Sad Perfect

by Stephanie Elliot

  You turn to grin at Ben and then hug the girls again.

  His parents say good night too and take the girls upstairs to bed. Then you and Ben are alone. He moves your hair all to one side, leans down, and kisses your neck, right below your ear.

  The goose bumps are explosive.

  “You are the best girl I’ve ever invited over,” he whispers.

  When he takes you home, you kiss at the front door until you feel completely woozy and disoriented. Finally, he says he has to go or he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to leave. He pulls himself away from you, but he promises he’ll talk to you later. When you get inside and lock the door, your phone buzzes. It’s a text from Ben:

  I miss you already

  23

  During your session on Monday with Shayna, you tell her that you’ve begun to open up to your boyfriend about your disorder. You feel proud of this accomplishment.

  “I didn’t try any new foods at his house last night,” you tell Shayna, “but now he knows that I have ARFID and it didn’t freak him out.”

  “That’s great,” Shayna says. “It’s really important that those you care about and who care about you are in the know and support you during this journey. It’s going to be tough.”

  Shayna asks you about the rest of your week and you share about your family dinner and how you ate some lettuce, which was not your favorite thing to do but you did it anyway. She asks about your anxiety levels during the week, and your mood and how things have been at home with your family. You’re honest with her and it feels good to talk with her so openly. You also admit that you’re not looking forward to school, and she says most of the girls in group feel the same way.

  You’re surprised when she looks at her watch and mentions that time is up.

  “Take a little break and we’ll meet up for group in fifteen,” Shayna says.

  You part ways, check your phone, and see that Ben texted you:

  Just thinking about you. ☺

  It brings a smile to your face. You text him a quick note letting him know you’ll call him later and you head into group, feeling less nervous than the last couple of times you were there.

  You take a seat on one of the couches and soon the girls are filing into the room. A couple of them nod at you, some say hi, and you say hi back. Shayna arrives and takes her seat on the main couch. When everyone has settled in and quieted down, Shayna clears her throat to begin group.

  “Tonight, we’ll be doing something a little different. We’re going to talk about your fears. What scares you, what concerns you, things like that.”

  One of the bulimics, Hailey—yes, the one who tried to call you out during last week’s session—says, “My biggest fear is a bag of Double Stuf Oreos.”

  You laugh because you think she’s joking, and everyone else laughs too. Shayna says, “That might be funny to some of you, but maybe to Hailey that’s a real fear. It’s something for all of us to think about.”

  The room goes quiet and Shayna slowly looks around.

  “I’ll pass out some paper and pens, and what I’d like you to do is spend about fifteen minutes thinking—really consider this: What are your fears? Anything and everything. Afterward, if you’d like to, you can share.”

  The paper and pens are distributed and you stare at the blank sheet in front of you. You absolutely without a doubt know your number-one fear and that’s the monster, so the first thing you write down is:

  Monster.

  You’re slightly embarrassed to be sixteen years old and have your main fear be a monster, but that’s what you’ve written. The next thing on your list:

  Food.

  You think some more. Everyone is scribbling away, lines and lines of fears. It’s that easy for them? Why can’t you think of more fears? But then, isn’t it good that you’re struggling with this task? Think. Think. Think, you think.

  Meat.

  School.

  Not being liked at school/popular.

  Rumors at school.

  Alex.

  Mom drinking.

  Todd being a douche.

  Dad not being enough of a dad.

  (Wait, how is that a fear? Just write, don’t think, this is your list.)

  Ben not liking me anymore.

  BEN NOT LIKING ME ANYMORE.

  That is your biggest fear.

  Forget the monster. You have a new biggest fear.

  “Okay, I think that’s enough time,” Shayna says. “Who wants to share?”

  You sink into the couch. You’re not sharing this.

  These are your fears, and yours alone.

  24

  You wake with the monster. It’s the first day of school and he’s nudging you, scratching at you like a dog that needs to be let out. You feel him there, in the back of your throat, whispering. You try to shove him down, but can’t. You don’t want to get up. You remember how school was last year. Ben won’t be there with you. You don’t have any classes with Jae, and you’ll only see her at lunch. You don’t know how you’re going to get through the day.

  You lie there for a while, listening to your alarm go off three more times. Once every five minutes you hear the annoying sound that you set—a tune called “Walk in the Forest.” You wanted a melody that would lull you gently from sleep, but now, when you’ve listened to it four times in the last twenty minutes, it sounds like music straight out of a vampire movie. You imagine a thick forest and the vampire coming to get the stranded girl. You need to change the alarm. It’s looming and desolate and you never want to wake up to it again. You feel like you never want to wake up again, ever.

  Your mom comes into your room with that huge forced smile on her face.

  “Honey? You getting up?” She’s trying for you. If she smiles, she hopes it’ll make you smile. It doesn’t work but you say you’re getting up, although you don’t move.

  “You’ll be fine,” she says. “You’re doing great. Things will be great today.”

  You flip the covers off, make your way into the shower, and turn the water on as hot as you can stand it, wishing you could accidentally scald yourself. Third-degree burns from the shower and a trip to the ER sound better than school.

  You dress in a T-shirt and shorts and a pair of sandals, and put on a quick swipe of mascara and some lip gloss, although that much makeup feels like a lot of effort. You pull your hair back into a hair tie. You don’t really care how you look even though you and Jae discussed first-day-of-school outfits last week at length. You feel like the monster is trembling inside, surging, trying to get out, trying to do something big, yet you don’t know what, you don’t know how it’s making you feel. Just that he’s there, gliding along the surface, searching for a way out.

  You wish more than anything that you and Ben went to the same school. To have him in the same building—to see him at your locker in between classes—would give you the confidence you need to get through the day. You’re so not in the mood to watch the Instagrammers pose with one another on the first day of school as they snap their pictures and post them, then watch as they slink their way through the halls. You’re not in the mood to listen to their chatter about what they did all summer long, to watch as they flit from group to group, making their way through the crowds of popular people, flipping their hair, flaunting their bodies as if they were the most important people on earth.

  You get downstairs and Todd has already left in his car for football practice. You don’t understand why a team needs to practice twice a day but when you say anything about this to Todd, he simply says, “State champs two years in a row, sis.”

  Although you can’t stand Todd, you wish you didn’t have to take the school bus, but getting out the door at six a.m. is not really something you want to do. And Jae lives in the other direction from school so she can’t pick you up, so the bus it is.

  Your mom asks what you would like for breakfast but you don’t feel like you can eat. Still she makes you drink a Carnation Instant milk and the monster
quits scratching, just long enough for you to grab your bag and head to the bus.

  You sit by yourself, lean against the cool glass of the window, and put your earbuds in. You check your phone and there’s a text from Jae:

  See you at lunch?

  Okay

  ☺

  It’s enough to give you a little bit of the courage that you need. Then a text from Ben comes in.

  Hey

  Instantly, you feel better. Like the monster might lie down and at least sleep for a while.

  Hey back

  Thinking of you

  Me too. I’m on the bus

  Sounds fun

  Not

  Text you when I can today

  Ok

  XO

  He’s never XO’ed you before and this makes you extremely happy. This might get you through the day. But still, you’re worried about things. Ben doesn’t know how hard school is going to be for you. You haven’t told him about Alex and the breakup last year, and the not eating and the fainting and the hospital trip. And the rumors.

  Ben knows about the food stuff now—the ARFID—but not the stuff that scares you. Your list of fears. The monster. You’re so afraid to tell him everything because you don’t want to lose him. Your biggest fear. You don’t want to tell Ben because you’re falling too in love with him and if he discovers this about you—all this stuff you’re scared of, the monster that holes up inside you, controls you—well then, maybe Ben won’t feel the same way about you as he does now.

  So you’ve kept quiet about the things that terrify you. You think that through therapy, and by trying to be brave, you can kick this on your own, and maybe you won’t have to tell him. You’re desperately trying to kill the monster on your own, not knowing that you’ll need an army.

  25

  School is slow agony.

  The teachers drone on and on about curriculum and go over the syllabi and class requirements. You listen half to them and half to the monster telling you that you can’t do this, you can’t make it through the day. You’re anxious, unsure of yourself, and you don’t feel a connection with any of your teachers.

  And you’re hungry.

  It’s been a long morning and you haven’t eaten anything. During the summer, food was always available when you needed to eat—you could stop by the pantry and get a couple of crackers to quiet the monster. Or grab a handful of potato chips. To shut the bastard up. Now you can’t eat anytime you want because you’re in classes all morning, and the monster is angry-growling.

  You’re very cranky.

  Right before lunch you walk into your English class and there he is, Alex. You knew you’d see him eventually, but you had no idea he would end up in one of your classes.

  You freeze at the doorway; it’s the fight-or-flight feeling, and your adrenaline flows through your veins, ice-cold. You want to flee so badly, but you can’t. He’s sitting on top of one of the desks, talking to a popular girl, the one who has two-hundred-thousand-plus Instagram followers. But. When he sees you in the doorway, he stops talking and stares at you. He’s just looking at you. And you do not move.

  Until someone shoves past you and knocks into your shoulder and then you move through the doorway to find a seat in the middle-back of the room.

  Alex.

  He watches you. Eyes on you the whole time.

  You hate him. He must know you hate him. Yet he was staring at you.

  Why was he staring at you?

  He takes a seat two rows behind the Instagrammer girl, which is one row behind where you are sitting, and two seats over. He’s got a perfect view of you.

  He’s looking at you, still staring, you can feel it. You take your notebook, grab a pen, uncap it, and start writing.

  Fuck you, Alex is what comes out of your pen and onto the paper.

  * * *

  At lunch, you meet up with Jae, who has her friend Mandi with her, and the three of you find a place to eat in the cafeteria. Your mom packed a lunch she knew you could eat: a mini-bagel with peanut butter, pretzels, a few carrots, and a small baggie of popcorn. Jae and Mandi have bagged lunches too, and they unpack their food. As you’re all eating, you discuss how your morning classes went. When you tell Jae you have a class with Alex she says she has one with him too.

  “He asked about you,” she adds.

  “What?”

  “Yep, he asked if you were dating anyone.”

  You shake your head in disbelief.

  Mandi chimes in, “He did. I’m in Chemistry with them too.”

  “Are you freaking kidding me? After last year? What did you tell him?”

  “I said he’d have to ask you.”

  “Why’d you tell him that? I don’t want to talk to him!” you say.

  “Whatever,” Jae says, and takes a bite of her sandwich. “You’ll probably have to talk to him if you have class with him.”

  “I’m never going to talk to him.” You have finished your bagel and are halfway through your popcorn.

  “Well, good luck with that,” Mandi says.

  You hate the fact that Alex is asking about you. You hated that he stared at you in English class. You don’t want to see him every day. You don’t want to think about him. Ever. But now you’ll have to. You don’t want him around, but when you go to your last period, Alex is there too, in your Spanish class.

  This time he takes a seat right next to you. You do your best to ignore him but since this is Spanish II, your teacher suggests you turn to the person next to you and introduce yourself. In Spanish.

  Alex turns to you and tells you his name in Spanish. You stare at him. The monster is fired up.

  “Aren’t you going to talk to me?” he asks.

  “Not really.”

  “You have to.”

  “You were pretty shitty to me last year. Like real shitty.”

  “I know,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s way too late for that.”

  “I was hoping we could talk.”

  The teacher sees you two are talking, and that it’s not in Spanish.

  “Señor! Señorita! Problemas?”

  “No hay problema. Lo siento,” you say. You put your head on your desk.

  You knew today was going to be bad but you didn’t think it was going to be horrible.

  You sense the monster growing.

  26

  Ben has to watch his little sisters while his parents go to a wedding and he invites you to hang out with them. He picks you up and takes you over to his house, where you greet Earl in the hallway. Ben’s parents are on their way out and Dan laughs when he sees you.

  “So Ben can’t handle the girls on his own?” Dan asks.

  “Dad!” Ben says. “You know they’re little devils. I needed some backup!”

  “Not a problem,” Dan says.

  Mrs. Hansworth says, “We left money on the counter so you can get ice cream later.”

  “Thanks. Is that what they’re eating for dinner?” Ben asks.

  His mom rolls her eyes. “Frozen pizza’s fine,” she says. “Figure it out, you’re seventeen.”

  “Okay, well you better get out of here then, you don’t want to miss those wedding vows!” Ben says.

  “Ben can drive you home when we get back. I know the girls were looking forward to you coming,” Mrs. Hansworth says to you. “You have fun, and make sure the girls behave!”

  “They will,” Ben says as his parents leave.

  “Bye,” you say to them.

  Alana and Olivia tumble down the stairs in fits of giggles. “Did somebody say ice cream?” You know for sure it was Alana, because she’s got the shorter hair. The twins climb on Ben and tackle him to the ground. “Ice cream! Ice cream! We want ice cream now!”

  Ben lets them attack him and you wonder what it would be like to have a good relationship with Todd, to have ever been playful with him. It makes you sad and wistful to see Ben and his sisters like this.

  Ben looks up from where he’s be
ing attacked on the floor. “You going to just stand there or you going to help your boyfriend?”

  So you jump onto the pile and start tickling.

  After frozen pizza (where you try your best but end up scraping the cheese off) and a trip to Dairy Bliss, you get back to Ben’s house and the girls ask what you can do next. Ben looks to you for a suggestion.

  “You girls want to draw?” you ask.

  “Yeah! Let’s draw something!” Olivia shouts.

  The girls run to get art supplies and Ben asks if you’re really up for that because it’s getting late.

  “Sure, it’ll be fun. Plus, I told you I would sketch you sometime, so why not now?”

  “Oh great,” Ben says. “I can only imagine what you can create with a bunch of crayons and Sharpies.”

  The girls toss a packet of plain paper and a shoebox filled with markers, pens, pencils, and crayons onto the kitchen table. You rummage through the box, searching for the pens and markers you want to work with.

  “Okay,” you say to Alana and Olivia. “We’re all going to draw what we think Ben looks like to us!”

  Alana and Olivia immediately crack up. “This is going to be so much fun!” Alana says.

  “I have a great idea!” says Olivia, and they both grab their paper and begin to work.

  Ben heads to the refrigerator but you stop him. “Get back here. I need to look at you.”

  “I’m just getting something to drink. I have a feeling this is going to take a while.”

  Ben comes back to the table with two bottled waters and sits in the chair next to you. You grab his chin and hold it still for a moment. And then you move closer to him and stare.

  You rub your thumb along his jawline, feel the stubble on his face, and smooth your fingers along the edge of his cheekbones.

  The girls are scritch-scratching away on their paper, mumbling things about Ben looking like a “big ole monkey,” but you are mesmerized by his eyes, his nose, his strong jaw, the curve of his ears. It’s like it’s just the two of you in the room, and you’re holding his face in place, studying him, and he reaches his hand up to circle your wrist and he whispers your name in an achy, painful way.