Good Enough

by Jen Petro-Roy

  The more I think about Josie, the madder I get. Okay, fine, I skipped her birthday party. I lied. But she’s done mean things, too. She let out the class hamster in fifth grade and blamed it on me.

  The more I think about Mom, the madder I get. Why can’t she stop dieting? I’m her daughter. Are a few pounds more important than me?

  The more I think about Dad, the madder I get. I’m his daughter, too. Not a stranger or a character in a story he’s reading, one he gets to close the book on whenever he’s sick of her.

  I’m even mad at Julia. Because she has something that lets her soar through the sky. She has something she’s good at, something she loves.

  I don’t have anything.

  Sizzle. Spark.

  I know the way to get rid of this anxiety before it bursts into a Fourth of July celebration. I know how to feel better. I just can’t do it in here.

  * * *

  Ali isn’t talking to me. She ignores everything I say in group and pretends I’m not even in the room. This is worse than how Talia used to treat me at school. At least I knew how Talia felt about me. She told me. She told everyone.

  With Ali, it’s just silence. Cold silence. I bet she hates me.

  Of course she hates me. All my friends hate me eventually.

  * * *

  I had meatloaf on my menu for dinner tonight. I’ve never had meatloaf before. Mom doesn’t like it, so she’s never made it.

  “It’s important to try new things,” Willow said. “To form an opinion for yourself. Or even to change your opinion on things you’ve convinced yourself you don’t like.” She gave me that super-annoying look she’s so good at. “I’m sure you don’t know anything about that.”

  Willow is so obnoxious.

  Here’s my opinion: meatloaf is gross. It’s mushy and tastes like wet dog food. And here’s the worst part—even though I hated it, I still had to eat all of it. I couldn’t even leave a crumb. Apparently that’s considered “eating-disordered behavior.”

  “That’s total crap.”

  I can’t believe I actually said that out loud in the middle of the dining room! I never swear. And, okay, I know crap isn’t technically a swear, but Tyler Holt gets in trouble for saying it in class all the time.

  “Riley.” Heather’s voice was a warning. “Please don’t speak like that in here. If you have a problem, you can address it after dinner in a check-in.”

  Ali smirked at me from across the table. I bet she was thinking I’d back down and be a Goody-Two-shoes.

  “I don’t want a check-in!”

  I’m not a Goody-Two-shoes. And I’m not going to let these people run my life. I won’t let Mom or Dad run my life, either. And if Emerson and Josie don’t want to be my friends, whatever. I’ll find better friends.

  I’m tired of being ignored. I’m tired of being told what to do. I’m angry and I’m alone. I’m tired of working so hard at recovery and still feeling awful all the time.

  Plus, it was the principle of the thing. No one should be forced to eat dog food. Especially when they’re trying to teach us to like food.

  “I think you need a check-in.” Heather stared me down.

  I stared back. “I’m not a kid! I don’t need a time-out. What I need is for someone to listen to how unfair this is.” Sizzle spark! I was tired of the slow burn. It was time for the bang.

  “We can talk later.” Heather looked at the stopwatch the counselors always have during meals. “Halfway through, girls. You have fifteen minutes left in lunch.”

  “We need to talk now!” I pushed my chair back and stood up, which is totally against the rules. I felt like Patrick Henry, that Revolutionary War patriot we read about in social studies, the one who shouted, “Give me liberty, or give me death!” I felt like a revolutionary. A revolutionary shouting about meatloaf, but still a revolutionary.

  “Riley, do you need an emergency appointment with Willow? Do you need a Boost?” Heather looked at my almost-full plate.

  “I don’t need a Boost!” I exclaimed. “I need you to listen to me. I shouldn’t have to finish my meatloaf. I don’t like it.”

  “You still have to eat it. It’s on your meal plan.” Heather’s voice sounded bored. I wondered if she’d had this same exact fight before. With Carah or Ivy, those phantom snowflake names.

  “But why?” I pressed. “Because that’s what ‘normal eaters’ do?”

  “Well, yes.” Heather didn’t meet my eyes.

  I pounced upon her uncertainty like a cat on a mouse. I told her that normal eaters don’t finish meals sometimes. “Once Julia opened up a yogurt that had fuzzy mold on it and smelled disgusting. She didn’t eat the yogurt. She threw it away.”

  “You’re not Julia,” Heather said.

  No, I’m not. I’ll never be Julia. I’ll never be that naturally small. I’ll never be that naturally good. Can’t I have this one thing, then? Can’t I just skip this one meal?

  Nope.

  “You still have to eat your meatloaf.”

  I looked at the other girls. I thought they’d stand up for me and we’d all charge out of the dining room together.

  They kept eating, though. They stared at me with fascinated looks, like I was a circus act.

  See the Amazing Bearded Woman in ring one!

  The Muscled Lion Tamer in ring two!

  The Enraged Meatloaf Girl in ring three! See her try not to cry!

  “But I’m full,” I said. “I don’t want to eat.”

  “Rules are rules,” Heather said. “You can’t trust your body’s fullness cues quite yet. It’s still learning how to deal with a healthy amount of food. You have to give it time.”

  I didn’t want to give it time.

  I didn’t want to eat wet dog food.

  I didn’t want to be “healthy.” I didn’t want to listen to Heather.

  I don’t want to listen to anyone.

  It’s my life. My choices.

  “I’m not having the meatloaf.” I raised my chin.

  “Then you can have the Boost.” Heather tapped her manicured fingers on the table, the ones that matched her pretty flowered skirt. I was wearing ratty old sweatpants with an elastic waist. “I’m surprised, Riley. This isn’t like you.”

  Who is Heather to say what I’m like? Heather barely knows me. Heather doesn’t know that my favorite book is The Girl Who Drank the Moon. She doesn’t know that I’m the best tree climber in our whole neighborhood or that when I was little, my favorite food was broccoli dipped in ketchup. Heather knows what I weigh, and that’s all that matters to her.

  Maybe that’s all that matters to anyone.

  “I’m not going to have the Boost.”

  “Those are the rules, Riley.” Heather said it so patiently, like she was speaking from a script, like I was a name on a chart instead of Riley, a girl with fears and feelings of her own.

  “I don’t care about the rules. I don’t want to have the Boost.”

  I’m waiting for a check-in now. They’re making me have one because I “caused trouble.” Because they think I need to “process my feelings.” Everyone just filed by on their way to the group room, peeking at me like I’m a tiger behind bars.

  The staff does everything they can to stop us from analyzing our bodies like we’re a science project, from making observations and testing hypotheses like we did before:

  If I eat this much, then this will happen.

  If I weigh this much, then my life will become like this.

  They can’t stop us from seeing ourselves, though. They can’t stop us from seeing each other, our insides and our outsides. Right now, my insides feel just as ugly as my outsides.

  It feels good to be ugly, though. It feels good to be mad, to forget about the pain of recovery and think about what everyone else is doing wrong instead.

  Heather shouldn’t have tried to make me eat that food.

  Mom should listen to me.

  Dad should see me.

  I should be able to make my o
wn decisions.

  DAY TWENTY: SATURDAY

  The second I woke up, the idea popped into my head: Don’t eat breakfast today.

  I knew it was Ed’s voice, but he sounded so nice. His voice was sweet and caring, like Mom’s when I don’t feel good. When she rubs my back and gives me ginger ale and those crackers that only taste good when I’m sick.

  Not eating made you feel better yesterday. It made you forget.

  Remember how restricting made you feel? You can feel like that again if you listen to me.

  Last year, Camille had a hypnotist at her birthday party. At first, Emerson and Josie and I made fun of the whole thing. Obviously hypnotists are fake. There’s no way we’d let someone take control of our bodies.

  Then Madame Rosita picked Emerson to go onstage. (Camille’s parents rented a stage, of course. And a karaoke machine. I think that’s why she invited us; to show off all her money.) This was after the hypnotist made Luca quack like a chicken and Jarrett burp the alphabet. Madame Rosita did the classic “dangling a necklace in front of Emerson’s face while muttering chants” thing, and all of a sudden, Emerson started singing at the top of her lungs. First “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” Then “When the Saints Go Marching In” and “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt.” Emerson does not sing, either. She’s almost as bad as me. But that day she sang. She couldn’t resist.

  That’s what Ed is like. He chants magic spells and incantations, ones I have to obey.

  I’m too tired to resist anymore. I don’t want to fight Ed, especially if no one’s going to fight with me.

  So I won’t. I may not recover, but at least I’ll weigh less.

  I feel skinnier. My stomach feels lighter.

  I feel like I can fly.

  * * *

  I didn’t eat breakfast. I had a Boost drink instead.

  I’ve been eating so much in here that I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be hungry.

  It doesn’t feel as good as I remember.

  * * *

  Brenna’s been quiet all day. She didn’t eat breakfast, either. Well, she ate one bite of toast. But then she crossed her arms over her chest and stared at Gabi like she was doing one of those “save the trees” sit-ins.

  She didn’t drink the Boost, either, which was weird. Brenna doesn’t do stuff like that.

  I usually don’t, either.

  I asked her if she was okay after movement class. We do “gentle” yoga here once a week, which is basically stretching. It’s all the exercise they let us do. (Yoga is so not my thing, which is why I haven’t written about it yet. I’m not bendy at all. Meredith is basically Silly Putty in human form.)

  “I’m not okay. I shouldn’t be eating anyway.” Then Brenna ran out of the room. I didn’t know what to do. A good friend would run after her. A good friend would hug her and tell her everything is going to be okay.

  I don’t want to be a good friend today, though. And everything might not be okay. I don’t even know what to say to make myself feel better. How can I help anybody else?

  It’s hard to see Brenna not eat. I want Brenna to recover. I want all these girls to recover. Even Ali. (Maybe then she wouldn’t be so mean. Maybe then I wouldn’t have to avoid her like I used to avoid Talia.) They deserve a life without an eating disorder. They’re all already perfect.

  I wish I could help Brenna realize that even if she is big, she deserves food. Deep down, I know I deserve food, too. I know I’m doing the wrong thing by pushing it away.

  But right now, it feels good to be bad.

  * * *

  Still no e-mail from Emerson.

  Nothing from Josie.

  Mom and Dad are at Julia’s gymnastics meet today, where they’ll sweep her up in a hug after she wins ribbons and medals and probably a trip to Disney World.

  Brenna’s been quiet all morning.

  I’ve been drawing all morning. Aisha tried to sit with me, but I told her I wanted to be alone. I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to listen.

  I want to be sad.

  I tried to draw myself again. They won’t let me use a mirror for reference, so I’m going on memory. I drew an oval for my face, and big eyes. I gave myself a mouth with a full lower lip and a nonexistent upper one, then slightly rounded cheeks. Shoulder-length hair and a narrow nose.

  My drawing looked like a stranger.

  The cheeks were too puffy, so I erased them.

  The hair was too scraggly, so I erased it.

  I drew and erased until the paper ripped. Until my image was as smudged and mangled as I feel.

  * * *

  It’s Saturday. When I was a kid, Dad and I used to wake up early and go to Dunkin’ Donuts every Saturday morning. Dad would get a jelly doughnut and I’d get ten Munchkins: five glazed and five chocolate. Every week, Dad told me I could eat half of them now and half later, but he always caved and let me eat all ten. Then we went to the toy store in the center of town. We both smelled like coffee after sitting in Dunks, and we both played with the train table for hours. It was our special time. I had Saturdays and Julia had Sundays.

  Now Dad’s afraid of me.

  And I have nothing.

  * * *

  I usually don’t go back to my room after lunch. I troop into the group room with everyone else and we sit together and journal as we digest.

  I ate all my lunch today. Part of me wanted to skip another meal, but I was too hungry to rebel. I guess I was too hungry to be careful, too, because I spilled ketchup on my hoodie and had to get a clean one from my room. (I have five hoodies here now. Hoodies are a top priority.)

  I thought my room would be empty, but Jean was there. She was bent over, her scrub-covered butt sticking into the air, her hand shoved underneath my mattress.

  “What are you doing?” I shrieked. “Do you have a warrant to search my stuff?” We learned about searches and seizures at school this year. That’s when the police go into your house and look through everything. They can only do that if they have proof you’ve committed a crime. Which Jean definitely did not.

  These people aren’t the police, either, so it’s extra illegal to search my stuff.

  Jean dug deeper under the mattress. “Aha!”

  “Aha what?” I don’t keep anything under my bed, not even my journal. I’m not that dumb. I used to keep it there at home, but then Julia found it in third grade and read all about how I wanted to be a famous singer. She made fun of me for weeks because I sound like a frog with a sore throat when I try to sing in tune.

  “You need a reason to search through my stuff,” I said. “It’s the law.”

  “This isn’t a reason?” Jean held out her hand. There was a smooshed brown blob there. I stepped closer. It was a crushed brownie. I had a brownie at dinner yesterday. Why was there a brownie under my mattress? The two words floated through my head:

  Brownie.

  Mattress.

  Brownie.

  Mattress.

  The ideas never connected, though, like a Venn diagram that refused to overlap. My mind couldn’t make sense of what was going on—until Jean told me what she thought was going on.

  “You hid food in your room.”

  What? Why would I hide a brownie in my bed? That’s gross. That’s messy. I like brownies, too. Plus, it’s against the rules.

  I tried to tell Jean that.

  I tried to tell Heather that, when she came in to see what all the yelling was about.

  They didn’t believe me.

  “You’ve been acting out all week, Riley,” Heather said. “It would be in your best interest to tell the truth.”

  I am telling the truth! Willow isn’t here on the weekends, either, so I don’t even have her to stand up for me. If she’d stand up for me. She would, right?

  They’re calling Mom and Dad in for a family meeting on Monday. I wonder if this is what will finally get Dad into the hospital. Not because he wants to spend time with his daughter, but because he’ll get to hear everyone talk about how much of a f
ailure I am.

  What if they kick me out? What if I have to go home without finishing treatment? I should be thrilled about that, right? I should be dancing and pumping my fist in the air. I’m not, though. It feels like someone punched me in the stomach and left a crater behind.

  If I have to leave, I know I’ll relapse. I’ll stay sick forever.

  Yesterday, I was determined to skip meals forever, but today it’s like someone twirled me around to face the opposite direction. Behind me, there’s darkness. Ahead of me is the sunrise.

  I want to see the sun come up.

  I want light.

  I want to recover.

  DAY TWENTY-ONE: SUNDAY

  It’s hard to focus on eating when I can’t stop thinking about that brownie. How did it get there? Have I been sleeping on mushed-up chocolate for the past month?

  How did Jean know to look under my bed? Food didn’t just “end up” under my mattress, either. Someone put the brownie there. In group last night, every single staff member working came into the group room. They lined up in front of the couches and asked if anyone had anything to confess.

  We all looked at one another. Except for me, I don’t think anyone knew what was going on.

  No one confessed a thing. Which means that someone’s telling lies.

  It’s up to me to be a detective, and this will be an easy case to solve. There’s only one person who has a motive for sneaking food into my room.

  The person who threatened me.

  The person who’s actively sabotaging her own recovery.

  The person who would want to sabotage mine.

  Ali.

  * * *

  Brenna’s leaving tomorrow. That’s why she’s been acting so weird. She found out the other day that her insurance won’t pay for any more treatment and her parents can’t afford the cost on their own. When she told me how much it costs to be in here, I didn’t believe her at first. It’s a ton of money.