Not Just a Number: A Young Adult Contemporary Novel

by Sara Michaels

  For the rest of the session Theresa helped me practice saying that I was anorexic. She said that the more I said it, the less power it would have over me. I needed to accept that this was where I currently was in my life so that I could move forward.

  I have an eating disorder. I am anorexic. I need help.

  It would become my mantra.

  Theresa said that she understood that by starting to eat normally again I would also be living with the terror of gaining weight. I was grateful that she had mentioned it because it was definitely something that had been worrying me.

  “I work with a nutritionist, and she specializes in helping people with eating disorders to get their nutrition and health back on track. Your body is in a really weak state right now, and it’s important that we help you to get back to where you should be.”

  “Will I gain weight?” I asked.

  Theresa nodded in response.

  For some, it may have been a stupid question. Wasn’t that the whole point of this, for me to gain weight? For me, though, it was a matter of whether I would gain too much weight. Was there a risk that I could become overweight if I didn’t do this correctly?

  “Yes, you will gain weight, but the plan the nutritionist will give us is set up so that, if you follow it, you will never be overweight. I’ll email it through to you by the end of the day.”

  “When can I start exercising again?”

  “Not for a while, Abigail,” she answered. “You can go for walks with friends and family, but you cannot do structured exercise again until your body is healthy. It simply cannot handle the strain right now.”

  I figured that my mind probably also could not take the strain.

  In a way, although I was now having all the control I had over food and exercise being stripped away from me, I strangely felt that it was being given back to me in a different way. Before, I now realized, even though I had felt in control, it was actually my anorexia that was in control. Now I would be the one calling the shots. I would be following a plan and getting back to the Abigail I should have always been.

  I had spent a lot of time focused on all the wrong things in a misguided attempt to make myself better when I was actually pushing myself down the other way.

  I have an eating disorder. I am anorexic. I need help.

  13

  The aroma of cooking food wafted through the house. In the beginning, the smell of dinner cooking had sent waves of panic through me. I knew it meant I was going to be watched while I ate, and that there would be no getting out of it. The panic had lessened slightly as Theresa taught me techniques to deal with it, but my mind still raced as dinnertime approached. It was just one of those triggers for me that I would have to learn to work around.

  Jennifer and I sat on the couch watching television. We had flicked through several channels before agreeing on a sitcom about a single mom, her teenage daughter, and their trials and tribulations through daily life. It was pretty close to home, albeit with only one child in the scenario, but it was hilarious and made me think about some of the things our mom had to deal with raising us alone. I made a mental note to ask her about what her plans were for after I went off to college.

  Mom stuck her head around the kitchen door. “Abby, would you set the table for me, please?”

  “Huh?” It wasn’t so much that I hadn’t heard, but rather that I hadn’t understood the instruction.

  “The table,” she said, enunciating her words. “You know the thing we sit at to eat?” She laughed. “Can you set the table? Like put plates and cutlery on it? The food is almost ready.”

  Showing confusion twice would likely not be a good idea, so instead I trudged through to the kitchen. She had three plates already stacked up on the counter with knives and forks lying next to them. Ordinarily we would just dish up and go and sit wherever we wanted to—the couch, our rooms, Mom at the breakfast bar balancing her plate and her laptop.

  Clearly tonight Mom had a different idea.

  I took the plates to the dining room table and stared at the six seats, wondering which three would be best for us. I could not remember the last time we had used the table. Probably last Christmas, I thought.

  It took me some time to remember where the utensils went, and by the time I had remembered, Mom was walking in with a large glass dish bubbling with cheese. With a thick oven mitt, she placed it onto a wooden board that would protect the table from its heat.

  “Dinner, Jen,” she called. “Would you fetch the salad, please?” Jennifer did as she was told and came back with the salad, the dressing, and serving spoons. I picked a seat and sat down, and Jen sat opposite me, leaving the seat at the head of the table for my mom.

  “Smells delicious, Mom,” Jen said, eyeing the lasagna as Mom squared it out into portions. The serving spoon sliced through the pieces and returned each time with strings of cheese attached to it.

  “Pass your plates, please,” Mom instructed. She was in what I called Motor Mom Mode. She got like this when she had an idea in her head that she wasn’t going to let rest. I suspected that tonight, that idea somehow involved me and food.

  Jen passed her plate first, and Mom placed what looked to me like an enormous portion of steaming lasagna on her plate and passed it back to her. While Jen dug into the salad and filled the empty space on her plate with it, I passed my mom’s plate and mine at the same time.

  “Mom, please don’t dish up too much for me,” I implored.

  She briefly looked up at me and met my eyes, seeking more than information about portion size in them. I hated that she now felt she had to second-guess everything I said. I understood why, of course. I had lied about a lot of stuff, and there was just as much that I hadn’t told her about because I knew she would freak out. So, while I could understand her uncertainty about everything that came out of my mouth now, it still irritated me occasionally.

  I had brought up my feelings about my mom’s now constant distrust of me in a session with Theresa. I hadn’t expected her to side with me, but her response had taken me aback. She had asked me if I had ever known anyone that was addicted to drugs. The answer was no because I hadn’t. I knew that some of the kids at school used, and some of them had left for periods to go to rehab. Some had returned; many hadn’t. Theresa explained to me that when an addict wanted drugs, they would do almost anything to get what they wanted. They would lie, steal, and cheat their own family members just to get their drugs.

  At that point I had no idea how this was relevant to me, but she continued. She explained that no matter how long an addict stayed clean for, the trust that was broken with their family members took a long time to heal. That was when I understood. I was the addict, and I had to earn back my mom’s trust. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t actually been taking drugs. The result in my relationships had been the same. It was something I would just have to deal with as a result of the choices I had made.

  Mom moved the serving spoon half an inch to the right after my request for a smaller portion.

  “I’ll give you a smaller portion, but you know you have to eat, Abby.” She passed me the plate. “Don’t forget salad. This is all according to your nutrition plan so that you can get everything you need, but you need to eat a decent portion.”

  I spooned salad onto my plate and trickled a tiny amount of dressing over it. Dishing up complete, Mom brought her plate with her and took her seat, and we all started eating.

  I took a bite of a lettuce leaf. “This is weird,” I said. “We haven’t eaten like this in ages.” I didn’t miss the look between Mom and Jen.

  “Yes, well, I think we should do this more often. Maybe if we had been eating together, I would have noticed that you weren’t eating, and things wouldn’t have gone as far as they did.”

  Although I wouldn’t admit it, I knew that was probably true. It was the disconnection between us that had allowed me to get away with not eating. It wasn’t my mom’s fault. I was going to be off at college on my own next year anywa
y, and I felt like this was one of the reasons that she was pushing so hard. She wanted to feel that I was far enough along in my recovery to live alone.

  I had to admit that, at this point, the idea scared me too. I didn’t know for sure that I was strong enough not to slip back into my old ways when someone wasn’t watching. I see-sawed between not feeling strong enough and feeling like I would burst if I spent another minute under scrutiny.

  I honestly felt like I had a mountain of lasagna on my plate, and I knew I was not getting away from this table without at least eating some of it. The best thing to do was just get down to it. I had started a habit to help me get through bites of food. I chewed every mouthful five times. At least if I broke it down more, it would digest easier, and maybe there would be less chance that it would be converted to fat. That was probably nonscientific, but it was worth a try. Plus, it gave me something else to focus on besides how many calories I was consuming. It helped to stop the thought loop that inevitably developed when I was around food.

  I sliced through the lasagna with my knife and placed a mouthful in my mouth. One, two, three, four, five.

  I realized after the second bite that Mom and Jennifer had started a conversation. Their voices hummed around me as I ate.

  “It was so funny,” Jen was saying, “the other day we were at a wedding expo, and Jacob found this cake tasting stand.”

  One, two, three, four, five. I could not remember the last time I’d had cake.

  My mom was laughing, and I had no idea what she was laughing at.

  One, two, three, four, five.

  The lasagna seemed never ending. I was pretty sure that every time I took a bite and looked up, the food multiplied on my plate. One, two, three, four, five. Maybe I should just keep my eyes on my plate and not look up.

  “What do you think, Abby?” Jen’s voice split through my singular focus.

  My face reddened. I had no idea what she was asking me, and I had now lost count of my chews. “Um, I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I wasn’t focusing.” Well, I was focusing, I just wasn't focusing on them.

  Jen smiled patiently. She had been so patient with me recently. “That’s okay.” I noticed that her plate was already empty. She repeated her question for my benefit. “I was just wondering if you thought Jacob should match his suit to the color scheme for the wedding.” Jennifer had chosen a gorgeous pastel turquoise and silver as her wedding colors, but I could not picture Jacob in either of those colors.

  I took another bite and tried to seem like I was thinking while I was actually counting.

  “What, like a turquoise suit?” I grimaced, and both Jen and my mom simultaneously burst out laughing. I looked from one to the other with wide eyes. Clearly, I had missed something.

  “Oh, my word, no, Abby!” Jen laughed. “Just like his tie or something, not the whole suit.”

  I swallowed and started laughing myself. “Oh, thank goodness!” For the rest of the meal, I think everyone was picturing poor Jacob in head-to-toe turquoise because occasionally one of us would start laughing again. “That sounds nice, yeah,” I eventually said.

  My mom was finished eating now too, but both her and Jen were making no movement to get up, and I realized that they were both waiting for me to finish. I looked down at my lasagna and noticed that I had made more headway while I had been talking than during the whole first half of the dinner. I wondered how many bites I’d had without noticing and felt a deep sense of guilt descend on me.

  “I’m really glad we’re dealing with this together, Abby, as a family,” my mom suddenly said. “I want you to know that you aren’t in this alone. Even when you go to college, we will always be here for you.” The intensity of the moment was unexpected, and I understood why she had wanted to eat at the table. Perhaps it wasn’t so much about them watching me eat as it was just spending time together as a family.

  “Thanks, Mom,” I said softly, unsure that I would be able to handle the emotion if I said any more. I often felt that I was riding the crest of emotion, and if I shifted just ever so slightly to the left or right, I would be dunked and drown. Since my secret had been revealed I had discovered a whole range of new emotions, and I briefly considered that perhaps that was actually good for me in a way. I had gone from the little girl who never cried to the young woman with more emotions than she could name.

  “I’m really sorry I didn’t pick up on the struggles that you were having sooner,” my mom continued.

  I had told her many times that it wasn’t her fault, but I figured it was going to be some time before she accepted it. I could not understand what she was feeling from a mother’s perspective. Maybe one day I would.

  Theresa and I had chatted about this aspect too, and she had also helped me to better understand how I could help my mom with this guilt by sticking to my eating plan and working hard on my recovery. She had explained that my mom needed to feel like she was making a contribution to my recovery in order to help her deal with her own emotions around my disorder.

  It was actually amazing how complex this whole situation was, I thought.

  Even though I was the one with the eating disorder, everyone around me had been impacted in one way or another. The ripple effects didn’t stop with me even though sometimes it was easier to be selfish and pretend that it was just my problem.

  “I’m really glad you guys included me in this,” Jennifer said. “Everything makes a lot more sense now.” She reached across the table and grasped my hand in hers, looking deep into my eyes. “I want you to know that I’m going to hold off on all the bridesmaid dress stuff until you’re feeling better.”

  Another wave of guilt hit me. “You don’t have to do that, Jen.” What should have been a fun and exciting time for my sister had been marred by my challenges, but there was nothing that I could do to change that now. I certainly could not go back in time, wave a magic wand, and make it so that it hadn’t happened. The only way I could make this better was to work hard to recover so that she was less severely impacted.

  “I do need to do this, Abby, and I want to.” She squeezed my hand. “Your health is the most important thing here. We can get bridesmaid dresses anytime. First we need to get you well.” She paused, looking like she’d had an idea. “So maybe we could use the prom dress as an indicator.” She looked at Mom for reassurance. Every action involving me now measured against the yardstick of whether it would make things better or worse. “When you can fill out the prom dress without it being super baggy, we can start making appointments for dress fittings again.”

  I was initially confused, and I knew that my facial expression showed it. “What do you mean?” I asked, frowning.

  Jen looked momentarily stunned. She looked at Mom, Mom looked at her, and there was silence for a moment.

  “Abby, if you were to put that dress on now, it would probably fall right off you.” Both she and Mom just sat there looking at me. My own thought processes felt alien to me.

  This was the strangest thing. All this time I had been working to lose weight to fit into the prom dress, and here Jen was telling me that I needed to put on weight to fit into it. Could it be that my thinking had been so skewed by this thing that I hadn’t seen that? Was that really possible?

  I tried to picture myself putting on the prom dress at that moment, but all I could see was it not looking good because of my lumps and bumps. What Jen was saying just didn’t correlate with the picture in my head. She seemed convinced, though, and I had to wonder if there was any merit to what she was saying.

  Nothing further was said about my reaction, and I got the feeling that Jen and Mom felt like they had just discovered something astonishing about me and my disorder. They continued on with their conversation, patiently waiting for me to finish my meal. Jen spoke about a job offer she had received to teach at a nearby school, and it sounded perfect because then, at least, she would still be close to Mom.

  “It’s a really lovely school too, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed t
hat I get the job.” Jacob had found an internship through my mom’s company, and that was looking promising for him too.

  It turned out that the joke they had been laughing about earlier with Jacob at the wedding expo was that Jen had lost him, but she had found him at the cake tasting stand where he had stayed the entire afternoon because his phone battery had died. The sales ladies at the stand had felt sorry for him so they had let him try all their tasters.

  Jacob must have been in heaven, I thought.

  I didn’t catch a whole lot of their conversation as I worked, using my counting technique to finish the food that had been dished up for me.

  Jen’s suggestion stuck in my mind, but more pertinently, my reaction to it stuck. If what Jen was saying was true, then I had a long way to go in this journey, and the only way I would be able to get there would be bite by bite.

  14

  The shade of the oak tree was very welcome. It was one of the warmest days so far, and Ryan, Kya, and I were having lunch under the tree. It was far cooler here than in the cafeteria with the body heat of hundreds of other students making the space even hotter. I also still hated eating around other people. It was bad enough that I had both Ryan and Kya eyeing my progress through my brown lunch bag every day, I didn’t need to be surrounded by other people too.

  When I sat in the cafeteria, I often felt like other students were looking at me. I knew it probably wasn’t the case, but I had eventually asked Kya and Ryan if we could please just sit outside in the fresh air.

  A light breeze passed through the tops of the trees, and the rustle mixed in with the hum of voices coming from the cafeteria and the occasional shouts of people playing sports on the fields beyond the tree. Kya planted herself in the grass, tossing her book bag next to her, and Ryan sat between her and I, his back to the cafeteria and facing us.

  My lunch bag glowered at me, insisting that it be emptied.