, my hand won’t move. I don’t want to put any more evidence of what I look like out in the world. The picture of Julia came out pretty good, though. Her nose was only partially messed up.
Mom even asked if she could bring it home. “I’ve always loved your drawings,” she said. She didn’t say anything about how silly it looked. She didn’t say anything about my use of color or shading or how good I used to be. She just folded it carefully and put it in her purse, tucked into the pages of a book so it wouldn’t get wrinkled.
I put Julia’s flower on my wall.
I like to think that even if Mom wouldn’t put my drawing in her gallery, at least she’d put it on the fridge. That’s what she used to do with our finger paintings. We wrote our names on the bottom: my RILEY always had the L backward. Julia always switched around the I and the A.
I was proud of my art back then. Mom was proud of my art.
Maybe someday we can both be proud of it again.
* * *
Tonight during free time, we decorated Ali’s IV pole so it looked like a person. Brenna grabbed a hat someone’s visitor had left and put it on top, then Laura wrapped one of her sweaters around it. (Laura has something like ten sweaters here. I need to ask Mom for more. This place is freezing.)
Good Enough Page 7