Mia pretended to think it over, and then she rolled her eyes playfully and agreed. “I’ll give Kelsey a call and let her know.”
“Thanks,” Peyton replied.
Mia waved her off. “Thank you. I would’ve never been ready in time. I’ll go grab another bucket.” With that, she turned and headed off through another door. When she returned she handed us both gloves and told us what to do. “If you girls can wipe down the outside of the tanks then I can start changing the filters.”
With that we got to work. I was scrubbing so hard my arm started to hurt, but I didn’t stop until I could see my reflection clear as day in the tanks. When we were finished we helped Mia prepare the food for something called the feeding frenzy and then we helped her set up scopes in the observation deck for bird watching. By the time 8am rolled around, we were finished and I was famished. Mia led us to a staff kitchen upstairs and told us to eat whatever we wanted.
“You girls chose a good day to stop by. David brought in donuts from Ellie’s Diner.”
We all sat, eating and talking and laughing occasionally. I was surprisingly thankful that Peyton had threatened me in order to get me to come out with her.
As if she could read my mind, she turned to me during a lull in conversation and said, “I’ll take you to see the snakes before we leave,” and winked.
Chapter 5
Therapy Tuesdays
My butt sank further into the couch in the waiting room outside of my therapist’s office as I waited for her current appointment to end. The clock on the beige wall across from the couch ticked off another minute. It was now precisely five minutes past the time her appointment should’ve ended. I should’ve brought something to do, I thought for the millionth time since I’d gotten to the hospital. One of the other office doors was open, the door announcing the owner of the office as Nora Cunningham Ph.D., and I thought about going inside and having my appointment with her since my doctor was running behind schedule. I would’ve done it if the Nora chick was actually in her office, instead it was empty and I was left to wonder for the billionth time why I wasn’t in Dr. Gower’s office being psychoanalyzed yet.
What kind of emergency was her patient having in order to have been allowed to go overtime? It had to be something huge, because otherwise I wasn’t sure Dr. Gower would have allowed it. She was a stickler for time and was very serious about staying on schedule. That had been evident during our first two meetings. As soon as the clock hit the hour marker, she would say, “Well, that seems to be all the time we have for today. I’ll see you next week.” It was nice because I didn’t have to worry about sticking around past my hour of individual therapy and possibly missing the bus back to camp.
Finally the door to Dr. Gower’s office opened and a puffy eyed woman came out. Her blonde hair was raked up into a neat bun and she had on a pair of diamond earrings that were so flashy they were practically blinding me. From the way this chick was dressed—in designer jeans, strappy heels, and earrings that had to cost more than my mom’s car—I could tell she had money. She sniffled as she walked past me, slipping a pair of Prada sunglasses on to hide her watery green eyes. Behind her was Dr. Gower, standing tall and looking professional in a smart blazer and pencil skirt. Her thick, naturally coiled hair was down and surrounded her tan face in a mass of dark curls. The way she was wearing it reminded me of Mom’s hair when she left it natural. Now that I thought about it, they even had the same smooth complexion and chestnut skin tone. The thought made my heart ache as I thought about how much I missed my parents. I had spoken to them twice since I’d been here so far, but it wasn’t the same as seeing them.
When Dr. Gower’s gaze landed on me, she smiled and waved me inside her office. “Sorry for the delay, Abby. I didn’t expect my other session to run so long.” She shut the door behind me as I entered. “How’s your day been so far?” Her heels clicked softly on the thinly carpeted office floor as she went to take a seat at her desk.
I made myself comfortable on the couch across from her. “It was okay. Nothing special since I can’t really do anything fun on my therapy days.”
A hint of a smile twitched at her red stained lips, but she didn’t say anything in response to my blatant annoyance at having to be here. Instead, she said, “That must be hard. Is it fair for me to assume from that statement that you’ve made friends?”
I wanted to roll my eyes. She was good; I’d give her that. Despite the fact that I would have rather been attending one of the stupid group fitness classes than sitting here talking to her, she wasn’t so horrible. I had nothing personal against Dr. Gower herself; I just thought that having to attend individual therapy at the hospital was a waste of my time. Since I’d been at camp, I hadn’t binged or purged. For the first time in what felt like forever, I had my eating disorder under control. So I didn’t see the point in having to meet with her weekly. Yet here I was, sat in front of her desk as she waited for me to answer her question.
“Yeah, actually I have.”
Her face lit up at my response. That was another thing I liked about her; she actually cared. She wasn’t just talking to me because it was her job and she needed to pass the time before her next direct deposit hit. She talked to me because she wanted me to get better. “Abby! That’s great!” Her excitement over such a seemingly simple task made me crack a small smile. “Tell me about them,” she encouraged as she leaned forward, resting her elbows on her desk as she prepared to listen.
“Well, there’s my roommate, Peyton. I’ve told you about her before. Remember? The one with the red hair?”
She nodded. “Of course. I knew it was only a matter of time before you two became friends. You just needed to warm up to her.”
I rolled my eyes playfully. “I guess. She’s still annoying though. I can just tolerate her more now or something.”
“That’s normal. Everyone gets annoyed at times.”
“She annoys me most times, but I think it’s because I’m not used to sharing a room with someone. We have completely different living styles.”
She raised an immaculately shaped eyebrow. “How so?”
I shrugged automatically even though I knew how. Peyton is messy, and I’m not. It’s as simple as that, but for someone reason I felt bad talking about her to Dr. Gower. Despite her messy attributes and annoying tendencies, Peyton really was a nice person. She always waited for me to walk with me to meals and invited me to tag along with her and her friends. Whenever she left the cabin she would encourage me to join her, and sometimes I did. Living with her had really opened up my eyes about some things, and now I felt bad for judging her when I first met her.
After a moment, I said, “I don’t know. We just do things differently. I’m glad she’s my roommate though or I probably would have never of gotten close with her.”
Dr. Gower nodded. “It’s nice how things work out like that sometimes, isn’t it?” When I nodded in response, she continued. “Tell me about your other friends.”
“Uh, I started hanging out with this girl named Becca. She’s really nice and she introduced me to all of her friends. She knows everybody. She probably even knows you.”
Dr. Gower laughed. “Probably. It’s a small town. Is she a resident?”
I nodded. “She’s from the richy richville part of town apparently. Kelsey organized a trip to Peak View for a few hours so those who wanted to see the town and get out of camp for a while. When we got there a group of the girls and I went for ice cream and a movie and Becca paid for all of us. There was like six other girls not including herself.”
“Well, that was very nice of her.”
“Right? My parents would kill me if I ever did something like that, and we aren’t even poor. I mean, we aren’t rich, but we have money. I have a credit card my dad gave me in case of emergencies and stuff while I’m here, but Becca has her own credit card with her name on it and everything.” I shook my head slowly. I was still amazed by that. She’s younger than me, granted not much younger, but still too yo
ung for a credit card. My jaw had practically hit the sidewalk when she pulled out the shiny black card that night. What kind of parents allow their fifteen-year-old to have a credit card? That’s right, rich ones.
“You’ll get your own credit card soon enough. Trust me when I say that that is not something you want to rush. It may seem cool to have one now, but you know what isn’t cool? Credit card payments.”
I shrugged. “Her parents pay it off.”
“Think they’ll pay it off forever?” When I shook my head no, she said, “Exactly. Now tell me about how you’ve been since I last saw you.”
Ugh. Slouching down into the couch, I resisted the urge to groan in response to her question. “I’ve been great.”
“Great? That’s a strong word.” She scrutinized my expression with squinted eyes for a moment. Then she scribbled something onto the notepad in front of her. I wished there was a way for me to know what she was writing.
“Yeah, honest.”
“Have you been writing in the journal I gave you?”
The moment of hesitation that passed before I answered was all she needed.
“Abby, you have to write in that journal. It doesn’t even have to be a full journal entry. You can just write down how you’re feeling at the time or make a list of what you did that day, but you have to write something.”
“Okay,” I responded. I had completely forgotten about the journal assignment she had given me during my first session with her. The idea was that if I wrote down something everyday and kept a journal then I could chart my feelings and keep track of what events led to my binging and purging behaviors.
“I’m serious. I want you to write in that as soon as you get back to camp today. That’s your homework.”
“I will.”
“Good.” Her hair fell into her face as she tilted her head down to look at her notes in front of her. When she looked back up at me she asked, “What’s been so great for you lately?”
I bit my lip and shrugged. Thoughts of the past two weeks and the time I had spent at camp so far washed over me. I had tried so hard not to like it in Escape, but eventually I had given up. It had only taken me a few days to realize that continuing to hate it here was going to be harder than anything I had ever done before. The people were friendly, the town was beautiful, and the more time I spent here the more I began to enjoy it. Within a few days I had grown accustomed to the camp routine and the mountain life. It had quickly become a daily thing for Peyton and I to watch the sunrise from Faith Bridge before going to breakfast where I would sit with Becca and all of her friends. Then after breakfast if there wasn’t anything planned, like a hiking trip or a bird watching excursion with Mia, then we’d grab our bathing suits and hurry off to my new favorite spot; the waterfall where I had first met Becca, Jess, and Willow. Everything really was great.
“So, let me get this straight. You’ve been great, but you don’t know how?”
“No, I know how. It’s just that a lot of things have been going well and I don’t know where to begin.”
“Well, how about you summarize it for me if that’ll make it easier?”
The sunlight filtered in through the window behind her desk, shining in my eyes as I began. “Well, I’ve made friends, and I’m participating in camp activities, and I no longer hate being here.”
Dr. Gower’s sudden burst of laughter took me by surprise. “I’m sorry, Abby. It’s just, I don’t think you ever really hated it here. You might think you did, but I think what you really hated was that you were forced to come here against your own will. You strike me as the type of person who likes to be in control of her choices, and coming here wasn’t your choice and you hated that, but I’m not sure if you hated Escape.”
Her words repeated in my mind as I thought them over. What she was saying made sense, and now that I thought about it I realized she had a point. Maybe I had never actually hated Escape, just the fact that I had to come here. If I had hated Escape then I wouldn’t have begun to love it so quickly. Am I really that easy to read?
Dr. Gower folded her hands together in a steeple. “How have your eating habits been since I last saw you?” Her gaze was steady as she met mine.
I knew what she was asking despite the strange wording. A bubble of happiness filled inside of me as I answered. “I have been eating normal portions and I haven’t purged since the night before I left home.” I couldn’t stop the smile that crossed onto my face at her reaction to my answer. Her expression only changed for a moment before it returned to normal, but I could tell she was proud of me as she scribbled down more notes.
“And how have you been feeling about yourself lately?”
This I had to think about. I didn’t feel particularly unhappy with my weight as I had been at the start of camp that was for sure. The only time I ever really thought about my size anymore was during meals and when all of the other girls were putting on bikinis and I was still too self conscious to even take my shirt off. It sounded like a lot, but before I got to Escape I felt like I couldn’t go even a minute without thinking about weight or food.
“I feel all right,” I answered honestly. “I could be better, but I’m not unhappy. When I’m with my friends or doing camp activities I don’t think about it as much anymore. It’s always there in the back of my mind, but the negative thoughts aren’t as persistent lately.”
“That’s good, Abby. This is why I want you to be writing in your journal. Keep tabs on when the thoughts arise. It’ll be interesting for you to look back later and see how far you’ve come. Remember, you can be as open as you want to be. I won’t be reading anything you write.” Her eyes flickered to the clock on the wall behind me, the one I had spent most of my first session checking. “Well, that seems to be all the time we have for today. I’ll see you next week. Bring your journal to our next session because I will be glancing over it to make sure you’ve actually been writing.” She squinted her brown eyes and me and waggled her finger sternly. Then she stood up, smiled, and walked me out.
“Don’t forget,” she called out behind me as I was getting ready to push through the door that lead out of the waiting room for the offices and into the hallway towards the elevators.
“Journal,” I said, spinning around to face her again. With one finger I tapped my forehead. “I won’t forget.”
“Good.”
Chapter 6
Flushing Under the Fireworks
“Oh, is that what you’re wearing to the festival?” The tone in Becca’s voice mixed with the wide-eyed expression on her face had me rethinking my Bermuda shorts and t-shirt combo.
I pulled at the shirt, adjusting it. It was a little oversized, but it was perfect for the Fourth of July festival. It even had an American flag emblazoned on the front. “Yeah…what’s wrong with it?”
Becca recoiled from my words. “What’s right with it? Do you intend on dying alone surrounded by eighty cats? Because that’s the vibe that outfit is giving me. This is the first time we’ll get to hang out with members of the opposite sex since camp started and you want to go out looking like that.”
My mouth dropped open in shock. “I honestly don’t think it’s that bad.” Even though I felt like she was overreacting, I no longer wanted to wear the outfit. How could I go out wearing something she so obviously hated? Usually I was unaffected by other people’s thoughts and opinions, but Becca’s opinion mattered to me. She was like a fashion guru. If she hated the outfit then she had to be right.
In an attempt to comfort me, she placed her hand on my shoulder and met my gaze. “I’m not trying to be mean. You’re my friend and I want you to look cute. Most people wear dresses or actual shorts to this thing. They go all out.”
“Well, this is the only thing I have to wear.” It was stupid, but I could feel my eyes getting watery, like I was on the verge of tears.
Becca must have noticed because she placed her other hand on my opposite shoulder and shook me slightly. “Come on! Cheer up. We’ll find
you something to wear. What are you? A medium? I might have something.”
“A large.” My voice cracked a little when I answered. Now I really wanted to cry.
Her eyebrows furrowed. Suddenly she dropped her hands from my shoulders and spun around, heading toward her closet. Her cabin was a lot brighter and more decorated than Peyton’s and mine was, but it was also a lot messier. At least Peyton kept her mess on her side of the cabin.
Becca’s roommate was a quirky, free-spirited girl named Daisy whose wardrobe consisted of ankle length skirts and floral patterns—most of which were discarded around the room. She was more my size than Becca, but I would rather attend the firework show in the outfit I currently had on than to go in one of Daisy’s hippie outfits.
“Aha!” Becca squealed as she pulled a navy blue dress out of her closet, waving it in the air for me to see. “It’s a medium, but it’s stretchy material so I bet it’ll fit.” She tossed it at me and I caught it against my chest. “Try it on.”
I bit my lip as she stared at me, waiting for me to change, but I couldn’t do it with her watching. She raised an eyebrow at me, probably wondering why I was standing frozen on the spot. “Uh, would you mind turning around?” I asked, hating how I sounded so insecure.
I expected her to laugh or make fun of me for being afraid to change in front of her, but she didn’t. She just turned around and said, “Sure thing. Sorry. I have to get changed too.”
I let out a whoosh of air that I had been holding in. I held the dress up to myself and looked down to make sure it looked like it would fit before I tried it on. If there was one thing I hated it was trying on clothes that were too small. Thankfully it looked like it would fit, so I stripped out of my shirt quickly and tugged the dress on over my head. Once it was on, I slipped off my shorts and turned my attention to Becca who was half naked, tugging on a pair of white shorts. “I’m dressed.”
She turned around instantly. A black lace bra covered her tiny boobs, and her flat stomach looked like the kind shown in fashion magazines—flat, tan, and toned. When I first started gaining weight I used to go through magazines and cut out pictures of my ideal body parts. There was a scrapbook hidden in my closet that was full of clippings of different model’s stomachs, legs, butts, etc. Becca’s stomach was more perfect than all of my clippings and I was envious of that.
Phat (Escape From Reality #2) Page 4