What I Lost

by Alexandra Ballard

  Lexi and I looked at each other. I swear we were thinking the same thing. This is torture.

  Kay patted me on the back. “I know this is hard, but someday you’ll look back on this meal as the first step toward victory,” she said.

  For a second I imagined myself shooting a glass bottle of ranch dressing into a million pieces, and that made me smile a little until I thought about the aftermath—how the dressing would explode everywhere and I’d likely be covered with the greasy stuff.

  I leaned over to Lexi. “What do you think our victory medals will look like?” I whispered.

  “Fat and round, that’s for sure,” Lexi replied.

  “No body talk, girls,” Kay said.

  Lexi smirked and took another bite. I couldn’t let her suffer alone, so I took one, too.

  8

  After lunch I followed the herd of girls to the common room for mail call. A frowning, gray-haired woman in a nurse’s uniform stood in front of an old marble fireplace, a bunch of letters in her hand. She’d stacked a pile of packages next to her on the thick, dark-green wall-to-wall carpet.

  “That’s Nurse Jill,” Willa said as we sat down. “She’s the head nurse. I call her Nurse Pill because she always seems so annoyed.”

  The girls pressed in close, eager to read the names on the packages. Nurse Jill picked up the first one, which was shoe box–sized. She said my name twice before I realized she was calling me. And then, as if one wasn’t enough, she stooped down and picked up another. “Elizabeth again?”

  I stood up and Willa grabbed me. “Wow! You haven’t even been here for two days. That’s amazing! After Ray opens them, show us what you got, okay?”

  “Okay.” I didn’t know who Ray was. And showing off my boxes? That was the last thing I wanted to do. Willa must have read my mind. “Everybody shares,” she said, her voice firm.

  Nurse Jill handed them to me. “Take these to the nurses’ station to get checked. Everybody who receives a package needs to get it cleared.” I nodded and tried to cram them both under my cardigan, hoping no one would notice. Unfortunately, my attempt to hide two boxes in my cardigan just made me look like I was trying to hide two boxes in my cardigan. I picked my way around the girls and walked to the nurses’ station.

  A man stood at the counter. It had to be Ray. He was tall and looked like Idris Elba. Total crush material. “Well, what do we have here?” he asked. I dumped my packages on the counter and shrugged.

  He smiled at me with perfect teeth. “I’m Ray. And you are?”

  “Elizabeth.”

  “Elizabeth! Right! Well, hello, Elizabeth! So, you got two packages?” he said. “People must really like you!” He picked them up. “You want to know what’s in them?”

  I shook my head. What I wanted was to open them myself. Opening them was the best part.

  Ray seemed like a nice guy. I took a chance. “Ray, would it be okay if I didn’t look while you opened them? I sort of like the surprise.”

  He nodded. “No problem. Turn around.”

  I turned. I heard him slitting the tape on the boxes and easing at least one thing in and out of them.

  “You can spin back around now. You’re going to love ’em,” he said, and then he directed his attention to Allie, who was behind me in line.

  As I walked away I heard her squeal with excitement. I glanced back to see her holding what appeared to be a stuffed animal. A seal. “From my boyfriend, Hugh,” she gushed. “He knows I collect them.”

  While she giggled, I snuck off to my room. The waterproof plastic cover under my sheets crackled like it always did when I sat on the bed. I picked up the second package first because I recognized the handwriting—Katrina.

  I could have cried. A week earlier, Katrina had confronted me in the school cafeteria. It felt like a year ago. I’d planned to skip lunch and hide in the library, but Katrina found me and hustled me to our table, where Priya and Shay were already sitting, munching away. I didn’t have a lunch, so instead I put my backpack on the table to fill the empty space.

  “Why aren’t you eating?” Katrina had never asked me that point-blank before. Every once in a while she’d ask if I wanted something when she went up to the lunch line, but I’d say I was full or make some joke. She always let it go. But she’d been acting funny the last couple of days.

  “I’m full,” I’d said.

  “From what?”

  “What are you, the cafeteria food police?” I froze my face into a smile.

  Katrina didn’t respond. “Guys, don’t you just want to make her eat a cookie?” She looked across the table to Priya and Shay. They shrugged and didn’t look at me.

  Why should they have cared if I opted out of lunch? The three of them had inhaled their pizza. Only the standard-issue school Jell-O, red with Cool Whip on top, quivered on their blue plastic trays.

  “Seriously. You’re going to make us self-conscious!” Priya spoke with her mouth full, the words muffled by pieces of a still-warm chocolate chip cookie she’d bought from the à la carte line. Priya ate everything in sight and always complained she couldn’t gain weight.

  “Um … I bought a blueberry muffin during the study hall before assembly,” I said.

  Katrina studied me. “Okay, if you say so. Except that today is Wednesday, and the Wednesday muffin is corn, so I guess you were lucky they made a blueberry one just for you.”

  Crap. Wednesday. It had been so long since I’d bought anything from the cafeteria. Wednesday was corn. Of course. Monday was blueberry, Tuesday was apple, and Thursday was … what was it again? I couldn’t remember. Friday was chocolate chip. Damn. I sucked at lying.

  “Just remember, Elizabeth.” Katrina balled up her lunch bag. “Starving yourself is so emo.” She turned on her heel and headed toward the trash can.

  Emo. Melodramatic. Drama queen. Is that what Katrina really thought? I looked around at the stream of kids leaving the dining room. They laughed, chatted, and flirted. Only my skirt, purchased two weeks earlier and already loose on my hips, made me feel better. Katrina’s just jealous, I’d thought at the time. She’s never been a size 0.

  We’d made up, but it was still weird after that.

  But now here was proof that she didn’t hate me. I’d just stuck my hand in the box when Lexi entered, a big, soft package in her hand. Before I could ask about it, she tossed it on her bed like it hurt to hold and said, “Who’s yours from?”

  “My best friend, Katrina.” Inside was a mangled Beanie Baby stuffed cat, most likely destroyed by her puppy, Lance. It came with a card covered with lots of BFFs and hearts, but they were all dripping red colored-pencil blood and looked drawn by some deranged creature. Inside, Katrina had written, Put this on your wall. The crazies will love it. Seriously, though, we miss you. Eat and get out of there! Love, Katrina, Shay, and Priya.

  It was perfect. I laughed out loud.

  “That’s sort of a disturbing present,” Lexi said, confused.

  “No, it’s an inside joke,” I said.

  The afternoon before I’d checked in, Katrina had come over. I couldn’t tell if she felt obligated or really wanted to say goodbye. “What can I send you?” she’d asked.

  “I don’t know,” I’d replied. “Just promise me you won’t send me anything cheesy, like flowers with one of those tinfoil balloons, or anything that comes with a stuffed animal or has the word ‘BFF’ on it, okay?”

  “Okay,” she’d promised.

  Now, telling Lexi, I worried I might piss her off. I sort of doubted it, but what if she harbored a secret love for flowers, balloons, or teddy bears?

  She wasn’t and didn’t. “I think Katrina is my new hero.”

  I could have kissed that girl.

  Her eyes lit up. “Are you going to put the card on our door? Please say yes. I love it so much.”

  “Maybe.” But I knew that I wouldn’t. I wanted to keep it just for me.

  “You got a package, too! What is it?” I asked, stashing mine under the bed
and trying to ignore the thick knot of homesickness in my stomach.

  Sighing, she looked at the box like she wished it would disappear, and then picked it up halfheartedly, pulling out a purple NYU T-shirt. “From my friend Molly.”

  “Cool,” I said.

  She shrugged. “I guess.” She frowned at the T-shirt, fiddling with the XS label inside. The muscles in her jaw flexed, and she sucked on a chunk of her hair.

  “Lexi, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” She tossed the T-shirt into the closet. It landed on the floor in a pile. “My best friend, Laura, who goes to Yale, sent out a group e-mail last week telling our high school friends that I left Smith and was coming here. Now, just like last time, they’re all going to send me care packages. I don’t know why anybody would think a T-shirt, mug, or bumper sticker from whatever college they’re at is a good gift for someone like me. All they do is constantly remind me that I’m not at school. But nobody thinks about that. Last time I was in treatment, I got stuff from Boston University, Skidmore, and Brown.”

  “How do you like being a Smithie?” The words were barely out of my mouth before I cringed. What I’d meant to say was, What’s Smith like? Is it amazing? but instead I sounded like one of those people who uses slang nobody actually uses, like my uncle Rodney, who lives in Atlanta and always says, “What’s happening in Beantown these days?” when no local I know has ever called Boston Bean-anything.

  Lexi scowled. “I can’t really say since I was only there for two weeks.”

  Crap. I’d said the wrong thing. “Oh. Sorry. So when did your eating stuff start?”

  “When I was eleven. I spent three weeks last year in a hospital being fed through a tube. My organs were at risk of failing. When I stabilized, I went to New Hope, which is just like this place but in New York.”

  I’d read about how you could only come to places like Wallingfield if you were medically stable enough to eat and not in need of around-the-clock medical care. Otherwise, you went to a real hospital, where you just sat around hooked up to a feeding tube.

  Lexi avoided my eyes as she continued. “The good news was that all this happened after college applications were due. Mom talked the guidance counselor into not telling Smith about my medical leave in the spring. I got out just in time to graduate.”

  “Is Smith going to let you go back?”

  She sighed. “I think so. I’m hoping for January. I should be better by then. It sucks, because I really thought I’d be okay this time. But as it turns out, transitions are hard for me. I fell apart pretty much the minute my parents dropped me off. The dean of students made me leave after I ended up in the hospital. I fainted and hit my head.” Her whole body slumped and she looked like she might cry.

  “I’m sorry.” I felt terrible for asking. “That does suck.”

  “Thanks. But enough about that. It’s so depressing.” She gestured to my second package. “What else did you get?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She studied the paper-wrapped box. “That’s a ton of stamps.” The box was covered with at least twenty Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix postage stamps. “Hurry up and open it! I’ve got to go to therapy in, like, two minutes.”

  “Okay.” I ran my finger over my name, written in blue pen. I didn’t recognize the handwriting, which was cramped and small, and there wasn’t a return address.

  When I shook it, something thumped inside. I scrunched up my eyebrows and immediately heard Mom’s voice in my head—Stop! You’ll give yourself wrinkles!

  Ray had broken the seals, so it was easy to slide out the tissue paper inside. A silver dollar–sized brass ring, strung on a red satin ribbon, fell into my palm. The surface was worn and smooth, and it glowed like dull, tarnished gold. Holding it, I felt calmer, like how I felt with Flippy, my stuffed dolphin. I put it around my neck, the ring swaying gently back and forth against my chest.

  “Who sent you that?”

  “I don’t know.” I lifted the ring over my head and carefully hung it on my bedpost, where it clinked before settling against the metal frame.

  “Really?” Lexi didn’t believe me, I could tell.

  “I’m not kidding. I seriously have no idea.”

  “You know, it looks like one of the brass rings you get on the Flying Horses,” Lexi said thoughtfully.

  “Flying Horses? The carousel on Martha’s Vineyard?” My heart beat a little faster. Martha’s Vineyard is an island off the coast of Massachusetts. Lots of kids I knew went there on vacation in the summer.

  “Yes. Have you been there?”

  “No, but I’ve heard of it.”

  Lexi nodded. “It’s pretty cool. I went once when I was little. When you ride the carousel, you pull rings from this metal arm when you go around. The last ring right before the music ends is a brass one. If you grab it, you win a free ride.”

  “Right.” I’d learned about that carousel from my ex-boyfriend Charlie. Charlie, officially Charles Winthrop Abbot III, used to ride it all the time when he was a kid. His family had a house on the Vineyard. From the photos he’d shown me, Charlie spent most of his Vineyard time sailing, playing tennis, or wearing reddish-pink pants or shorts that were must-haves if you were a guy and your favorite store was Vineyard Vines or J.Crew. My family had never been to the Vineyard, and I don’t think my dad owned a pair of pink-colored anything.

  Now, though, I perked up. One night over the summer, at a bonfire on Chorus Beach, Charlie and his friends traded stories about their wild parties on the Vineyard, especially on South Beach. In the middle of one story that involved fireworks, dune grass, and the police, Charlie drunkenly promised that he’d take me there. He told me about the carousel and promised that when we went, he’d win me the brass ring. His friends made fun of him for being so romantic.

  That night, lying in bed, I’d pictured us riding the horses together, sharing cotton candy and leaning in to kiss as the carousel went round and round. Cheesy? Sure, but awesome, too. I still thought about it sometimes. I’d assumed that Charlie had forgotten all about that. Beer—and breaking up—has a way of wiping memories clean. But now? Maybe he hadn’t forgotten after all.

  “Do you go to Martha’s Vineyard a lot?” I asked Lexi. Maybe she knew Charlie. He’d said the island was small.

  “What? Oh, God no. I’m a Long Island girl. I prefer the Hamptons.” Lexi gathered a notebook and black sweatshirt into her hands. “I’ve gotta go,” she said. “I have a phone therapy session with my dad.” My brain flashed back to the man I’d seen on the first day, completely buried in his laptop. He hadn’t seemed like the talkative type.

  “Good luck,” I said, sending her a sympathetic glance.

  “Yeah,” she said. “We’ll see.”

  Willa walked in as Lexi left, the two slipping around each other like they were made of air.

  “Elizabeth!” Willa said. “Tell me what you got!”

  I hesitated, already half wishing Lexi didn’t know. It felt good to have a secret here. But it was Willa asking, and she was so excited I didn’t have the heart to disappoint her.

  “It’s just a little thing. I’ll show you, but you can’t tell anyone, okay?”

  “I promise.” She sat on my bed and I had to hold my tongue to keep from asking her to sit somewhere else. When I buried my nose in my comforter, I could still smell the fabric softener Mom used, a smell that was already fading.

  I carefully lifted the ring from its perch and held it out, the brass warm on my palm.

  “Who sent you this?” Willa took it from me, put it on her finger, and then tried to slide it over her wrist. It almost fit.

  “That’s the thing. There wasn’t any note.”

  Maybe Charlie hadn’t sent a note on purpose. Maybe he’d wanted to make this like a game. That was totally something he would do.

  Willa’s eyes darted from me to the ring, as if trying to decide if I was putting one over on her.

  “Seriously? That is so awesome!” Willa spun the ring
in a circle and dropped it on the comforter. The ribbon was twisted. I snatched it back and smoothed the satin with my fingers.

  “It’s, like, a total mystery. Maybe it was sent by someone who secretly loves you or something.” Right then, Willa seemed very twelve.

  “Sorry,” I said. “But secret admirers don’t exist. We’re at Wallingfield, not in fairyland.”

  “Well, I think you’re wrong. I just know it’s from a secret admirer,” Willa said. “I bet there are a ton of guys out there in love with you.”

  I only want one, I told myself, still thinking about Charlie.

  Not that I’d ever admit that out loud.

  That night, lying in bed with the brass ring resting on my chest, I found myself reasoning with the universe. Because I did want Charlie back. I missed him. Please, I whispered to the air. I promise, I’ll do anything. Just make it be from Charlie.

  9

  The next morning I woke up to find my hands clamped around the red ribbon and the ring pressed into my leg, leaving a round, red, itchy imprint on the inside of my thigh.

  Charlie wants me back.

  He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. Not after—

  Don’t get your hopes up, Elizabeth!

  But I couldn’t help it. Maybe he wanted to make up and get back together.

  Next to me, Lexi groaned as she pulled herself out of bed and fumbled around for her robe.

  “Lexi,” I said as I wrapped myself in my pink one, “do you have a boyfriend?”

  She let out a snort. “Yeah. His name is Rex.”

  “Rex?”

  “Yeah, as in ano-REX-ia. That’s the only boyfriend I’ve got. Last time I checked, guys weren’t exactly dying to go out with me. Why, do you?”

  I didn’t see why any guy wouldn’t go out with Lexi. Aside from the fact that she looked a bit skeletal, she was still pretty, with her layered black hair, clear skin, and big dark eyes. “No,” I said. “Totally not.”