The voice in my head came out of nowhere. Tristan is going to think you look so fat.
I shook my head, as if that would make a difference. Shut up, I pleaded with myself. Just shut up.
I got my fleece out of the closet. Mom helped me into one of the sleeves, like when I was little. “Now, what are your plans?”
“I’m going to hang out with Tristan. You know, from school? He’s picking me up.”
“Tristan McCann?” Mom asked.
I nodded, heart sinking. I’d totally forgotten that Mom had worked on the school fund-raising committee with his mother.
“When did you get to be friends with Tristan McCann?” She looked so pleased. Too pleased. I picked my words carefully.
“At Wallingfield. His sister is a day patient. I hung out with them sometimes.”
“Oh? That’s right. I’d heard his sister was having some problems. How is she doing?”
“Fine, I guess.”
“I should reach out to her mom.”
“Please don’t.”
A car pulled into the driveway, its headlights cutting through the dark room like flashlights.
“I gotta go. Bye, Mom.” I grabbed my purse and made for the door, hoping to escape before she asked the inevitable.
“Isn’t he going to come in and introduce himself?”
And there it was. “Mom, this isn’t a date, okay? We’re just friends.”
She hesitated before answering, so I bolted, making it all the way out the door and down the steps before she said, “Elizabeth! Your snack! Come get your granola and cheese!”
Ugh. For once I wished that I could just leave my anorexia behind. I turned around and grabbed the baggie and red wax–covered cheese out of her hand. I shoved them both in my purse.
Tristan stood next to the Jeep, holding my door open for me.
“Hey. How’s it going?” he said as I hopped in. The car smelled like cologne and for a second my eyes watered. Tristan’s hair was a little damp; he must have just showered. The ends curled over the collar of his coat.
“Hey,” I said, settling in and clicking my seat belt. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.” He threw the car in reverse and backed down my driveway, and we were on our way.
My thighs spread out across the seat. I hated the way that felt. Before I even realized what I’d done, I pointed my toes, which lifted my thighs about an inch off the surface. They looked a little slimmer that way.
Tristan turned on the radio. “This is a great song,” he said. “I love Radiohead.” I didn’t recognize it. I wished now I’d paid more attention to Margot when she talked about music. Maybe I would have had something to say.
Traffic was light, and we flew down the highway. When Tristan took the exit for Route 60, a two-lane highway lined with oil change shops, used car dealerships, strip malls, and the occasional Dunkin’ Donuts, I knew where we were going. “Are you taking me to the airport?”
He kept his eyes on the road and nodded.
“Are we going to the Bahamas?” I said, trying to joke. “I should have worn my bikini!” He didn’t laugh.
“I was just kidding,” I said. “I didn’t really think you’re taking me to the Bahamas.”
“I know,” he said.
God, this was so awkward.
We passed a sign officially welcoming us to Logan International Airport. Tristan pulled into a parking garage and didn’t say anything as we wound our way up through the middle of the concrete maze, passing spot after open spot as we went. “You’re missing a lot of open spaces,” I said, and immediately winced. I sounded like Mom.
“I see ’em,” he said. One last ramp and we were on the roof, which was nearly empty. He pulled into a spot facing the runway and killed the engine and headlights.
In the sudden dark, the lights of the airport, the inky black ocean, and the lit-up Boston skyline stretched out in front of us. The air filled with the white noise of distant plane engines, taxiing and landing and taking off.
“Why are we here, exactly?” I asked.
“To watch planes. Come on.”
I followed him out of the car and around to the front. “Let’s sit,” he said, and helped me up onto the hood. The engine was warm, which dulled the feel of the cold November night air through my fleece. I wondered why we couldn’t have gone to the movies or coffee or something else like regular people did.
“You’re cold?” I hadn’t realized I was shivering. “Here,” Tristan said, taking off his wool coat and wrapping it around my shoulders. “Wear this.” It was still warm, and despite the strong cologne-and-cigarettes smell wafting out of the navy fabric, it felt heavy and cozy. I snuggled into it.
Tristan sat next to me and I figured we’d talk then, but he pulled out his phone and started tapping instead. Had he brought me all the way out here to check messages?
“Ready?” he said after a minute, his eyes on the screen. “Look out at the runway.”
I heard the roar first. The massive thunder rumble of a jet engine. As the noise got louder, the lights got closer and a plane—“It’s a 747!” Tristan yelled over the noise—accelerated down the runway like a giant white bullet. The engines screamed and blocked out my thoughts and then the nose lifted, the rest of the plane following, its lights flashing. When the plane was safely in the air, it banked left, and I could see its entire wingspan, stretched like an eagle’s.
“Wow,” I breathed. “It was so close.”
Tristan half smiled and consulted his phone again. “That one’s either going to Dublin, Amsterdam, or Frankfurt.”
“How do you know?”
“There’s an app that tells you the takeoff schedule.” He paused for a second and then asked, “Which plane do you want it to be?” He lay back flat on the Jeep hood and stared up at the sky. I did too. The ground was too lit up to see stars, but now that I knew what to look for, the sky was full of lights—plane lights, blinking and regular, full of people coming home and going away.
“Dublin.” I shivered. “I would love to see Ireland. What about you?”
“I don’t care. Anywhere but here.”
“Do you do this a lot?”
“Yeah. I’ve sort of been obsessed with planes since I was little.”
“So you can recognize the different types of planes?”
He nodded and crossed his arms, squeezing them tight. I wondered if he was cold. “I know. It’s totally random. I mean, who sits around and watches planes?”
“I think it’s cool,” I said quickly. Because it was, sort of. And who was I to judge? My only hobby was starving, and look how that had turned out.
A light turned our way in the distance. “Oh! Here comes another plane!” I jumped off the hood and leaned against the concrete barrier. “Where is it going?”
Tristan checked his phone. “Either Paris or Detroit,” he said.
“I hope it’s Paris,” I said.
The plane was smaller than the last. “It’s Detroit,” Tristan said loudly, over the plane’s engine. “A Boeing 757. International flights are the ones with the big planes.”
Big or small, when its front wheel lifted off the ground, it looked impossibly massive. I stretched my arms in the sky and looked up at the dark night.
“Don’t you wish you could get on one of those planes right now?” Tristan said.
“Totally.” And I did. How great would it be to just hop on a plane and end up somewhere exciting and new—like Paris, or London, or Bangkok? Heck, I’d even take Miami.
“How does the eleven-fifty flight to Iceland sound?”
“Ha. I wish.” It was tempting. No more Esterfall. No more angst.
“Come on!” Tristan hopped off the car and held out his hand. “Let’s do it.” His eyes found mine and held them.
“Too bad I don’t have a passport,” I said.
“Ah, that is a problem.” He dropped his hand, but just for a second. “Let’s drive, then. Let’s just point my Jeep west and get
out of here. Go to California or something. You’d never have to think about Wallingfield again.”
Looking at him standing there, ready to take my hand, I could picture us. I could hear the music playing, see the Jeep flying past mountains and ocean and fields of corn, and feel my feet out the window, the air rushing through my toes.
BEEP BEEP. My reminder on my phone went off. Nine thirty.
Reality called. “It’s time for my snack, Tristan.”
“If we go away, you could eat whenever you want. You wouldn’t have to be the anorexic girl ever again.”
It all sounded so lovely. Except for one thing. “Tristan, thousands of miles won’t stop me from counting calories in my head.”
“How do you know that?” he said. “How do you know?”
“I just do.” Sighing, I ate some granola, the chunks crunching loudly in my mouth. “Want some?” I asked.
Tristan shook his head. We got back on the hood of the car. Tristan took my hand and we lay there, side by side, staring at the night sky.
I didn’t know how long we lay there. It felt like hours. All I know is that I felt closer to him than I ever had to Charlie. And then, just when things felt really right, Tristan slid a little bit closer to me.
I dropped his hand.
“It’s late,” I said hurriedly, hopping off the hood.
“Wait.” He took my arm and gently pulled me toward him. He had long, beautiful eyelashes. I’d never noticed them before. He grazed my cheek with his pointer finger. “Thank you, Elizabeth Barnes,” he whispered, “for coming here with me.”
Gently, he ran one hand over my hair, and then it was like the Elizabeth I knew wasn’t in control, like a new version—Elizabeth 2.0—had taken over. This Elizabeth let her fingers drift up toward Tristan’s hair like girls did in the movies. When he moved his finger under her chin, lifted it up, leaned in, and kissed her, she kissed him back, no biggie.
But when his arms slipped down around her rib cage and his fingers rubbed over each individual rib, Version 2.0 disappeared like a ghost sucked into a vacuum.
I pulled away.
He took a deep breath. “I like you, Elizabeth.”
“I like you, too. But I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”
“Is this about Charlie?”
“No. This is about me.”
“You sure?”
“I’m one hundred percent sure. I just—I think I need to focus on getting better.” I didn’t add that I also needed to be able to look at my body in the mirror before I let anybody else see it. “But I do like you,” I said. “Please don’t be mad.”
“I’m not mad.” But the way he slid off the hood and stood with his back to me, studying the sky, indicated otherwise.
I slid off too. “You know, I’m not saying no forever. Just for right now.” I tried to catch his eye, but he wouldn’t look at me.
“Okay.”
We climbed into the Jeep. He didn’t open my door this time.
He started the car and let it idle. The headlights illuminated a blue Nissan Sentra parked down the way a bit. Then, after a minute or two, he put his hand over mine.
“Your hand is freezing,” he said. “I’ll warm it up.”
I exhaled. “I’d like that.” By the time we got home, my fingers weren’t cold at all.
46
On Monday morning, I woke up at 4:59 a.m.
My alarm was set for 6:47, like it had been since sixth grade, but I couldn’t sleep. I lay in bed for a few minutes, hoping I’d fall back asleep, but it was no use. I was up.
My worries followed me down the hall and into the shower. I’d missed weeks of classes and homework. Would I be completely lost? Was I going to fail everything? If I failed, how would I get into college? What if the teachers made me make up all the work I’d missed? How would I manage that? Midterms were last week; would I have to take them?
I needed a mantra. Or a song. The Kelly Clarkson song on my mix from Tristan came to mind. The song thrummed in my head. As I lathered up my shampoo I tried to sing, but I’d never had a good voice and I couldn’t remember all the words, so I ended up half humming, half rapping the same few words over and over as I shaved my legs and conditioned my hair.
The house was still dark when I turned off the water, wrapped myself in a towel, and padded back down the hall to my room.
“Good morning!”
I whipped around, almost losing my towel in the process. Mom was sitting on my bed in her cotton pajamas.
“Sorry, did I startle you?”
“Yeah, a little. What are you doing up?” I said, fumbling to cover myself.
Mom’s eyes flitted over me, starting at my shoulders and ending at my ankles. She cleared her throat. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“Oh.” My hair dripped water onto the floor.
“What are you going to wear today?” she asked. My heart sank a little. She always asked me this, and I always disappointed her.
“Well, I thought I’d wear those new jeans you got me.”
“Great. They might go well with this. I thought you could borrow it if you wanted.” She handed me a cashmere cowl-necked sweater the color of raspberries. It was my favorite sweater of hers; she’d never let me borrow it before.
When I took it I was struck, like always, by how soft it was. I rubbed it on my cheek. It smelled like her perfume. And all of a sudden I remembered smelling the same smell on my Blue’s Clues T-shirt my first day of kindergarten, after Mom had left. I’d buried my nose into my shoulder all day, breathing in her scent whenever I got sad. I’d missed her so much. It was sort of nice to think I could do the same today. “Thanks, Mom. It’s perfect.”
She looked relieved. “I’m glad it will work. Honey…” She paused and looked at me, almost desperately. “I know today is going to be hard, but I want you to remember that I’ll be thinking about you all day, okay? All day. And I know you might be worried that kids are going to stare or gossip. But you’re tougher than they are. You keep your head up and look for your friends. And think of me, here, cheering you on.”
I pulled my towel tighter. “Thanks, Mom.”
She grabbed my hand. “You have been through a war, and you’ve won. You are stronger than you think, Elizabeth. I am so proud of you. I love you, honey.”
“I love you too,” I said. And I meant it.
* * *
Dad dropped me off fifteen minutes before the first bell. I had hoped it might be early enough that I could slip up the front steps of Esterfall High relatively unnoticed, but no such luck. Kids stood around the grassy front lawn wearing puffy coats and other types of warm jackets.
Trying to get my body out of the car felt like working up the courage to dive into an icy-cold pool. I knew it would hurt. “Everything will be fine, honey,” Dad said quietly. “People are going to be so glad to see you.”
You are strong, my mom had said, but what if she was wrong? I scoured the clumps of kids to see if Katrina was around; she often wore a red knit hat on cold mornings. Lots of red, lots of hats, but not one of them was hers. If she were with me I could do this. I should have told her to meet me here. I pulled out my phone and shot her a text. At school. You here?
“Elizabeth,” Dad said, placing his warm hand on mine, “the best way out is through. Go on, honey, it will be fine. I just know it.” Then he ruffled my hair, leaned across me, and opened the door. My hands flew up to smooth my hair the second he finished. I checked my phone. No response from Katrina. I was on my own. I lifted one leg up and watched it float over the car threshold; the other followed.
I ignored the girls who stared and the groups who whispered about me behind their cupped hands. I’ve been through a war, I told myself as I pulled open the ornate wooden doors of the school. A war that I won. But honestly, I didn’t know if I believed it.
47
When the big doors clanked shut, the sudden quiet of the hallway surrounded me like warm water. Two teachers talked down the hall, the murmur of their
voices mixing with the muted sounds of outside. One laughed. For the first time in my life, I was jealous of teachers. No one cared what they looked like; no one whispered about them.
The front door flew open behind me and a girl stumbled in, her face hidden by a ginormous hood. When she pulled it off and shook out her hair, my heart dropped.
Heather.
We locked eyes. You didn’t break me, I told her with my glare.
“Welcome back, Elizabeth,” she said, almost meekly. And then, without another word, she walked down the hall.
Maybe I could get through this day.
I headed to my locker with its familiar dings and scratches. Everything was where I’d left it: my brown brush, a bottle of Pantene hair spray, and my red cross-country sweatshirt—turned inside out from the last time I’d worn it.
From behind, Katrina practically tackled me.
“Hi! Oh my God, hi!” I said, my voice cracking a little.
We hugged for a long second before she pulled back to look at me. “So, how are you?”
“Okay, I guess.”
“Well, you look great. I love your sweater.”
“Thanks,” I said gratefully, rubbing the soft fuzz of it. I thought I caught a whiff of Mom.
Katrina looked at me for another second, as if deciding how to continue. “So,” she said, “are you ready for history? Ready to meet Tom?”
“Yes! Do you still think he’s hot?”
“No. Sadly, his personality came out, and that pretty much wiped out all the attraction. I think The Simpsons phase was just a ploy to get us to like him. He gives us so much work that it’s like he thinks his class is the only one we have.”
“That sucks,” I said. Figured that I’d miss all the fun and return for the hard part.
As we walked down the hall, voices ricocheted off the walls around me and into the classrooms, but I kept my head low, avoiding eye contact, like if I couldn’t see people whispering about me, they weren’t. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, I repeated to myself.
Katrina looked at me funny. “Are you singing Kelly Clarkson?”
What I Lost Page 24