What I Lost

by Alexandra Ballard

“What? I don’t think so.”

  “Oh my God! How can you guys be so in denial? Mom. Doesn’t. Eat. She doesn’t. How can you not see that?”

  “Elizabeth, I don’t think it’s fair—”

  “Fair? You want to talk to me about fair? I’ll tell you what’s not fair. That I’m in here taking one for the team while you and Mom just turn your heads and pretend she’s normal. You know what? Go,” I cried. “Now. Go, okay?”

  “Honey, I think that your mom, she’s ju—”

  The look I gave him shut him up.

  He cleared his throat and tried again, speaking fast. “She’s upset. It isn’t that she doesn’t love you or support you. She’s hurting, that’s all.”

  “What? She’s hurting? SHE’S hurting? When are you going to wake up? Look at me! Look where I am!” The family meeting had ended and people were coming out of the community room.

  Somewhere in my anger I heard Mary. “Elizabeth, let’s take this into my office, where…”

  “No,” I said. “I’m done.” I left my dad in the hallway and ran to my room. That short sprint, a total of maybe fifty feet, set adrenaline coursing through my body and all I wanted to do was keep running, but I was already at my door, stuck in this stupid hospital. Stuck with my crappy mother. Stuck with my own crazy thoughts.

  * * *

  Ten minutes passed. I rolled over on my back and looked at the ceiling. It had those tiles where, if you threw a newly sharpened pencil hard enough, straight up, it would stick. We had those in Mr. Roberts’s US History classroom. Whenever he turned his back, people would chuck their pencils at the ceiling. A few would stick, but most wouldn’t and they’d end up clattering onto the linoleum floor. He never admitted that he knew what we were doing; he’d just ask in his most cynical voice why so many people were always dropping their pencils. I have duct tape if your fingers can’t hold a writing implement, he’d say crankily.

  When the knock came I didn’t get off my bed. I wondered who’d drawn the short straw to come talk to me—Mom or Dad.

  “Go away,” I said, even as I realized that I didn’t really want them to leave.

  “Elizabeth,” Willa said through the door, “can I come in?”

  I didn’t answer right away. I didn’t want Willa to see me cry. Willa at my door meant that my parents had left. They’d gotten in their car, put on their seat belts, started up the engine, and left me without even saying goodbye. When I’d told Dad to go, I’d wanted him to refuse. I wanted Mom to come back inside, for them to still be waiting for me outside my door, unwilling to leave until they knew I was all right.

  Willa knocked again. “Elizabeth? Are you okay?”

  I wiped my eyes, opened the door a crack, and lay back down, this time on the carpet. The hard floor felt good. I don’t know why. Willa and Margot stood over me, looking down.

  “Hey,” Willa said. “You’re on the floor.” Her tiny mass was a shadow; the light from the bedside lamp seemed to shine through her.

  “Yup,” I said.

  “Want to go to your bed?” Margot asked.

  “Nope. I’ll stay down here, thanks.”

  They sat next to me on the floor. My parents might have left, but Margot and Willa were here. And that was something. Willa squeezed my hand.

  “You’re adopted?” I asked.

  She nodded. “My mom is actually my aunt. My birth mother left me when I was four. Mom didn’t even know I existed. It took a year for them to find her. She took me in when I was five and adopted me a year later, when my birth mom gave up all rights. I don’t know for sure if my real mom is even still alive.”

  “I’m sorry, Willa.” And then I touched her scars. I’d never asked about them before. “What happened here?” I asked softly.

  “I used to cut myself. That’s what got me in here. Well, that and my eating. The doctor, who I saw after I did this,” she said, pointing to a thin red line across her wrist, “said I was the youngest self-harmer he’d ever seen, that it usually starts around fourteen.”

  “How old were you when you started?”

  “Ten.” Willa caressed her arm for a moment before pulling down her sleeves.

  What are you supposed to say to something like that? If there was a correct response, I didn’t know it. So instead of saying anything, I squeezed her hand. She squeezed back and put her head on my shoulder. Margot patted both of us a couple of times, and then it was time for snack.

  31

  Wednesday was Halloween, which meant that I’d been at Wallingfield for an entire month. Not that you’d know it. The only thing that made October 31 different from all the other days was the rumor flying around that we’d all have mini candy bars on our lunch trays. And of course there was the joke Margot made at lunch. “Funny how so many girls decided to dress up as skeletons this year,” she’d said, totally straight-faced.

  By now, the sting from Saturday had mostly worn off. When Mom’s tirade came to mind, I no longer felt an immediate stab of mortification. It had mellowed to a dull throb. Mom and Dad had called, but I’d made Jean take a message, and I’d never called back.

  And then, after lunch, Nurse Jill found me, a white padded envelope in her hand. “This came for you yesterday, but we missed it somehow. I am very sorry.”

  I wasn’t. For once I wouldn’t have the entire Wallingfield population staring at me. “Thanks,” I said, ripping open the top flap and handing it to her to check. Again, there was no return address and a lot of American flag stamps. Another mystery. She looked inside, nodded curtly, and handed it back. Reaching in, I pulled out a spiral-bound journal with a picture of the sinking Titanic on the front. What the hell? Was I supposed to be like a sinking ship? A disaster? Or was it that I was titanic, as in massive? If this was supposed to be a joke, I wasn’t laughing.

  “Can I see?” Margot grabbed the book. She opened it and snort-laughed. Willa, right behind her, peeked over Margot’s shoulder, her face like a little heart.

  Inside, printed at the bottom of each page, was a quote in cursive:

  Seize the moment; remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart.

  —Erma Bombeck

  I frowned. “Who’s Erma Bombeck?”

  Of course Margot knew. “She’s a writer. My mom likes her. She’s actually pretty funny, which is shocking, because usually Mom has terrible taste.”

  “Oh,” I said. How her parents didn’t recognize her intelligence was beyond me. Sometimes when I was with her, I felt small, but not like size 0 small. Stupid small.

  She looked thoughtful. “That quote is sort of inspiring, in a twisted way.”

  I didn’t find it inspiring at all. If I started to think of all the things I’d missed out on because of my stupid eating disorder—all the times that, Erma Bombeck would say, I’d skipped “dessert”—I was going to wish I had been on the Titanic.

  But still. I flipped it over. Someone had highlighted the description on the back that read, 250 college-ruled pages. Weird, the highlighting. Why highlight that? A picture of me stammering like an idiot on the day Simone arrived flashed through my head. Besides Simone, there was only one person who knew I’d needed a new journal. And that I hated wide-ruled.

  Tristan.

  32

  Why?

  Why would Tristan, if it even was Tristan, send me anything? Charlie would hate him for it. He was big on loyalty—bro code, he called it. And number one was that friends’ girlfriends—and ex-girlfriends—were off-limits. When Charlie told me that one night while hanging out in his basement, the feminist in me said, “I get the girlfriend part. But exes, too? Girls aren’t property.”

  “It’s not about the girl,” he’d replied. “It’s about friendship.”

  Carefully, I spread what he’d sent me out on the bed. Every single present screamed Charlie. What was Tristan thinking? It was creepy. Stalker-esque even. Wrong on so many levels.

  If Lexi were here, she’d help me figure this whole thing out. Instead, all
I had was another postcard. It had come yesterday, in the mail. This one had a picture of a golden retriever with three tennis balls in its mouth.

  Hi, ladies! Things are still good. I miss you all, though. Visiting Smith this weekend! Hoping they let me come back and finish the semester!! Fingers crossed! Miss you guys. xoxo Lexi

  I tucked the postcard into the back of the journal, parked myself on a couch in the common room, and used the first page to try to figure out my feelings. So far all I’d written was, WTF?????????

  Nurse Jill tapped me on the shoulder. “Elizabeth?”

  I turned around.

  “Your mom is here to see you.”

  A couple of girls looked up. They all remembered my mom. Who could forget her?

  At first I didn’t move. But I knew she wouldn’t go away, not without a face-to-face. “Thanks.” I sighed and walked into the foyer, smoothing my hair and already regretting not changing into something a little nicer.

  Mom was sitting on a bench, beige trench coat still on, looking tired and smaller than I remembered. She wasn’t wearing any makeup. With a jolt I realized her jeans were an old pair of mine she usually wore for painting or other messy chores. I looked at her fingernails. No manicure. No perfect hair. Something was wrong.

  “Hi.” Her voice was soft.

  Had something happened to Dad? To Grandma? “What’s wrong?” I said, voice shaking.

  She read my face in a heartbeat. “Oh, no, honey. Everybody is fine. I just wanted to talk. Is that okay?”

  If this were a phone call, I could have said I had group or something. But now she was sitting here, looking like she might burst into tears, and it wasn’t so easy to put her off. It scared me, seeing her like that. But I couldn’t say no. “I guess so.”

  She surveyed my black pants covered in lint, my long-sleeved purple T-shirt, and my messy ponytail. I waited for the frown of disapproval. It never came. She just looked sad.

  “I hated how we left things the other day. I came here to say I’m sorry.”

  “Oh.” Sorry wasn’t enough.

  She walked to the window, arms crossed over her chest. “I understand why you’re angry. I don’t blame you.”

  I didn’t look at her.

  “You know, when you came here, I was convinced that they’d keep you a few days and then send you home a few days later.”

  So was I.

  Out the window the tree branches, newly bare, scraped against one another in the wind. “But then they said you needed to stay longer, and even though I argued with them, a part of me knew they were right.”

  She bit her lip. “And I realized that maybe this—where we are right now—that maybe it’s all my fault, that I pushed you too hard to look a certain way. And I’m sorry about that.”

  I knew it wasn’t all her fault. Even so, I would have thought hearing her say that would make me feel better. But it didn’t. Mom’s fragility scared me. My mom was diamond hard. She seemed unbreakable, and her I-know-better-than-you attitude always brought out the worst in me. When we’d fight I’d get meaner and meaner, just to try to wipe that look off her face. It never worked. Now that it was gone, though, I didn’t know how to handle the person sitting in front of me, and I almost wanted her to put her hard shell back on.

  She sighed. “You know, I’ve never liked the person I saw in the mirror.”

  Just like me.

  She twisted her green Kate Spade bracelet, the one Dad got her for Christmas last year. I coveted that bracelet. “In high school, I felt like I didn’t have a personality worth sharing. I always thought of myself as this mousy girl no one noticed. It was a terrible feeling. I didn’t want you to feel that way.”

  What? Grandma was full of stories about Mom from high school, about how she’d throw parties and get caught, or how she’d sneak out at night. “Mom, you were really popular in high school.”

  “It might have seemed that way, but I always felt like an imposter, like no one knew me. It was a terrible loneliness, Elizabeth. Terrible. I hated who I was. I constantly compared myself to other girls in my classes, and I always came up short. For me, dieting helped. Looking better on the outside helped me feel more like I was a match for my friends. And as you got older, I worried that you’d feel the same way.”

  I wanted to dismiss her, but the scariest thing was that I knew exactly what she was talking about. I wasn’t about to admit that, though.

  “You thought I’d hate myself?”

  “Oh, honey, no.”

  “But you just said that you saw in me what you hated in yourself.”

  “I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant. I could never think that. My problems and my realities were never yours. I was projecting. That’s what I meant.” Mom reached into her bag. She grabbed a tissue and held it in one white-knuckled fist.

  “How?”

  “How what?”

  “How did you figure all this out?” Mom wasn’t about the feels. Ever.

  “Well, to tell you the truth, I’ve started seeing a counselor.”

  “What?” Mom? Seeing a shrink?

  “Yes, well, your father and I both have. At first, it was to understand what was happening with you. But as it turns out, the counselor thinks I have a few issues to work on, too.”

  She put her hand on mine. I let it stay there. Her skin was soft.

  “Do you agree?” I asked.

  “Agree with what?”

  “That you have issues?”

  “Sure. Who doesn’t have issues?”

  “But what about issues with eating? And your weight? Does your counselor think you have those?”

  She brushed a piece of imaginary lint off her sleeve and didn’t look at me. “Oh, I don’t know, Elizabeth.”

  “Well, does she?”

  “Yes, but I’m not convinced. I—”

  “Mom, you eat, but barely. You’re so picky; it isn’t normal.”

  “It’s normal for me, Elizabeth. And I’m fine.”

  She was in such denial, and there was nothing I could say to change her mind. I knew that, because there would have been nothing anybody could have said to change my mind. Until I got bad enough, that is. And Mom had never crossed that line. She’d straddled it, sure, but she’d never gone full anorexic. Lucky her.

  “But one thing I know for sure, Elizabeth, is this. We need to focus on your recovery. Your dad and I want you to get well so much. You are our everything. And you shine, Elizabeth. So much. I’m so sorry that I didn’t help you to see that.”

  I nodded. It was weird to hear Mom apologize. She didn’t usually do that.

  “And I should never have said it would be great for you to lose a few pounds. Moms aren’t supposed to say that stuff.”

  “But you said it because it was true, Mom. You thought I was fat.”

  She wiped her eyes, but she didn’t deny it. “I’d take it all back in a second if I could.”

  She couldn’t, though. The words were a part of me. But still. She was trying. “I know,” I said.

  Then I reached over and hugged her. She felt like bones. Her clammy skin chilled me. She wasn’t comforting—or comfortable.

  And that’s when I wondered if that’s what Charlie felt when he hugged me.

  33

  After Mom left, all I wanted to do was run. Or walk, at least. Through the window I could see a path that led into the woods, blanketed with pine needles. I hungered for it. But we weren’t allowed off the patio, so all I could do was head for the nearest chair in the sun. I lifted my eyes to the clear blue sky and felt my soul stretch. It was so, so cold, but I didn’t care. I’d barely settled in when Simone’s voice cut through the quiet. “Elizabeth! Hey.”

  Please, not now.

  Her voice turned bossy. “Say hi.”

  “Hi, Elizabeth.”

  Tristan. I froze, then slowly turned around.

  His face matched the crimson color of Simone’s Boston College sweatshirt. He glared at his sister, who had a tight grip on his arm. �
��Get off me. Now.”

  She raised her eyebrows at him. “Say sorry.”

  “Sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. “About the doughnut. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “It’s fine.” The whole doughnut thing felt like it had happened centuries ago. Screw the doughnut. We had bigger things to discuss.

  I took a deep breath. Do it, Elizabeth. Just do it. “Tristan, can I talk to you? Alone?” Simone took a half step back in surprise, her eyes widening so much I could actually see them through her eyeliner.

  “Okay.” His eyes darted between his sister and me.

  Simone didn’t move. “Simone, get out of here,” he said.

  “I’m going, I’m going.” With one last glare at her brother, she went inside.

  A few girls smoking at the other end of the patio glanced over at us. Coral held court in the middle, telling a story that was eliciting shrieks of laughter. “Come on,” I said, grabbing his arm and pulling him to the opposite end.

  I spit it out before I lost my nerve, talking so fast that my words jumbled together. “I know you sent me those packages in the mail.”

  “What are you talking about?” He looked at me like I’d gone crazy. But I knew what I knew. Didn’t I?

  “The packages with the tons of stamps? The jar of sand? The poster?” I pulled the brass ring out from under my sweater and waved it at him. “This? The journal? It was you.”

  He just stared at me, his face blank.

  “It was you,” I said. “Wasn’t it?”

  “Not me. Sorry.” He pulled out his pack of cigarettes but put them away without taking one. Maybe he really was trying to quit.

  I tried again. “But you highlighted the journal—where it said ‘college-ruled.’ It had to be you. Nobody else knew about that.”

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  I had a horrible sense of déjà vu. “Please, I—”

  “Yeah, uh, no.”

  I held myself together by wrapping my arms around my chest. “But…”

  “You’re looking in the wrong place.” Then, without even saying goodbye, he turned and walked, fast, across the patio.

  I’d done it again.