Conversation created a low hum in the room as we all set to work. Of course, Dawn and I paired off, helping each other lay down and trace our bodies against the paper. I tried not to think about my own poster, focusing instead on everyone else’s—I would read my own later. I took my time with each one, really giving it a lot of thought. It had never been easy for me to take a compliment, and that had only become harder the longer I let my disorder rule my life. Maybe, by the time I left this place, I might actually believe what Royce had said to me. Even if he had taken it back.
Chapter Eleven
3 weeks later …
My first family day seemed to arrive far too fast. After my body adjusted to the new medication, and I fell into a steady routine of exercise, therapy, and painting, the days seemed to fly by. I found myself spending most of my free time in the art room—especially after dinner. I tried not to think too much about the fact that I chose evenings because I could almost always find Royce there. It seemed an unspoken ritual between us, that around six, we’d both turn up in the studio, remaining until late. We were often the last to leave, long after even Joy had gone for the night.
On the night before my first family day, I decided to get in a few hours of painting, since I was really close to finishing my piece. I wanted to show it to my dad when he arrived. As usual, I found Royce there, quietly sketching in one corner of the room. He glanced up and gave me a half-smile as I entered, then bent back over his drawing. He’d finished his last sculpture and was drafting up plans for a new one.
“Shouldn’t you be getting ready for tomorrow?” he murmured without looking up from his sketchpad.
I dropped onto the stool in front of my easel. “I should, but I’m so close to finishing this thing, and I feel too nervous to sleep.”
Behind me, I heard the scratch of his pencil over the paper. He was shading. “That’s perfectly normal. Interacting with people from your real life is one of the truest tests of how far your recovery has come. It’s supposed to be nerve-wracking. But, on the day you can stand in front of them without caring about their scrutiny, how you appear to them, and are able to accept that they love you for you, despite your faults and problems … well, I hope that’ll be the day you will be ready to leave this place and not look back.”
I paused, a brush soaked in red paint hovering inches from my canvas. “Wow, even when we’re not in group, you’re counseling me.”
He paused, his pencil going silent. I could feel him staring at the back of my head. “Sorry. It’s kind of a reflex. I didn’t mean to sound mechanical. I really meant what I said.”
Nodding, I went back to work. “I know. It’s just … well, we’ve been hanging out a lot in here and I would like to think I could talk to you as a friend, not just a counselor. Or, is that inappropriate?”
The sound of his chair scraping the floor warned me that he had stood. A few seconds later, he stood beside me, watching me work.
“Someone’s gotten feisty.”
I laughed, darting a glance at him from the corner of my eye. “Seriously, though. Can you stop being a counselor for like five minutes? We’re always talking about me and my recovery. Let’s talk about you. Aside from working here and sculpting, what’s your deal? What do you do?”
“Working here is what I do. In the future, I think I’d like to try selling my sculptures for some extra income, but I believe counseling here, or at a place like this, will always be my job.”
I nodded, remembering him mentioning how important this job was to him. “Why a place like this, specifically? You could be a counselor anywhere.”
He paused, and silence stretched between us for what felt like forever. It went on for so long, that I eventually stopped painting, and lowered my brush before turning to face him. He stared off across the room, his expression guarded. Against my better judgment, I reached out and placed a hand on his arm.
My touch seemed to snap him out of it, and his head whipped toward me, his gaze locking with mine.
“It’s okay,” I said. “If you don’t want to say. I just thought—”
“I spent six months here,” he blurted.
I felt my mouth fall open, and my arm dropped back to dangle at my side. “As a patient?”
He nodded, clenching his jaw. “No one else knows, so please keep that to yourself.”
“Of course,” I said. “When?”
“About five years ago, between high school and college. I’m living with bulimia, Kinsley. I have been for the past eight years.”
I raked my eyes over him from head to toe, stunned by his revelation. “But you look so … I mean, you’re practically perfect!”
Shaking his head, he took my arm in a loose hold and propelled me toward the table where he’d been sitting. He gestured for me to sit, and while I did, he crouched beside his backpack, which he’d left resting next to his chair. Retrieving a blue notebook eerily similar to mine, he laid it on the table in front of me. The cover was worn, it’s edges faded as if it had been handled a lot. I gingerly opened it and found three photographs taped to the inside cover. Above them—in his messy scrawl—was his name and three dates.
I leaned closer to get a better look at the photographs. Above the first one, he’d written ‘April 2009’. I hardly recognized the person in the picture, yet the closer I looked, it became obvious. This had been Royce in high school. He couldn’t have been older than seventeen, with a thick afro standing up from the top of his head. Beneath an oversized football jersey, he carried about fifty pounds of girth. His face had been rounder, but the smile was the same. He’d always had a devastating smile.
Beside that photo was another with ‘March 2011’ written above it. This version of Royce was a bit closer to the one I knew, but still vastly different. He sat in the bed of a beat-up truck, wearing nothing but a pair of shorts and sneakers. His body looked like it had been sculpted from stone, with every muscle defined by deep lines running between them. He appeared almost freakish, with humongous pecs and arms covered in tribal tattoos. His face had been leaner then than it was now, the cheekbones and jaw a bit too sharp, as if the skin had been pulled taut over them. His head was shaved bald.
The third photo had been marked ‘2015’, and it was Royce as I knew him, muscular but not freakish, with short hair and that same belly-quivering smile. His tattoos didn’t seem as scary now that he was a normal size and weight—adding just the right amount of edge to his deceptively clean-cut appearance. I could see them etched against his biceps, ending at his elbows.
“I was always the fat kid,” he murmured. “From kindergarten to high school. Being on the football team from the time I was in junior high saved me from being bullied over it. But even on the team, I was ‘the fat guy’. After several summers of trying every fad diet I could without success, I began to grow depressed over it. I hated my body, and I didn’t know how to change it. The depression made me overeat, and overeating made me gain even more weight. So, I began purging, and the weight started falling off. Then, I started using steroids to bulk up. In that middle photo, I was just about to graduate from high school, and I thought I had everything. There wasn’t a girl in school I couldn’t get; I’d become the star of the football team, and no one ever talked shit about me for being fat again.”
I glanced up at him, tearing my gaze from that frightening, second photo. His gaze was directed down at the table, as if he felt ashamed to look me in the eye. I had a feeling he had never confided this in any of his other patients.
Why me? I wondered.
Instead, I asked the second most burning question on my mind. “What happened to bring you here?”
“My parents figured out what I was doing. I believe they may have suspected before they ever said a word to me, but might have been afraid to face the truth. Anyway, they begged me to stop, but I couldn’t. I was addicted to the steroids by then … stopping wasn’t an option. I literally started having withdrawal symptoms the few times I tried to go cold turkey. When
they realized I was probably going to die if they didn’t do something, they talked me into coming here. I completed the ninety-day program and walked out of here free from the steroids, but still not completely stable. I relapsed about a month after I got home, and fell right back into the cycle.”
Now I was beginning to see why he’d been so upset about Dawn. It must be hard trying to help someone going down the same path you’d already been down. He saw himself in Dawn … he saw in her, what he might have become if he hadn’t continued to strive for recovery.
“How did you end up here the second time?” I asked, bracing my elbows on the table and my chin on my hands.
He finally looked at me, his eyes beginning to water. His voice came out hoarse and cracked when he spoke again.
“I had a heart attack.”
A vise gripped my throat at his words, as I remembered the fear of palpitations and the feel of my heart squeezing painfully in my chest. Last year when I’d collapsed in my bedroom from months of abusing diet pills, I’d thought I was having a heart attack. Thankfully, it wasn’t a heart attack, but it could have been one. The one thing I’d been able to quit cold turkey had been those stupid pills. I never wanted to feel that fear again.
“I had a heart attack at the age of freakin’ nineteen,” he said with a dry laugh. “And it scared the crap out of me. I begged my parents to send me back here, and promised them I was going to come out a different person. The second time, it stuck and I was able to enroll in college the following fall. After all I’d been through, it just seemed natural to want to help others like me. I’d seen so much pain in this place, so many young people just like me, who needed people to believe in them. That’s why I refuse to give up on anyone, even people like Dawn.”
I nodded, and tears splashed the back of my hand. I hadn’t realized I’d been crying until just then. Royce sniffed and swiped a hand over his own eyes, though he hadn’t actually shed a tear. I could still see the remnants of moisture on his lashes.
“Sorry,” he mumbled with a sigh. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“No,” I said. “I needed to hear that. I have to admit, the first time I saw you, I hated you on sight.”
Royce laughed. “Ouch. Damn, girl.”
I bit back a giggle and shrugged. “Sorry, but it’s true. It was because I didn’t know anything about you. I saw this tall, handsome, fit guy and wondered how you could ever understand someone like me. I didn’t believe you could help me, when you didn’t seem to have any of the problems we did. Now, I know I was wrong, and I’m sorry for judging you. I’m glad you told me. I feel like I know you in a way the others don’t now. It makes your words seem less like those of a counselor and those of a friend trying to help a friend. Why don’t you tell the others? I’m sure they’d be nothing but supportive. It might even make some of them less guarded if they knew.”
Shaking his head, Royce stood. “I can’t do that. It’s bad enough there are some people in this place who doubt my ability to counsel properly due to my past. They worry I’m still not whole, and that I may never be. I already have more to prove than anyone else, I don’t need people pitying me on top of that.”
I stood and faced him. “But, your past is what makes you so good at this. It makes you more qualified than anyone else here, because you’ve been where we are. No one can do this job like you.”
He scoffed, running a hand over his hair. “That’s what Dr. Swanson said, and it’s why she hired me.”
“See? I’m telling you, Royce, the only thing it will do is cause your patients to have more respect for you than they already do.”
“I’m not ready,” he retorted. “My recovery and what I’ve been through … it’s mine, and I don’t want to share them publicly yet. I read my journal entries sometimes, just to encourage everyone else to read theirs, but I’m not ready for anyone to know they’re mine yet.”
“The Chinese takeout guy? That was you?”
He winced. “I’m afraid so. That was an old entry, but I’ve had a few relapses as recently as four months ago. It happens.”
“I understand. I won’t say anything, I promise.”
Royce nodded, leaning back against the table, and perching on its edge. “Thank you.”
The tense silence from before came back, and for a long while, we simply stood staring at each other. No matter what we’d decided before, it had become clear that this was more than friendship. It was something else neither of us were ready to acknowledge as something else. It was wrong, because I had no room in my present life for attachments, and making one during recovery couldn’t be healthy. It was wrong because Royce was my counselor, and he had others to concern himself with—yet he’d chosen to become invested in me. Regardless, nothing felt wrong about how being around him made me feel at peace, or how just knowing he was in the next room brought me focus.
Clearing his throat, he glanced past me, focusing instead on my canvas.
“That’s amazing,” he said. “It’s an abstract, but I think I understand the concept. The black and gray bits are your disorders.”
Turning to gaze at my painting, I nodded, proud that he understood what I’d been trying to convey. Just another thing we seemed to share, a thing tying us together.
“The black is bulimia,” I said, indicating the black miasma taking over almost the entire canvas in swirls that resembled clouds. “The gray is the OCD,” I added, tracing the bolts of gray lightning tearing jagged paths across the clouds with my eyes.
In the midst of it all, a red ribbon wound its way through, a bright slash in the darkness.
“The red ribbon is you,” he murmured. “Prevailing in the midst of it all.”
I shrugged. “Prevailing …. I don’t know about that. Not yet. But … living. Breathing. One day at a time.”
“You’ll get there,” he said. “Maybe even by the time you leave here, or soon after. You’ll remember the things worth living for, and maybe find some new ones. You’ll be as vibrant as I know you can be.”
He reached out and grasped my arms, tugging with gentle insistence. I was powerless to resist, stepping forward until I stood between his parted legs. Leaning in until his forehead rested against mine, he closed his eyes. My chest began to ache, but not in a way that frightened me—more in a way that felt so good, I had to close my eyes too and fall into the moment. Our breathing became one sound, and I could feel an energy pulsing between us, arcing from his skin to mine like an electric current. I could smell him, feel him … his lips hadn’t even touched mine, but I swore I could taste him.
“Royce,” I whispered. “What are we doing?”
He shook his head, and it caused his nose to nuzzle mine, but still he held himself in check, stopping just short of kissing me. I felt my lower lip tremble as my mouth fell open, and I inhaled, holding my breath. Just this once, just for a moment, I wanted him to break the rules.
“Something we’re both going to regret if I don’t stop,” he replied, his fingers flexing around my arms.
I couldn’t stop, not when I felt so alive for the first time in forever. I reached up and cupped his face, angling his head and leaning in closer.
“Don’t … don’t stop.”
Turning his head at the last second, he inhaled sharply. My lips grazed his jaw, and he gasped as if even that had been too much. He set me away from him a bit roughly and reeled away from the table.
“I can’t.”
He crossed toward his stuff with a few quick strides and began shoveling it into his bag. I folded my arms across my chest, and fell back onto my stool. The feeling in my chest had become painful, and even though I knew he’d done the right thing, the lashing sting of rejection still hurt.
Zipping his bag closed, he paused with it dangling from his hands, his jaw clenched and his hooded gaze searching the room as if he needed to look at something other than me. After a while, he slung the bag over his shoulder and nodded, as if coming to a decision.
“Go,” he
said, his voice low. “Go back to your room. I can’t—”
“You said that already,” I snapped, trying to keep my tone even, but failing.
It wasn’t rational for me to be angry with him for being honorable, but just then I couldn’t stop myself.
“Because I can’t!” he bellowed. “I can’t be in here with you, alone, or I’m going to do something stupid, like kiss you or … Kinsley, I can’t. Just go. Please.”
Casting one last glance at him, I felt myself about to cry again, and was too prideful to let him see it. I turned and left the room without looking back. Part of me wished he would follow, call out to me before I reached the elevator, and press me up against the wall in a dark corner to finish our kiss.
None of that happened. Once alone in the elevator, I leaned against the wall and buried my face in my hands. For some reason, the tears I’d felt brimming in the studio didn’t spill, and by the time the elevator dropped me off on my floor, the urge had passed. My hands shook as I fumbled to open my bedroom door, but I managed it.
Sinking onto my bed, I stared at my paper outline on the wall. I had missed a visit from my night nurse, who’d left a note on my nightstand for me to come to the nurse’s station for my medication. I felt so embarrassed and raw that I didn’t want to leave the room. However, I needed my head on straight for tomorrow, and I couldn’t let myself fall off the rails when everything had been going so well.
Forcing myself to stand, I trudged to the nurse’s station and took my pills before dragging myself back to my room and falling into bed. Pulling the covers over my head, I kicked off my shoes and tried to forget what had happened. I fell asleep with the tip of my index finger pressed to my lips, and fantasies of what it might have been like to kiss Royce burning in my mind.
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