“I know it’s soon, but my insurance will only pay for four more days, and since Dad has business in Boston tomorrow, it’s most convenient for him to come then. Mom wanted me to stay for the four days and then fly home, but of course, once Dad heard Mom’s plan, he insisted that they pick me up in person, so tomorrow it is.” Lexi’s parents were divorced.
“But there’s all that stuff you need to do before you can go. What about eating out?” Lexi and I were supposed to leave on the same day, together. That’s what I’d always pictured. Wallingfield wouldn’t be Wallingfield without her.
“I don’t need it.” She turned to me and took my hands. “Elizabeth, I feel ready. I know I can do this.”
“How do you know?” She’d only been doing better for ten days. Ten. Barely enough to warrant a departure, in my opinion.
“I just know. I can feel my body wanting to eat. I don’t want this life. From the minute I saw my health records, I realized what I was doing was crazy. I want to live, Elizabeth.”
I could already feel her pulling away. “Will you write to me?” I felt stupid as soon as I asked the question.
Lexi whacked me gently on the shoulder. “What? Of course I’ll write you! Do you think I’d just leave here and never think about you guys again?”
That’s exactly what I thought. I’d never seen a girl here get a letter or a package from somebody who’d left. Ever.
“Elizabeth, everything is going to be fine. I’m going to be fine. And I think you are going to be, too. I just know it in my gut.” She stood up. “You’ll see,” she said.
I wished I felt as confident.
The next morning after weights and vitals, Margot and I sat on my bed and watched Lexi pack up her suitcase. She’d breezed through her meal, looking like she actually enjoyed her eggs.
Girls came in our room for the next half hour to say goodbye. With everybody there, it felt like a party, or rather the first few minutes of a party, before it gets fun, when people are all quiet and awkward and super polite. Beth told Lexi she was a role model. Jean said she was a wonderful person. Margot told her to “do good things out there.” Willa cried a little and said she’d miss her. Allie told her to call us, “like, every day, okay?”
And then it was time for our first meetings of the day. “Elizabeth,” Margot whispered as everybody around us procrastinated. No one wanted to leave Lexi. Or go to their appointments, for that matter.
“Yeah?”
“You didn’t say anything!”
“I don’t know what to say,” I whispered back.
Margot gave me a stern look, the space between her brows crinkling. “You have to say something! You’re her roommate!”
I sighed. “Hey, Lexi,” I said from my bed. She and Jean were giggling together. She looked over, caught in mid-laugh. Her eyes shone. She looked beautiful. Please stay, I wanted to say. Wait for me. Don’t leave me in our room alone. But all that came out was, “Good luck.” It sounded lame, even to me. Her smile evaporated. She opened her mouth like she was about to say something, but right then Jean stood up and announced, “We are going to be so late!” and Willa and Beth and even Margot got up and rushed Lexi like she was a Kardashian, literally waiting in line to give her a hug. I hung back, watching the circus, hoping that if I didn’t participate, she wouldn’t actually leave.
My first activity of the day was art therapy. The girls were cheery and the sun was out, but the room still felt dark. Our task was to decorate wooden picture frames with stick-on jewels, paint, feathers, buttons, and the other dribs and drabs left over from past art projects. In between the tacky decorations, we were supposed to write positive affirmations, like STRONG! BRAVE! WORTH IT!
I glued one hot-pink feather to mine and then put it down. I couldn’t let Lexi leave without a better goodbye. She deserved that from me. When the art therapist wasn’t looking, I stashed my picture frame under a rainbow-colored pile of feathers and snuck out. No one noticed.
Back in our room, I found her perched on her bed, back to me, filling out forms. Even after all this treatment she still looked like a Disney princess—impossibly tiny waist, minuscule wrists, huge head. I tapped her on the shoulder and she turned around.
Holy crap. It wasn’t Lexi. It was her mom. Lexi often complained about her mom’s weight, but I never imagined her looking so small and emaciated. Sick, like Lexi when she’d first arrived. She peered at me over the top of a pair of reading glasses. Her hair, the same color as Lexi’s, was thin, and her skin was caked with makeup.
“Oh, hello,” she said, in a hoarse, tinny Long Island accent. “Were you Lexi’s roommate?” She looked me up and down. I wondered what she saw.
“I’m Elizabeth.” I stuck my hand out. Hers was limp and cold, like shaking hands with a vampire. I thought of my mom’s own firm grip. I felt a pang. I hadn’t talked to her since phone therapy.
“Lexi has talked about you a lot. Where are you from?” Her mom smiled at me. Her teeth were nearly translucent.
“Esterfall.”
“You’re lucky you’re close by.” She sounded overwhelmed. “We have a drive of six hours ahead of us.”
Lexi walked out of the bathroom. She was wearing jeans, which I’d never seen her in, and a short leather jacket, also new. She looked like a different person. Older. Pretty. I remembered her that first day, how colorless she’d been. Now she actually had a tinge of pink in her cheeks.
“Where’s Dad?”
“He’s in the car on a call. God forbid he clears his schedule for his daughter.”
Lexi ignored her and turned to me. “You’re supposed to be in art!” she said, hugging me hard.
I returned the squeeze, whispering, “I couldn’t let you leave without a proper goodbye. I’m sorry I didn’t say something better before. I should have.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
She held me at arm’s length, like a mom would. “You’re going to leave soon too. I just know it.”
My brain flashed back to the conversation with my parents. I wasn’t sure if I wanted that or not. “Can I ask you something?”
She nodded. I pulled her into the bathroom.
“Lexi, don’t take too long,” her mom called after us.
She turned to me, her face open. “What’s wrong?”
At first I thought I wouldn’t be able to get the words out, but then they poured out in a rush, tumbling over each other. “Do you think there will be a day when we don’t think about food at all? That we’ll just eat it, enjoy it, and move on with our day?”
She looked me right in the eyes. “Yes. I do. I believe we will have a day when we eat lunch and never think about it again.” Then she smiled.
“Lexi, honey, come on!” Her mom’s nasal voice needled its way into the bathroom with us.
We hugged. “Well, you better go. Smith is waiting.” I followed her out of the bathroom.
Her mom smiled at me. “Thank you for being such a good friend to Lexi. I hope you two stay in touch. Lex, honey, you ready?”
Lexi nodded. They both turned toward the door, and that’s when I saw that her mom was carrying an inflatable plastic ring, similar to a pool floatie. She was too thin to sit without one. Her bottom didn’t have enough cushioning.
Lexi stared at the doughnut. She flushed. I pretended not to see it.
“Good luck, Elizabeth,” Lexi said with a final squeeze of my hand. “I’ll never forget you.” Then she grabbed the handle of the suitcase, tipped it onto its wheels, and left, her mom trailing almost weightlessly behind her.
26
Three days after Lexi left, we got a postcard, just like she’d promised. On the front was a picture of a bakery in the Hamptons. I snickered. Nice irony. On the back it read:
Being home is great. Taking it meal by meal, but so far so good! Mom put in a call to Smith, so we’ll see what happens! Thinking of you all, all the time. If I can do it, you can, too! Love you all!
xoxo Lexi
I brought it wit
h me to group.
“That’s so great,” Jean said as we waited for Marcia.
“That’s cool,” Margot agreed.
Willa looked at it. “Can I have the card?”
I knew the nice thing to do would be to hand it over. But I shook my head. “Maybe later, Willa. I have to show it to a couple of other people first.”
Willa sat back and pouted. I didn’t look at Margot or Jean, but I could feel their disapproval. Still, I carefully tucked the postcard into the back of my journal.
I missed Lexi terribly. More than the other girls did. Without her, our room was quiet and cold. It made me homesick.
Parents aside, I couldn’t stop thinking about home. I wanted to be able to watch TV whenever I felt like it. I wanted to be able to shave my legs and go to the mall and get coffee—real coffee. I didn’t want to feel like a prisoner anymore. Oh, and I wanted my phone back. I was dying to have my phone back. And I wanted to sleep in my own bed, which definitely DID NOT have a plastic cover that crackled when I moved, and I wanted, more than anything, not to have an empty bed next to me that looked like a coffin in the dark.
Marcia arrived and produced a Magic 8 Ball, the black plastic toy where you ask a question about your future, shake the ball, and then turn it over to see a prediction appear on the bottom. I got one in my Christmas stocking when I was ten. I’d ask it questions like, Will I be rich someday? or Will I be a famous movie star? It always said stuff like, My reply is no, or Don’t count on it. Once, I asked it if I would be pretty. I got, Reply hazy, try again. When I tried again, I got, Does not look good.
I promised myself that when Marcia asked for a volunteer, I’d raise my hand. If I wanted to go home, I needed to be an A student, just like Lexi.
“So.” Marcia held out the ball like it was a diamond or something. “I want you to look ahead to the end of your time here at Wallingfield. What will you want to have accomplished? Where will you want to be? What would you like to be able to do that maybe wasn’t possible before because of your illness?” She paused and looked around at the six of us, all dramatic-like. Across the circle, Allie picked at her fingernails. Jean, as always, listened and nodded. I, personally, was disappointed. This was basically regular group. The Magic 8 Ball was just a gimmick, a stand-in for the talking stick, a wooden baton covered with glitter glue and ribbon that we took turns holding during discussions.
Marcia continued. “I’d love for you to take a few moments to either draw or write down your thoughts, and then we’ll share. If you have the 8 Ball,” she said, shaking it for emphasis, “you have the floor. And, like always, if you aren’t comfortable, you can pass, okay?” We nodded.
What did I want? I thought about what Lexi had said the other day as she was leaving. I believe we will have a day…, she’d said. So I wrote about that.
I want a day where I wake up and eat pancakes for breakfast with butter and hot maple syrup. And then I want to go to school and have a muffin during study hall. I want a day where I eat school lunch and a chocolate chip cookie and Jell-O for dessert like Priya. For dinner I want to have spaghetti and meatballs with tons of Parmesan cheese on top and cake—two fat slices. I want to eat all that and be happy with how I look. And I want to stay a size 0.
I scratched out the last sentence. We weren’t supposed to talk about sizes or weight. If I wanted to go home, I needed to stop saying stuff like that. But it was true. I did want to stay how I was and eat pancakes. There were healthy size 0 girls. Why couldn’t I be one?
Marcia cleared her throat and said, “So, how’s it going?” She looked around as Jean, the last to finish, put down her pencil.
“Okay,” Marcia said, “who would like to share?”
I took a deep breath, sucked it up, and raised my hand like I’d promised myself I would. “I’ll go.”
“Great!” Marcia passed me the 8 Ball.
I opened my mouth to read what I’d written, but no noise came out. Suddenly, I couldn’t read what I’d said about food. I was embarrassed by all my wanting.
“Well, I want to get better. I want to run again. I want to, um, feel like I have a lot of energy.”
Marcia looked around, her eyes inviting other people to respond to what I’d said.
“Those all sound like good goals, Elizabeth,” said Jean obediently. “I liked the one about you having energy. I feel like I have more energy, but it makes me feel uncomfortable, like there’s this voice inside my head that says I’m a failure if I have more energy, or want to eat.”
I nodded, passing her the 8 Ball. That voice talked to me constantly, too.
“Do you think that’s Jean’s voice, or her eating disorder’s voice?” Marcia asked. “The eating disorder’s voice can be very strong sometimes. It doesn’t want to let you go. It’s a terrible bully. But that other voice, the one that is glad to have more energy, that’s you talking.”
Jean nodded, brows furrowed, like Marcia had just announced that cronuts were good for you. She wasn’t convinced, I could tell.
“Remember, everybody,” Marcia said, “that your eating disorder is not a person. It isn’t you. If you have measles or chicken pox, are you measles or chicken pox? Are you strep throat? Or pneumonia? Or the flu? No, right? You might fight those illnesses, but they don’t define who you are. Eating disorders are the same. They do not make up your being.”
I got that, sort of. But who was I without it? “What would I think about all day? What would I do with all my time?”
I didn’t realize I’d said that stuff aloud until it was too late. Everybody was staring at me. I wanted to reach up in the air and grab back every word.
Beth answered, “When I was first in recovery, it took me a while to figure out what to do with myself.” She pulled her long gray cardigan tight around her shoulders and tucked her chin-length blond hair behind her ears. This was her third stint at a treatment center. She’d made it a whole year before she’d relapsed. This time was the worst, she said. It was like her anorexia had settled in her bone marrow and she couldn’t get it out.
“But then, as time went on, I started to realize that I’d liked to do lots of things, back before all this stuff happened.” As she spoke, the room was so quiet that you could hear new age music playing in the dance studio down the hall.
“Like what?” Willa finally asked.
“I liked to cook dinner. I loved taking college classes. Swimming was pretty fun, too. And I played field hockey. I was a forward, and I was good.” Her cheeks reddened when she said that, like she was embarrassed to give herself credit. “After a while, I started cooking again, and I signed up for a class on Jane Austen.” I knew she’d dropped out of college when she came back here. “I thought I’d finish college, finally. I’m twenty-three. All my high school friends are done with school, but I only have one semester of credits.” Beth stopped talking, and everyone was quiet for a moment, thinking of all the things we used to do, before we got sick.
And then Jean spoke. “I hope Jasper forgives me.” Jasper was Jean’s horse. In group therapy, she’d told us how she hadn’t missed a day riding him in ten years until she went into treatment the first time, six months after her coach said she needed to lose weight if she wanted to make the Olympic trials. She called Jasper her best friend.
“I had my bone scan yesterday,” she said now, voice flat. “It turns out that I have osteoporosis in my back and osteopenia in my hips. My bones could break if I fall, so I can’t ride.”
Everyone in the room sat up a little straighter. We leaned in, as if getting closer would comfort her somehow.
“How long until you can ride again?” Allie asked.
“I can’t ride again. Ever.” Jean’s voice cracked on the last syllable. “They’re going to sell Jasper as soon as I get home. They’re waiting so I can say goodbye.”
I stared at Jean, trying to send her sympathy via mental telepathy, but that’s not what she needed. She needed a hug. I jumped out of my seat and threw my arms around her. She
started bawling. I cried too. How could I not? It was just all so sad. And I wasn’t the only one.
Marcia waited until most of us were in the sniffle stage, and then she tried to lead us in figuring out why we were all crying at once.
“Maybe the 8 Ball knows,” Margot said, which made us giggle. When she added, “Why don’t you ask it?” we started full-out laugh-crying.
And that’s how our Magic 8 Ball session ended.
27
The next morning, as I was getting out of bed, I felt a wetness between my legs. Was I leaking pee? Sweating for some reason? Ugh. I hope not. Disgusting. I went to the bathroom, and when I pulled down my underpants I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I saw the bright red splotch. My period.
I was eleven and in the sixth grade when I got my period for the first time. I was the first of all my friends. Mom cried, and even though I asked her not to, she told Dad, who pulled me aside that same day and said, “I heard you got your little friend.” Beyond humiliating.
When I told Katrina, she refused to believe me until I showed her the extra pad Mom had stuffed into my backpack. At the time, I was horrified. It was bad enough that I was the first girl in sixth grade to need a bra. Rance Potter, a horrible boy I am happy to say moved to New Jersey in eighth grade and was never heard from again, announced that fact to our entire science class, telling everyone that I had the biggest boobs in sixth grade. If I could have chopped them off right then, I would have.
And here I was. First again. As far as I knew, I was the only girl in my cohort at Wallingfield to get her period. I felt ashamed, just like I had in sixth grade.
I didn’t tell anybody except Nurse Jill, and that was only because I needed tampons, but people found out anyway. At group, I saw Allie looking at me funny. I realized later that my tampon was sticking halfway out of my pocket. If she knew, that meant everybody else probably did, too. I imagined all the girls around me feeling superior, that they weren’t losing control of their body as much as I was, even though anorexia was supposed to be our sworn enemy.
What I Lost Page 14