Paperweight (12 page)

Sunday, July 13, 7:12
A.M.

AT breakfast I watch Ashley while I prick rubbery scrambled eggs with my fork. She flounces from the serving window, bright-eyed in a sundress and cardigan. I'm positive neither one of us got any sleep. I heard her tossing and turning beneath her hot, just-dried sheets all night. I must have dozed off for a few minutes, because when I woke for weight and vitals she was gone, her bed made so tightly I couldn't have slid between the sheets if I tried.

“Morning, girls.” She lets her tray clatter to the table, next to me and across from Teagan and Cate. “OJ, pleeease.” She reaches for the plastic pitcher.

“Morning.” I saw off a corner of my eggs and force it down. I don't think about my numbers this morning, or how
Hannah actually looked pleased when she jotted them down in her binder. Instead I picture the colored pills pooling at the bottom of my drawer like lethal candy. I take another bite.

“You're in a good mood this morning.” Teagan yawns and nudges the last bite on her plate. She wants to eat it, I know. But then she'd be the first one finished.

“I got a lot done yesterday.” Ashley pours a too-full glass and leans into me. “Hey. I'm sorry if I freaked you out last night. It's just that I've had a little extra energy lately, which is awesome! Because, like, I totally think treatment is working.” She spins the yellow circle around her wrist. “Pretty soon, I'll be on greeeen.”

“Okay.” I search her for any sign of the wildness I'd seen last night. But her eyes are clear. “But maybe you should still talk to Kyle. You seemed pretty . . . hyper.” I select my words carefully.

“Oh, for sure,” she agrees. “For sure. We have a session this afternoon.”

I glance at Cate and Teagan, just to see. But they're talking coffee creamer combinations and don't notice. But I know what I saw wasn't right.

After breakfast, I get to the lawn before Shrink for our session. I stretch out in the grass and let the sun burn my skin. Clutch my journal to my chest and close my eyes, exhausted.

“Good morning.”

I look up. Shrink is Hippie Shrink today, in a chambray shirt and a navy tie-dyed maxi skirt I could have made during craft hour.

“How are you this morning?” she asks, and squats down next to me.

“I'm tired.” It's the truth, but not the whole truth. I feel disgusting, the scrambled eggs like cement-filled balloons in my gut. “I could use some coffee.” I lick my lips and taste the syrup I couldn't swallow.

“You'll have another shot at lunch.” She smiles. “Didn't get much sleep last night?”

I search her face, looking for the twitch of an eyebrow, something that will show me I should tell her about Ashley. Only Ashley didn't rat me out after I purged. And really, this isn't my business. I have my own problems. My own preparations to make. Ashley will only be a distraction.

“I'm having trouble sleeping,” I say.

“I'm sorry to hear that. You can always let Dr. Singh know the next time you meet with him.”

“I need a higher dose of meds.”

“Hm.” I can feel her eyes on me. “So how do you want to use your time?”

“I don't know. I'm kind of . . . Could we take a break? Not have a session?”

She tries to sit next to me. “It seems like you're struggling today. But I'm going to encourage you to push through any discomfort you're feeling and—”

“My stomach is the fucking size of a bowling ball, okay?” I sit up, my outburst surprising even me. My hands find my midsection. My gut is round and hard. For the first time, I can't rest my arm across my hips without feeling my stomach underneath. “I feel like shit.” I close my eyes again.

“I know you do. This is the really hard part, when your body's getting used to food again.”

“Is it like sobering up?”

I feel her tighten next to me. “Let's keep the focus on you, Stevie.”

“I could journal,” I say to the sky. “Or write letters. I was working on a letter to Eden last night. I could finish that.” I squint up at her.
Please. I can't talk today. It's just too much.

She pauses. “Rest, Stevie. We'll meet later this afternoon. I'll be in my office if you decide you want to talk. If nothing else, I'll see you in group tomorrow. We can make up the session later, okay?”

“Yeah. Thanks,” I say. I flop onto my stomach and press my cheek into the grass. I can hear the living earth humming beneath me. I make the tiniest grass angel. Then I sit up and go back to the letter.

Here's the really shitty thing about it all, Eden: I was going to apologize to him. Can you believe it? For being a bitch to him that night and storming off. I'd thought about it, thought maybe he was just trying to be a good big brother, and I was going to skip time with you to apologize to him. God, I was so stupid.

Josh and I hardly spoke to each other the week after the Pit, which wasn't hard to accomplish. By Monday morning, Dad had rented our house to some yuppie couple from Atlanta without even asking us. Josh had classes during the day, so I lugged boxes into one of my dad's writing buddy's pickup trucks, then out again. I dropped them in the “front hall” of the new place, if you
could call it that. I heard some things shatter, and so did Dad. He didn't say a word, like usual.

By Tuesday morning, I was getting sick of the silence again. I scribbled two words on the back of the electric bill, and pinned it beneath the coffee maker.

Scrabble Wednesday?

The next afternoon before I left for seminar, I checked.

You're on
, he'd written.

I left seminar early, made some excuse to Eden and Ben about a doctor's appointment. Practically gunned the Buick all the way home from the Stacks. I was sick of not speaking to Josh. We'd never been this way. It was as if our family had existed in a bubble before. We weren't perfect, but we managed and everything was okay. And then my mother decided to walk out—burst the bubble and send the rest of us skittering and spinning, soapy and confused.

She hadn't called since she left, either. Not once. Sometimes I would dial the number I found in Dad's desk drawer and listen to the unfamiliar beep until I heard her voice. And then I'd hang up, because I had nothing to say unless she was going to come home.

When I unlocked the door to the new place, the
click
was flimsy. Inside, it was hot and dark and smelled powdery, like generic carpet cleaner.

“Hello?” I pawed at the switch by the door, then turned it off when the fluorescent light was too much. In the kitchen, I found a note from my dad, scribbled on a Post-it note. It was as if the only way our family knew how to talk anymore was through sentence fragments penned on the back of scratch paper.

Having a beer with the guys. Dinner in freezer. Love, Dad

I found two frozen dinners, as promised. In the dark, I tore off the cardboard and stabbed the plastic with a fork I found in the sink. I wouldn't eat it, but seeing the food on the table would make Josh happy. And I hadn't been doing much of that lately. While the teal numbers ticked down, I took out the Scrabble board. When the microwave bleated, I took out the trays and spooned the indistinguishable contents onto the first plates I could find: my mother's dinner party china. I poured us both a Diet Coke. In wine glasses, with ice.

I sat at the dining room table and waited, nudging the tiles around the Scrabble board in exotic combinations. I texted him four times. After the third time, he texted that he was running late, which was obvious, because it was past nine.
Could we play the next night instead?
I took both dinners back into the kitchen. Devoured them over the sink, then puked and rinsed it all down the drain. Back in the dining room I sucked on the ice from my empty glass.

It was after ten when I heard the front door slam.

“Sass? You up still?”

I didn't say anything, just sat there in the too-small dining room with my glass of Diet Coke water.

“Hey,” he said, breathless even though he was just standing in the doorway. He smelled like something too sweet that I couldn't quite place. “Where's Dad?”

“Out.”

“So. Sorry I'm so late. I was out and lost track of time.” His eyes fell on the table. “Did you eat? It smells like meat loaf.”

“Nah. Not hungry.”

“Come on. Don't be mad.” He walked over to my side of the table slowly, like he was scared of something. Rested his hand on my back. When I looked up, something glinted on his shoulder. The tiniest smudge of black glitter. And that's when I knew, when it was big and looming, staring me in the face. I wish I could say I knew the second I saw him. Or that I had a feeling, deep down. But I had no idea, which made it so much worse.

“Oh,” I said. “So, are you guys fucking, or what? Behind my back?”

He went white, like I'd slapped him. The air in the apartment was so thick, I could hardly breathe. My
brother.
And my—Eden.

“No. Stevie.” He swiped at his shoulder, but the stain remained. “No, I swear. I just—I was running late to meet you, and she called, and—”

“She
called
?”

“She asked for my number the other night at the Pit, okay? It was no big deal.”

I tried to shove my chair back, which didn't work because of the stupid, cheap, stained carpet in the hellhole we now inhabited. I squeezed out of the space between the chair and table, and couldn't get past him without touching him.

“I was gonna tell you, okay?” He gripped my shoulders. “God, would you please
eat
something? You're like—”

“Yeah. Good. Make this about me.” I wrenched out of his grip. If I'd been capable of tears, I would have cried.

“Stevie, stop! I just wanna talk, okay? That's all.” He blocked the apartment door.

“Move, Josh. I'm not talking about this now. I'm never talking about this.” I shoved him, hard. He stumbled back. “Just . . . leave me the hell alone.” I twisted the ugly gold door handle and fell outside, into the hall. I needed space from him the way I needed air. I needed him to be gone. It would just be so much easier.

Monday, July 14, 11:57 a.m.

GROUP the next day is held in the kitchen again, which makes me want to bail. But this time, there are no caving cereal boxes, no dripping cylinders of ice cream, no hardened syrup stains on the counter. So I step inside, next to the other girls in Cottage Three.

We wait. Leaning against the counter, Ashley tugs her knit tee over her belly. Teagan plucks a single strand of hair from her head and examines the white-bulbed root. Cate flicks the tube coming out of her nose. We're huddled together like the world's most pathetic peewee football team, silently debating our final play. It won't matter. We'll get our asses kicked.

“Welcome to group, Cottage Three!” Shrink says brightly, joining the huddle.

We all make a noise like
mehhh.

“Today's group is a meal group,” she says. “We'll cook our lunch together and then process as we eat.”

“What are we making? Do we get to pick?” I pinch my hospital bracelet between my index finger and thumb. It occurs to me that maintaining my weight this way could make me a Yellow Girl.
But I'm
not
a Yellow Girl
, I think, suddenly pissed. I look at the only other Red Girl here—Cate—but she's nodding, like
okay, okay
.

Shrink shakes her head. “Here's the menu: spaghetti with salad, and brownies for dessert.”

I purse my lips together to contain the burst of laughter that's waiting behind the pink flesh like machine gun fire. Pasta? Salad, with dressing of course, slick, greasy calories that ruin the vegetables. Brownies? I look around to see if anyone else gets the joke. No one's laughing.

“Before we divvy up the jobs, I'd like you all to choose something to drink.” Shrink nods at the refrigerator.

Ashley steps up first. The refrigerator makes a slurping sound when she jerks the door open. Standing at attention are rows of shiny aluminum cans—Coke, Sprite, Dr Pepper. I don't even have to summon the numbers. They come instantly.
140calories39gramsofcarbs39gramsofsugar.Toomuchtoomuchtoomuch.

“Where's the diet?” I ask.

“There is no diet,” Shrink says evenly. “Can we pause for a second? Check in with how everyone's doing?”

“Oh.” Ashley is already clutching a fat red can.

“Seriously, though. That stuff is
bad
for you,” I say.

Ashley's face crumples like a crushed can.

“I mean, I'm sorry. But like, isn't the goal to get us to be healthy”—
fat!—
“or whatever? Because this isn't. It
isn't.
” I hate the way I sound, like a shitty whiny kid, even though I'm the only one here who's thinking clearly.

Ashley closes the refrigerator door. She's still holding the can.

“The goal is to start to take the fear out of food, out of eating.” I hate the way Shrink's voice gets all gooey when she's saying the worst things. “The goal is to show you that you can start to take the power away from some of your fear foods.”

“Do we have to?” Cate says quietly, pinching her tube. She's staring at the floor.

Thank you.

Shrink shakes her head. “You don't have to. But if you're feeling some anxiety around the idea of taking a soda, then I would encourage you to challenge yourself.”

I hate words like
process
and
encourage
and
challenge.

“Stevie? On a scale of one to ten, where's your anxiety right now?” Shrink says it like the electricity in me is nothing more than a set of lost house keys—
where's your anxiety right now?
—instead of this hot squirmy thing in me that makes me shaky and dizzy and sick. Forcing down a few bites at meals is one thing. But cooking is another.

“I don't know.” My head is too jumbled up to answer.

“I'm at like an eight,” Cate volunteers. “Soda was one of the first things I cut out when I started to restrict, so . . .”

“So your anxiety is pretty high right now. Would you consider taking a soda?”

Cate bites her bottom lip. “Maybe like a Sprite?”

“Good, Cate. Go ahead.”

When the other girls are all clutching their soda cans, Shrink glances at me.

“No.” I wince at the metallic
pop
of the cans opening. I'll try the salad, maybe. Some sauce without the noodles. But soda?
Soda
?

“Absolutely your choice, Stevie. So we need to divide up the jobs. I'll make the salad, if a couple of you can take the pasta. And then who wants the brownies?”

“We'll help with the pasta,” Cate offers. Teagan threads her thick wrist through Cate's angular elbow.

“And we'll do brownies?” Ashley almost asks. “Right, Stevie?”

“I guess,” I mutter at the floor.

“Great. You'll find everything you need in the cabinets.” Shrink claps her hands together, breaking our huddle, and the other girls scatter. I don't understand. Not figuratively, but literally. My brain isn't wired right, can't make sense of how the others are pulling ingredients from the refrigerator and boiling pots of water and snapping pasta in half when I can't move. Maintaining my weight is too hard. I need a break. Just for today.

“Okayyyy.” Ashley stands on tiptoe and opens the corner cabinet, unearthing a box of brownie mix, a measuring cup, and a plastic bottle of oil. “Can you grab the eggs?”

As she walks by, Shrink squeezes my shoulder. I dip out of her reach and jerk open the fridge door. Standing in the cold white light, I try to focus. Almost impossible, when there are more cans and bottles and cartons and all the numbers zooming around inside my head. Somehow my fingers find the foam carton of eggs, and I retrieve it and hand it to Ashley.

“Thanks.” She reaches for a knife and stabs the plastic bag
of brownie mix. Chalky brown dust escapes, and I hold my breath.

After we're all finished with our tasks, we serve our plates and take them to the table. It feels fake sitting around a table in this semi-house with these girls and Shrink at the head of the table, like we're playing a TV family and she's the single mom who's behind on the mortgage but still makes time for family dinner. I'm starting to have second thoughts about this whole compliance thing. Maybe a tube would be the better option. Maybe I could disconnect it at night.

No. The night nurse would notice.

“So, what was that like for you all, making the food?” Shrink's eyes sweep around the table.

“Okay, I guess.” Teagan's fingers find their way to her hairline. “It's kind of weird making food
together
.”

“Not being alone, you mean?” Shrink twirls pasta around her fork, sending tiny spatters of sauce to her placemat. She doesn't even notice.

“Yeah. Before I got here, I can't remember the last time I ate around people, you know? Like it was just something I did by myself. Bingeing or purging or restricting. Whatever I was doing, I just didn't want anybody to see.”

“Same,” Ashley blurts over a mouthful of wilted greens. “It's embarrassing, and nobody understands.”

My chin drops to my chest in a half nod. After our mother left, I ate almost exclusively in the dark. Or drunk, which is almost the same.

“You felt a lot of shame around eating or preparing food or engaging in behaviors.” Shrink nods her understanding. “It's
exhausting, isn't it? Carrying that kind of shame?” Her eyes flick to me, like
Stevie?

“I don't want to talk about it.” I look just beyond my plate. The smells are too much and all the food is touching and really, tomorrow is a much better day to stop losing weight. “Is it hot in here? It's hot in here.”

Shrink reaches overhead and yanks a beaded brass chain, sending the ceiling fan above us in reluctant circles. “Better?”

I shrug.

The table goes silent, except for the clinking of forks that are not mine.

“You're not the only one, Stevie,” Cate says quietly.

Shrink puts her fork down. “What do you mean, Cate?”

“I just mean . . . it's hard for all of us, that's all. Maybe if you talked about it some, it would make it easier. Or you'd see that you weren't the only one feeling . . . whatever.”

I stare at my plate. “I'm feeling like . . . this pasta sucks,” I say, and the other girls laugh, but the laughter is too shallow to be real.

“Stevie, I notice that you're having trouble with your meal,” Shrink says.

I look around, and the other girls are halfway through their pasta.

“I wonder if it would be helpful to you if we played a game to distract while you eat. Could we give that a try?”

I've looked at her before, but now I really
look
at her. I hold her turquoise gaze without looking away, like there is a silky thread strung from my pupils to hers, and I do the unthinkable: I beg.
Please don't make me do this. Not today.
I try to make her
understand what I know deep down:
I
can't. Get it?

She gives me an almost imperceptible head nod that proves she doesn't.

“We can play the alphabet game.” Ashley reaches over and squeezes my wrist. For a second, my red bracelet disappears. I don't breathe again until she lets go. “Books. You like books, right? I'll go.
A: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
. It's a kid's book. I used to read it when—I was a kid.”

“I don't want to play,” I mumble. Accidentally, my gaze falls on my plate. The pasta writhing beneath chunks of sauce. The salad limp and slick.

“
B: Breaking Dawn.
From Twilight,” Cate says before carefully pressing the tines of her fork into a pale, fleshy tomato.

“
C: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
,” Shrink says. “My absolute favorite. Give it a shot, Stevie. I know you can do it.”

I lift my fork, all the while thinking
nonononono,
but fuck I have to, there's no other choice.
It'sforJoshit'sforJosh.
And I stab a chunk of carrot with my fork. It feels like lead on my tongue and I chew and swallow fast. The oil from the dressing coats the inside of my mouth, and Shrink smiles.

“Can I do a movie?” Teagan's voice sounds far away. “
D: Dirty Dancing
. My older sister used to watch that movie all the time. The main guy's dead from cancer.”

My fingers still frozen around the fork, I try again. Twirl the pasta around the tines while I think about anything other than the whiteness of it, the carbs, the butter. I stab and twirl, then slip the fork past my unwilling lips.

It should feel like something more than this. It should be a
monumental moment, but it isn't. One minute I'm taking a bite of pasta, and then next Shrink is saying
G: Great Expectations
and I can feel everything mixing around together in my gut and my stomach surges a few times—false starts.

At the end of the meal, we clear our plates and leave them in the sink.

“Excellent job, girls. I'm proud of all of you,” Shrink says. She drains the last of her Coke, which surprises me, because she seems like a coconut water kind of chick. “You can head back to the villa together, if you'd like. I'll finish up here.”

Outside, I squint into the heat. I can feel my stomach expanding, my belly fighting against the waistband of my jeans. I hate this, all of it. I hate Shrink and I hate myself and I even hate Josh a little, which I know is unfair, but there it is.