Someone to Love

by Melissa de la Cruz

  He makes me drink the first glass. It makes my stomach burn.

  I take out my phone. “Oh my god,” I say.

  “What?” say both Sam and Antonia.

  I’m terrified all over again. “My parents know I’m gone.”

  I have multiple missed calls and texts from both of them.

  “What are we going to do?” Antonia asks. “I can’t drive.”

  “I can drive,” says Sam.

  “I can’t yet,” I say. “I can’t go home. Not like this.”

  “Why not?” Sam asks. The voice of reason. “Where are you going to go?”

  “I can’t, all right?” I read the texts from Mom. She begs me to come home. She says to please respond so they know I’m safe. Then another text comes in. It’s from Dad. He says to text back now or he’s calling the police. I hold it up and show Sam and Antonia. “Do you think he’s bluffing?” I ask.

  “Well, he’s not being very nice about it,” says Antonia.

  “You want to know what I have to say?” I shut off my phone. “That.”

  Antonia takes out her phone. “Oh my god. They’re texting me too. I guess this means I’m shutting off mine.” She powers down her phone.

  “How about you, Sam?” I say.

  He looks at his phone. “Ah, man. It’s your dad.” He reads the texts. “‘Have you seen Liv?’ What do I do?” he adds. “This is bad. I have to respond.”

  I feel awful. Not just because my stomach is ravaging me or alcohol is swirling in me. I don’t know who I am. Am I who I am because I hate food and purge and cut, or are these symptoms of a sick self? What if the real version of me—the happy and healthy Liv—isn’t actually dead? Maybe she’s deep down somewhere. Maybe I can still find her.

  “I gotta get out of here,” I say pushing myself to my feet.

  Suddenly the world is getting dark.

  I’m exhausted, light-headed. Sharp pains stab me in the gut.

  Sam and Antonia are holding my arms as they help me from the table.

  We’re outside somehow. I don’t remember getting from the bar to here. They’re talking but I don’t hear them. I don’t hear anything. Suddenly, I can’t see anything either.

  I’m floating in a void of pain.

  I’m floating, and the darkness takes me from consciousness into the sickest place I’ve ever known. This time I may never find my way out.

  t h i r t y - n i n e

  “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”

  —Jalaluddin Rumi

  I wake up feeling like a nightmare has taken hold of my body. There are vibrations beneath my skin. It’s cold. Everything’s cold. I feel horrible. I crack my eyes open though I’m afraid of what I might see.

  A white sheet covers me.

  Sunlight pours through the windows.

  I’m in a hospital. There’s an IV in my wrist.

  I try to lift my arm. I feel so weak.

  The night comes back in bits and pieces. I snuck out. I drank. I remember Antonia. I remember a Samoan who likes Mamacita Rica. Sam was there. I threw my arms around him. Did I kiss him? I don’t remember anything afterward.

  What will my family think of me now? What will the entire school think? Please, don’t let anyone in this room with a camera. I don’t want to be seen like this. I just want to go back to being the old invisible, who’s-that-girl Olivia Blakely.

  I’m about to fall asleep again when the door opens. It’s Royce and Jasmine. It’s almost a relief that they aren’t Mom and Dad. I give them a weak smile. They look awful. Like they’ve been up all night. Royce has bags under his eyes. Jasmine isn’t smiling. Are they back together? I hope they’re together. I start to doubt it though. I doubt everything.

  “Hi, Liv,” Jasmine says. She has tears in her eyes.

  Why does she have to see me like this?

  “You poor, poor thing,” she says and takes my hand. “I was so worried. I’ve never been so worried. My brothers wanted to come, I told them maybe tomorrow. I wanted to see you for myself first, make sure you want more guests. But they said to send their love. Mom and Dad too. Lola Cherry said she’ll loan you her cane.”

  I crack the tiniest smile.

  “How are you feeling, Livie?” Royce asks, sitting down in the chair next to the hospital bed. “You had us really scared. We’ve been here for hours. Mason is taking it the hardest. He really freaked out. I mean, we all kinda did.”

  I turn my head away from Royce. “Where is he?”

  “The lobby,” Royce says. “He didn’t want to come in unless you wanted him to. He said you’re probably mad at him.”

  I think about how Mason wanted to help me, how Mom and Dad wanted to help me, but also how they went about everything in the completely wrong way. Then again, when it comes to these kinds of things, maybe there just isn’t a right way.

  “Who else is here?” I ask.

  “Everyone,” Royce says. “Mom, Dad, us, Antonia. Sam is here too.”

  I feel so awful. Not just physically. I’m pretty numb there, and weak. A lot of it right now is embarrassment. I want to wither away.

  “I responded to your text last night,” Jasmine says. She still has tears in her eyes. “When I didn’t hear from you, I called Royce.”

  She responded to my text?

  I look around the room for my phone, but there’s nothing here. Not the clothes I was wearing last night. There isn’t even a pair of shoes. I couldn’t walk out if I wanted to. There’s no hiding now. I’m sure she knows everything.

  “Are you...?” I start to ask.

  Royce doesn’t even let the question hang in the air. “We’re here because we both care about you.”

  I wish he would answer the question. I wish they had never broken up. Their relationship was always something I looked up to—something that showed me how love could last despite all the suffering in the world.

  “I thought I had control of my life the way you always did,” I say to Jasmine. “I thought I could handle everything myself.”

  The way she dedicated herself so hard to succeeding. Then did.

  Jasmine sighs. “No one has control, it’s just an illusion. We can only control so much, and we need help for the rest.”

  I’ve always looked up to Jasmine, and now I’ve let her and everyone else down. I can hardly take it.

  “Liv,” she says. “Sometimes we’re strong. Other times we’re fragile, and that’s okay. We have to accept that. This world is so big and we’re all so small that it’s easy to feel unwanted or not good enough. But you have to remind yourself that you’re always loved no matter what. You’re included in your family, my family. You’re bright and smart and sassy. You’re beautiful on every layer, even your most painful ones. And it really hurts to see you like this. But I can tell you, this is just part of healing.”

  She kisses me on the head. I wish that and a wave of the hand could take away all of this. I love Jasmine, but I still feel like a failure. Talking to them should make me feel better, but I actually feel worse. All I can think about is having failed my family, myself, school... Everyone will know, and they’re all going to think of me as weak, messed up. That girl.

  I pull my hand away. “I’m tired,” I say. “I better rest.”

  Jasmine rubs my arm and shoulder. “Okay,” she says. “I love you. If you need me just call.”

  “I love you too,” Royce says to me. “You know you’re the best sister ever, this doesn’t change that. I’ll be checking back in. Try not to hate Mom and Dad or Mason. We all love you.”

  I can’t say those same words back to him. Not right now. Not with so much pain and embarrassment. “Thanks,” I say.

  I watch them walk out, watching the door click shut.

  I try to sleep, but I can’t. Everything feels wrong. I feel like I’m in
prison. I’m hooked up to an IV. Every little thing is being monitored. I’m just a statistic now.

  Soon the door opens again. It’s Mom.

  I feel a surge of pain mixed with anger and resentment.

  She pours me some water, puts a straw in it. It’s a bendy straw. It’s silly, but I’ve always liked those. I recognize right away this is some kind of peace offering.

  I accept it, take a sip. I want to apologize, but I don’t have any words. Mom is crying. She’s obviously been doing that for hours. She stands next to the bed.

  “Sit down,” I say. “You’re making me nervous.”

  She does and half smiles at me. “I feel guilty that I didn’t help you as much as I could have, or in the right ways. We’ve pushed you too hard. I know you have a complicated relationship, but Dad’s very sorry. He’s heartbroken. You’re his baby girl. He wants to see you whenever you’re ready. He doesn’t want to stress you in any way.”

  I sip some more water, considering what I want to say. I don’t think I’m ready to forgive them yet.

  Mom waits for my response, then sighs disappointedly. “We’re going to get you all the help you need.”

  I put the cup on the tray.

  She meets my eyes with hers. “I’m glad you have a friend like Sam in your life.”

  I’m so embarrassed about last night that I’m sure Sam won’t ever talk to me again. Not that I remember what happened after we left the bar. I’m sure that whatever it is can’t be good. Not if I ended up in a hospital.

  Something occurs to me just then. Is Sam someone I could have loved, could have built something with instead of going out with Zach? If so, is the chance ruined forever?

  I’m about to agree with her when Mason comes into the room. This makes me twice as nervous. I can’t tell whether to feel bad for pushing him away or mad at him for lying to me. I guess Mom knew all along, but they hid things from Dad for my sake, which probably made him even more furious. At first, I thought Dad reacted the way he did after the dinner when Cristina outed me because he was embarrassed about what my problems would mean for his campaign, but I realize now that he was angry at himself for not noticing what I guess had been obvious to everyone else for a long time.

  And here I thought I was good at hiding things.

  “Hey, I don’t want to interrupt,” he says. “I just wanted to check in before I go home for a while. I need to get some sleep.”

  He walks up to Mom and hugs her.

  She kisses him on the cheek.

  He comes up to me too and stands by my bed. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I let you stick it out alone for so long without getting you help. Even if you didn’t want me to, I should have.”

  He gives me a giant hug.

  I don’t have much energy to hug back.

  “I love you,” he says.

  It’s like his words are the first that finally reach me. They mean more coming from him. He knows what it’s like to be thought of as the screwup, the do-nothing.

  I understand now.

  “I love you too,” I say.

  I turn onto my side, cry and sleep.

  f o r t y

  “Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles

  is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?”

  —John Keats

  A new doctor visits me in my room the next day.

  She has short hair, dark skin and the most luminous eyes. She introduces herself as Dr. Eleanor and wears a white lab coat. As striking and friendly as she looks, I’m uneasy when she enters. Doctors usually mean bad news.

  “I’m only going to be your doctor for a little while. You’ll mostly be at a treatment center for your bulimia,” she says. “Though I may come to visit...” She looks at a clipboard, then makes eye contact with me. “Yesterday you spoke to Doctor Rodriguez about your condition. He asked me if I would come talk to you about the cuts on your legs because I often work with patients who engage in self-harm.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with me,” I say.

  Did anyone else see my scars? Or do only the doctors know? I feel naked right now. The sheet and my gown don’t feel like enough protection. I want to crawl away. I want to be invisible, but I am about to have this conversation whether I want to or not.

  “You’re five-seven and 98 pounds. Your BMI puts you at very severely underweight. You already knew that though. You’ve been purging for months.”

  “I went out drinking and lost an extra couple of pounds,” I say.

  I consider the numbers. Ninety-eight pounds. That’s all I’ve wanted for the past year, but I still feel empty and unfulfilled. I’ll never be happy no matter how small I get.

  “You don’t have to lie to me. I’m not here to grill you about your weight or your cuts,” she says. “It’s not like that. I’m not here to punish you, or make you uncomfortable. And if it makes you feel better, I used to be a cutter.”

  “You did?” I say, feeling more at ease.

  “For many years,” Dr. Eleanor says, looking down at her clipboard. “By the look of the notes on your scars, I was a more violent cutter, and for a really long time. I was even a cutter while I was a young doctor. It was horrible at times. I don’t know how I didn’t lose everything I had.”

  “Why did you do it?”

  Though I know that I probably know the answer, I want to hear it from someone else. I want to know that I’m not crazy. I might be sick, but I’m not crazy.

  “Anxiety, depression. Punishment for my failures. You name it. I was looking for answers and sometimes I felt I could only find them through self-destructive behaviors. It’s not uncommon. Especially for girls facing a lot of social pressure.”

  “But how do I stop?” I really want to know this time.

  Dr. Eleanor lets out a breath. “Therapy. Lots of it.”

  I don’t like the sound of those words.

  She must be able to tell what I’m feeling by my face because she says, “Yeah, I didn’t like the idea of that either. Believe me. I resisted for a long time. But you have to understand, people like us are complicated, it takes a lot for us to understand why we do what we do, but we have to get to the bottom of it if we want to get better. You have to care about the hurt you do, and by the looks of you, you care a lot about life, family, your career. I can see career girl all over you. Women like us want to control our own worlds to the point where we control our pain centers.”

  I consider her points. She’s right about wanting to control my pain, to harness it. The problem was that when I got so thin, everyone complimented me, which made me want to purge and starve myself into being skinnier. It’s so messed up. The smaller a girl is, the more visible she is to the world. The more she makes herself disappear, the more she matters. It’s all a trick.

  “Do you feel like you can be open-minded to getting help?” Dr. Eleanor asks.

  “I think so,” I say.

  Why did I believe starving myself was going to make me feel better? In my mind, I can see all the meals I skipped, all the food I vomited up and flushed into the toilet. I was destroying myself from the inside out, thinking that people would love me more, thinking that I would love myself more.

  “Look, we girls have to stick together. I’m certain we’ll see each other again. And when we do? We’ll give each other this look. I don’t know how to explain it, but it will mean, yeah, we have secrets, but we’re the strong ones. We’re the ones with scars, and they’re fading.”

  “I like that thought,” I say, sitting up in my bed a little. I’m cold and pull my sheets up over my shoulders. Maybe I’m not really as alone as I thought.

  She pulls her clipboard to her chest like our conversation is almost done. “Me too. I like the sound of your voice. I hear confidence in it. Is it okay if I come see you again?”

  “Sure,” I say
. “It would help to talk to you.”

  “It’s not as good as therapy, but you’re a good kid and I’m happy to do what I can to help. Try to see the good in yourself that everyone else already sees in you.”

  After she leaves, I’m told by a nurse to get myself up and around by taking a walk out of the room into the hall and back. I’ve regained a lot of strength and need to test how well I’m able to do with normal activity. Doctor’s orders.

  I’m slowly passing the nursing station with my IV stand in tow when I run into Antonia. She looks shocked to see me standing up.

  “Liv,” she says. “What are you doing out of bed?”

  I give her a hug but still feel so frail. “I was going for a jog.”

  She smiles. “Maybe you should hold off on that.”

  “Want to walk with me?” I ask. “Doctor says I have to make myself useful. I’m slow but able to make my way... I heard you were here all night that first night. Sorry I didn’t wake up. I must have scared you pretty bad.”

  “We rushed you to the hospital pretty fast. Sam drove. Have you seen him?”

  “Not yet.”

  “He’ll come. He’s pretty upset.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “You know, it’s really all my fault—”

  “No,” I say, slowing down. “Walking is tiring me out already. Let’s turn around.”

  “Okay,” Antonia says, helping me with the IV stand. “I’m really—”

  “Stop it,” I say. “It’s not your fault. I’m not mad at you. I did this.”

  “I didn’t realize you were as sick as you are. I’m so angry at myself for not noticing. For not paying closer attention. You’re my best friend.”

  “My problems have been going on a long time,” I admit. “I was never totally honest with myself about how serious they’ve been.” Antonia’s face shows a look of pain, but she lets me continue talking. “I’m only now starting to see how I was destroying myself. I’m still figuring all of this out.”

  We get to my room and Antonia helps me back into the bed. I’m starting to get tired of being in the hospital. I want to go home. I want to move on to the rest of my life and leave all this behind.