Someone turns the light on. Again. Why? When?
Footsteps. Loud footsteps. Someone is angry. What day, what time is it?
Five thirty, Anna. Time for vitals and weights.
Emm is in the Van Gogh room. Emm pulls the covers back. Emm opens the window, the one we were expressly told to keep closed.
Emm opens my closet, searches for and finds the horrible flower-print robe. I look at her with mild curiosity. She throws the robe on the bed.
Put it on or I will make you.
She is already wearing hers. Her voice is low but its tone and her eyes make it clear that she is furious.
You have five minutes, Anna. Get dressed. I’ll be downstairs.
She walks out. Leaving the light on and the door open, and me just starting to absorb this.
I take a few seconds to register what she did, then decide I do not care. I pull the covers back. The light can remain on, and the door open. She can wait downstairs.
Footsteps again, now very loud and angry. The covers are snatched away. Emm throws them to the floor. I want to protest, but I have no energy.
She grabs me by the arm and yanks me forward with surprising strength for an anorexic. To my utter horror she grabs my T-shirt and pulls it right over my head.
Ice-cold air. I shriek.
Good, so you are alive. Now you’d better listen to me.
She holds the flower-print robe beyond my reach. I wrap my arms around me, shivering.
Matthias did not come last night, but you already know that. Why didn’t he come, Anna?
Because I told him not to come. She and I both know that.
You’re an idiot,
she says.
Get up and bring him back.
I cannot believe what is happening. Cannot believe Emm is speaking to me like this. I am angry and cold.
Give me my robe!
Not a chance, Anna.
Leave me alone! Go away!
No, you had your day in bed! Now it’s time for vitals and weights!
She does throw the robe in my face. I slip it on hurriedly, fuming. I feel naked and humiliated, cold and angry. I feel furious! I can feel something!
Get out of my room and out of my business! Who the hell do you think you are?
I’m the girl who’s stopping you from making the biggest mistake of your life!
She is shaking too, and screaming, her wild hair all over her face.
Bring Matthias back! You have no right to give him up! You have no right, you have—
She chokes up.
Emm is crying and shaking with anger so violently she eclipses mine. Emm, mask down and composure in shreds. Emm is falling apart.
You have to bring him back,
she says jaggedly.
You have to win this one. You have no right to give up. If you can’t, Anna, then what am I …
I cannot bear to watch her cry. I have never seen so much pain.
Naked underneath my horrible robe, I get out of bed. I hesitate before touching her, then I hug her. She does not push me back.
We stand there, two anorexics in horrid flowery patient robes, Emm’s tears soaking mine and hers. She cries herself to a stop, then silence. When she pulls back she is calm. Her voice is steady as she says,
Let me explain a few things to you, Anna.
There is nothing left of the despair that ransacked her minutes before. Emm the cruise director is back.
I understand what you’re going through. We all do, every girl here. And no, Matthias doesn’t, but that doesn’t mean that he is not suffering.
Her dispassionate tone clashes against the content of her words.
Matthias does not sleep at night because he is thinking of you. He worries about you in the morning, at work, on his way over here and when he leaves. He thinks about you when it’s cold and windy and snowing outside. He thinks of you at every meal. He thinks about you in every restaurant he goes to, poring over the menu for one item he thinks you might eat.
The more she talks, the more my heart hurts.
You have someone who worries about you. Do you understand how lucky you are? Every girl here watches him come here every damn night for you and wishes someone came for her. And if you think sending him away will protect him in some weird twisted way, it won’t. He’ll just worry about you more. He loves you and you’re hurting him. You have no right.
I am crying into my hands. He loves you and you’re hurting him. I remember Julia calling me one of the lucky ones. You have no right. I think of Valerie.
Sarah, missing her little boy. Emm, who has been here for four years.
You don’t have the right to send him away. You don’t have the right to give up. He’s asking you to eat. Eat, dammit! He loves you! You’re the luckiest girl here!
My eyes feel like they will burst. I look up at Emm. My voice is hoarse:
I do not know how.
In her business voice, she replies:
Well, you start by getting dressed. Vitals and weights, and then breakfast. Then keep going from there. Get that damn tube out of your nose. Get through your meals and snacks. And find a way to bring Matthias back.
I force my breaths calmer and longer and look at this girl saving my life.
Thank you, Emm.
Don’t thank me. Do it. Now let’s go downstairs. Come on, vitals and weights! We’re late.
In our patient robes, mine wrapped at the front, we go downstairs together.