by Meg Haston
“Excuse me? My schedule is wrong,” I say again, louder this time.
The others are silent.
“I should be in the villa. With Kyle.” I stuff my hand in my back pocket and pinch Eden’s letter. She’d know just what to say to talk her way out of this. She’d use honeyed words and jokes and she’d slip outside into the sun before anyone knew what had happened.
“You’re in the appropriate place, Stevie,” Shrink says evenly. “As you all can see, on the counter are several different types of foods that you may have used during a binge. But these foods don’t have to be used as binge foods. They can be enjoyed in appropriate amounts, and that’s what Ms. Dalton and I want to share with you today.”
I cut my eyes from Ashley to Teagan, and back to Ashley again. Their faces are blank and obedient. Their mouths have lolled open, making space. Do they want this? An excuse to indulge, permission to cram themselves full, all in the name of health? How can Shrink possibly think that these girls and I belong in the same cage?
In front of me, Jenna murmurs something to a girl who is crying. Teagan plucks a hair from a spot above her ear. For the first time, I notice: She has a bald spot there. A strange vacant spot where hair should be.
“Please take a few moments to make your choices,” Ms. Dalton says.
Finally, Jenna steps to the front and takes a paper plate.
“Good, Jenna,” says Shrink, in a voice like she knows the girl’s secrets. I wonder if Shrink says the same kinds of things to Jenna as she says to me. I wonder who she thinks is better, stronger, worthier.
Ashley falls in line behind Jenna. She lifts a gallon of red fruit punch from the counter and tilts it over a paper cup. The syrupy red flows. I see my mother’s lips.
“Stevie?” Shrink finds me, pulls me aside while the Green Girls graze and the Yellow Girls hover, and then there is me, the Red Girl, and I don’t belong. How can no one else see that? “Do you think you could give this a shot?”
My gaze bounces from the stack of paper plates to the heaps of food. The calculations make my brain hurt and I don’t think they’re right anyway because I can’t think straight. Gummy worms with grainy sugar scales. Melting vanilla ice cream in its soft cardboard container. Salt and vinegar chips, the kind Josh loves. Loved. I take a gaspy breath.
“Stevie, what’s going on for you right now?” Shrink’s voice finds its way to me.
I cross my arms over my chest and will myself to think about other things. But the other things that come are nightmarish thoughts in lightning flashes: the call from Paris and Ashley’s withered scars and the way Josh’s face looked just before he died and the way his blood felt sticky running down my palm. I scrunch my eyes shut, but it doesn’t help. He’s still there, dying and dying and dying beneath me. I can’t take it anymore. I want all these girls to leave me here with the food. Just one more time. I’ll shove it down just one more time, and for a second I will forget. I’m not a bulimic. Sometimes I just need the thoughts to go away.
“Stevie. Let’s take a break, okay?” Shrink’s palm nudges me out the door, past the other girls and into the still heat outside. I bend over, palms pressed over my knees. Dry heave at the dust.
“I’m going insane,” I breathe. My stomach buckles, and I heave again. I thought it would feel better to say it out loud. It doesn’t.
“You’re not insane. You’re here with me and you’re safe. Here.” Shrink sits on a dirty concrete stoop and guides me down next to her. She hands me a paper cup of water and I drink it. My whole body is swooping and untethered. One violent gust and I will come undone.
“You’re not crazy,” she says again. “I think the smells are triggering for you. Bringing back memories that are tied to food, or particularly traumatic times during your eating disorder. But you’re perfectly sane, and you’re safe here. Do you hear me?”
“I hear you.” Hearing and believing are two different things.
“Would you take a few deep breaths for me?” she asks. “In through the nose and out through the mouth?”
I obey her because I don’t know what else to do. My heartbeat slows a little. I still want it all in me: the sugar and the salt and the bread. I need to fill myself up until there is no more room for the past.
“Can you put into words what was happening for you in th—”
“Don’t make me go back,” I beg. “Please.”
She angles her body toward me. I can feel her gaze on my face, almost like she’s touching me. “What could happen if you tried this exercise, Stevie? What’s the worst thing that could happen?”
“Nothing. I don’t know. I just . . . Don’t make me go back in there.”
Finally, she looks straight ahead. She stretches her legs out in front of her and crosses her ankles. “It can feel really scary, trying to find that middle ground.”
I shrug and stare at the dirt.
“It could even feel impossible. For over a year now, you’ve dealt in extremes, right? Restricting or bingeing and purging. No in-between, no gray.”
I shrug again. What she doesn’t understand is this: I have no choice. For me, the middle ground doesn’t exist. I starve or I stuff myself. I’m blacked-out drunk or pissed-off sober. I worship Josh and I hate myself. I blame Eden and I need her. If I can’t live, then I’ll die. There is no middle—not for me.
“I think, though, that if you try this exercise, you’ll see that you’re capable of moderation, Stevie. I really believe that.”
“Yeah.” There’s no point in explaining to someone who is okay.
“Stevie, if this group is too much for you today, we could stay out here and talk.”
I shake my head. I don’t want to talk to her anymore. I don’t want to open my mouth, not for food and not for words.
“So are you willing to give it a shot?” she asks.
My skin starts to hum. I’ll fake it, I tell myself. Slip some food under the table.
“I guess.”
“Good. I’m really proud of you for pushing yourself.” Shrink stands and offers me a hand. It’s small, and colder than I thought it would be.
Inside, I pretend not to notice as the other girls’ eyes follow me to the counter. I breathe through my mouth and peel a thin paper plate from the stack. It’s silent at the table. Then Jenna speaks.
“It’s weird,” she says. “The last time I ate this stuff at home was in my room, by myself. I would hide food all around my room and then binge on it at night. And I know my mom found the wrappers and stuff when she was cleaning. But she never said anything.” Her voice gets small. “I still can’t figure out why she never said anything.”
Simple. She doesn’t think you’re worth saving, I think.
Ashley’s voice: “I feel like maybe . . . your mom just couldn’t admit to herself what was going on with you. Maybe it was just, like, too hard for her.” Her voice is pinched.
I force myself to look at the food again. It’s even uglier now than it was before: the ice cream misshapen in the carton, the chip bag concave and shimmering with grease. At the end of the line, an unmarked brown bag. I peer inside. The smell alone is enough to make me sick.
Fried chicken.
Shrink did this on purpose. She wants to keep sending me back to that day on the porch and she doesn’t get that it hurts exactly the same every time I remember. I am filled with spitting rage.
“But it’s like, she’s my mother,” Jenna says. “Mothers are supposed to take care of their kids, no matter what.”
Some other voice at the table snorts. “Supposed to.”
I sweep a plastic fork from the counter and stab the first piece of chicken in the bag. I fling it on the plate, already feeling the hot grease soaking through and staining my palms. If she wants to hurt me like this, fine. I don’t care enough to stop her.
“Good, Stevie,” Shrink approves quietly. “You’re really challenging yourself.”
I turn away from her. There’s an empty seat between Jenna and Ashley, and I sq
ueeze between them. I dump my plate on the table and wipe my palms on my jeans, leaving dark swipes on my thighs. The fat burrows between the denim fibers.
“So let’s try a second bite.” Ms. Dalton circles the table. Slowly, like a shark. “Again, lift a bite from your plate. Notice the smell. Does it smell salty, or sweet? What spices have been used to season the food?”
I drive the fork into the chicken flesh and rip a piece from the bone. I won’t breathe it in. If I breathe it in, I’ll break down and consume it all.
“Now place the bite on your tongue and hold it there for just a moment,” Ms. Dalton instructs. “What tastes arise for you?”
I stare at the speared meat. Purse my lips together to contain the scream.
“Give it a try, Stevie,” Shrink prods quietly behind me. “You’re doing great.” There is a scream inside of me, building. Rattling my insides. I stuff it down with the chicken. When I cram the bite into my mouth, my stomach heaves, and I am back on the porch at the house on Broad. My mother has left me.
That night, it just happened naturally. I was sitting on the porch swing full of chicken and tea, and my belly kept twisting into itself and I couldn’t sit still. I made it to the edge of the porch just in time. I folded over the railing and emptied myself into the earth.
Shrink pipes up behind me. “Girls, notice that you can take a bite—that you can experience this food—without overdoing it, and without dissociating; meaning that you can stay fully present in this moment.”
The air on the porch was heavy enough to crush me.
“We’re so very proud of you guys for trying this,” Ms. Dalton adds. “The strength in this room is palpable.”
There is still fried animal on my tongue. I swallow it and the scream. The meat lodges in my throat and for a second I think it will stay there. Maybe it will stop my breath. Maybe the food will actually kill me. But my body takes over and swallows again. I can feel the weighty flesh worming its way down to my gut. My stomach coils, desperate to reject it.
I whisper, “Excuse me. I need some air,” and I shove back my chair and run outside. Shrink thinks I can do this, but she’s wrong. My body won’t allow it. I stumble around the side of the house. Next to the stucco wall, I bow my head and my body gives it up; I don’t even have to ask. I feel the familiar click, the moment when my body knows everything is going to be okay. When I’m done I kick fiery dirt over pale meat and I think, It’s like riding a bike. Which is weird because I never learned to ride a bike. Josh crashed his and broke his arm when he was seven and I was six, and that was that.
I come around the corner, rubbing the damp from my eyes and wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. Finally, my insides are quiet.
“Oh.” Suddenly Ashley is standing there, wobbly and gray in the too-bright sun. “I . . . um . . . wanted to check on you. I told Anna I’d come so she could stay with the group.” Her lower lip twitches.
“Okay.”
“Stevie.” She whispers it.
I should feel something. A real girl would feel something. Scared she’ll rat me out to Shrink, or pissed at her pudgy-lipped disappointment.
“Tell on me if you want.” I can’t even look at her.
“What?” I can hear her pout getting deeper. “Stevie, what are you—”
“Anna. Tell her if you want. I really don’t care.”
“Are you being serious right now? I was just—I wanted to see if you were okay. I want to help!”
“I’m okay. Okay?” I snap at my feet. “And I don’t need your help.”
“Yeah. Okay. ’Cause you’re doing such an awesome job on your own.” She stomps back into the house, letting the door slam behind her.
day seven
Thursday, July 10, 9:45 p.m.
I avoid Ashley for the rest of the day, but it doesn’t matter. I can feel her disappointment clinging to me, a sticky residue that won’t come clean, like dirty salt water baked into my skin. It’s not that I care what she thinks. It’s that she had the balls to act upset—sad, even—that I’d purged. Like she pities me. A Yellow Girl! Pitying me! I should pity her. All afternoon and through dinner and snack, I am a live wire, ready to blaze at the slightest spark. I need a drink. I need to get wasted with Eden, to forget the way only we know how, together.
When the nurses release us to the cottages at the end of the night, I take my time gathering Josh’s sweatshirt and my journal and the handout on mindful eating Shrink brought me after group. I slip my meds into the pocket of my jeans and I wait until the villa empties. The building feels strange like this, with no sick girls to give it purpose. The nurses talk and laugh a little louder without the patients here. Their life sounds make my skin squirm.
“Stevie, my friend! Anything I can do to help?” The nice male nurse (Jeff, right? Jeff.) looks up from his chart and smiles. Jeff the Nice Male Nurse is always smiling. “Need to talk to someone? I can call a therapist if you’d like.”
“Nah. Thanks, though, Jeff. Night.” I clutch my sweatshirt to my chest and get out of there fast, before he can say more nice things.
I stand in the yard until Cottage Three goes dark. Then I make my way up the hill and lean against the cold stucco. Eden’s letter feels weighty in my pocket, keeping me grounded. After a few more minutes, I sneak inside. Ashley’s almost-snores seep beneath the bedroom door.
I creep to my side of the room, peel off my jeans and leave them in a pile on the floor. I pull Josh’s sweatshirt over my head and slide between the sheets, then flick the switch on my clip lamp and run my fingertips over the bumpy pen strokes that make my name. They are warm.
Eden’s drawn a crude lightning bolt on the back flap and colored it in with neon green ink. I smile. She would never draw a heart, or scrawl Miss you! like everyone else on the planet.
I peel the flap so slowly. When I was little, my mother had our Christmas gifts wrapped professionally, with fat wired gold ribbon and glittery sprigs of silver holly that left fairy-dust trails in the living room until March. The unwrapping was always the saddest part. The promise of what was inside was always better than the actual gift.
Inside the envelope, the letter is folded around a picture. A real picture, printed with sharp corners and a glossy finish. My stomach gets twisty when I see it: Eden and me, arms slung around each other in her kitchen. Grinning and red-faced, like fucked-up idiots. I have no idea when we took this.
Finally, the letter. Her handwriting is nothing like it should be; it’s boxy and small, contained.
Hey, girl.
Got your message the other day. Your cell’s going straight to voice mail, so I had to look up the place on my phone. Hope fat camp is everything you dreamed it would be. (Too soon?) This place sucks without you, so you’d better get your ass back here soon. It’s totally dead in summer, you know? You know. Mostly I’m just hanging with the boys at night and taking this Intro to Anthro course during the day. It’s decent; a gen ed requirement, plus I figured it would help me write characters better, to understand groups of people on a different level. The professor is a total fox, which never hurts. He thinks I don’t see him checking me out during his slide shows of tribal women with their tits hanging out. Please.
Listen. About what you texted before you left. I know you didn’t mean it. You were pissed off about having to leave and everything. I get it. But the thing is, sometimes I think you’re right. I think maybe what happened that night was partly because of me. I mean, we both know I didn’t kill him. But still . . . we never really talked about it, you know? Maybe when you get back, we can.
Either way, I just wanted to say that we’re good, even after everything you said. When you get back I’m taking you out for a drink. Or six. Whatever you need. Just tell me. I’ll take care of you, like you deserve. You know I will.
E
P.S. Write me back, bitch. I know you have nothing better to do in there.
I read the letter so many times. She’s talking to me like nothing’s changed, like I’m not
even in this place. I’m not sure if I love her for this, or hate her for it. She has a way of doing that to me: dizzying me until I don’t know which way is up. It was always that way between us, from the first seminar to the night before Dad sent me here. If only I had gotten my bearings sooner. If only I had stood firm and told her no. No. We can’t do this. If I’d had the power to refuse her, Josh would still be alive.
“I can’t stay,” I told Eden after our second seminar. We bobbed in the rocking chairs on the porch of the Stacks while the other students filtered onto the street and headed to Milo’s or the Royale or the organic co-op down the block. When Drew banged through the door, his gaze slid sticky between Eden and me. “My brother would kill me.” I didn’t want to bail on Josh, but I hated being home. The house on Broad was too dark, too quiet. Even with Josh and Dad and me there, the windows and doors bulged with emptiness, ready to blow.
“You didn’t say anything about a brother last week.” Eden slid a cigarette between her Pepto-pink lips and propped her feet on the porch railing. She tilted her head toward me and lifted an eyebrow, like, This okay? I nodded.
“Josh,” I said. “We play Scrabble every Wednesday night. And I already missed last week.” I flicked at the grayed edge of the bandage over my mother’s face. The ink had ached all week.
“God, that’s adorable.” She lit the cigarette, looking like a print ad for Cool in her ripped jean cutoffs and low black tank that showed off the pink lace of her bra. Her hair was gathered carelessly on top of her head. “Tell him it’s for class. I need your help with this piece I’m working on, anyway.”
I closed my eyes. It was a zillion degrees outside, and I was woozy from the heat. Beads of sweat formed at my hairline and under my bra. I straightened up and pressed my knees together. The tops of my thighs smashed together and stuck there. Stupid bitch loser, I thought. If you hadn’t binged last week . . .
In my back pocket, my cell buzzed.
“My brother,” I told her, and rocked myself to standing. I had to grip the railing to stay upright. Maybe I’d done something right this week after all.