Winona picks at her cuticles.
She’s pulling at the snagged skin with pinched fingers as if she’s ripping a seam, or clipping loose threads. She stays focused on her hands, avoiding the awkward eye contact of group therapy while others share in the “healing circle.” Tonya, the bulimic, is talking about her body dysmorphic disorder while the other eating-disorder girls stare at her. Winona knows they’re sizing her up, wondering if they are thinner than her, wondering if she’s tried laxatives instead of the old-fashioned heave-ho of binge and purge, puke and retch. Normally she would be thinking these things, she’d be taking measured looks at Tonya, she’d be circling her thumb and index finger around her own wrist, cuffing herself, but today she’s not that into it. She’s not even sure why she’s here. There’s nothing to solve that hasn’t been solved. The psychologists attributed all of her problems past and present to her mother’s death; her mother was the root and stem of it all. It’s easy to blame dead people and now she can add Jay to the list of the guilty. Jon sent her back to group after the visit to the school, a preemptive self-harm intervention to keep her from starving and carving. Her body records everything, flesh remembers even when the wounds close up and scars fade into silver braided threads. Besides her doctor, the only person who had seen it all was Jay. He wasn’t horrified by it. He didn’t ask why. He didn’t tell her to stop. When he ran his fingers along the fresh cut that ran under her bra strap, he only had one question: “Does it hurt?”
According to her shrink, starving was her way to hollow out, to empty and numb, to feel the physical dread and grief of mother-loss. Not eating allowed her to become a shell, to disappear into herself, affording her a wakeful death. But cutting was different — it was a way to feel alive. Neither remedied her grief and for the most part she’s given in to the mania in her mind that has her cycling obsessions; she’s either drowning in her own thoughts, or stranded in the hopelessness of waiting for something to happen, something good and different. She isn’t bipolar, at least that’s what the doctors say; she has a general anxiety disorder and ADHD. As far as she’s concerned she has all the symptoms of bipolar listed on WebMD and so did Jay, and so does every other kid she knows. By her estimation, everyone is sick. Everyone is fucked up and there aren’t enough healing circles to do anything but spread this shit around and around on a fucking merry-go-round. She listens as Tonya circles the drain, the therapist guiding the way with his “tell me more” prompts. He sinks her deeper into herself, exploring and excavating. He’s leaning in, and nodding, as if he’s getting off on it. His name is “You can call me Rob” Robert; he wears loafers and a uniform of khakis and polo shirts. Winona imagines his life tastes as dull as the back of a penny. Copper and dirt, and dying electrical currents. He probably lives in a shabby bachelor suite that he tries to make cool with secondhand vintage shit and a collection of jazz on vinyl.
Last year, one afternoon when she was bored she made a Tinder account using her stepmother’s photo and name. Rob’s Tinder profile said he likes to hike, enjoys live music, Sunday morning sleep-ins and pancakes. His profile pic was pretty good — a selfie with a vivid warm filter that made him look extra approachable. She swiped right and so did he. They had an online love affair for a few months before she ghosted him. Winona and Jay took turns messaging him and both of them actually kind of fell for Rob. He was smart and good, a bit awkward but kind. The kind of man you feel sorry for, the kind of guy who jerks off in the shower instead of in bed because he doesn’t want to stain his sheets. They messaged at least twenty different guys pretending to be Trish, using her old modeling shots and bikini pics as clickbait. Rob was the only one who didn’t send a dick pic. He was the only one who didn’t ask to hook up. That made him special and weird. After he messaged that he’d fallen in love with Trish, they deactivated Trish’s account.
She wonders now as she looks at him if he misses Trish, if he thinks about her every day. She examines his pasty face and tries to reconcile him with the outdoorsy online Rob who likes craft beer and ’80s movies. She wonders which is real or if he can be both. Her heart aches a little as she thinks of online Rob. Now that Jay’s gone, she toys with the idea of reactivating Trish so they could be in love again and she could have someone to talk to. She wonders how he’d feel if he found out that he’d been catfished by two teenagers. Online Rob had fallen in love with two kids, which means that therapist Robert is really a giant flaming pedophile. No wonder he specializes in behavioral therapy for young people. He breaks them down, builds them back up, gets to be the savior and if everything goes to plan, he is loved for it. That’s what he’s doing now, breaking Tonya down and getting her to swim in self-loathing while they all watch, take note, internalize the lesson.
“So, why do you hate yourself?” Winona asks, interrupting the groupthink.
Robert motions that Tonya needn’t answer. “That’s really not appropriate, Winona.”
“Why isn’t it? Isn’t that what all of this is about? We’re messed up, we fuck up in crazy-ass ways and you, you’re here to help us find forgiveness, self-acceptance and peace and all the other shit that people post and pin, gratitude attitude, be the change blah blah blah.” She stands up, glances around at the circle of nodding heads. They all look the same: waif-like, pin-straight hair, pained faces with scooped-out eyes. She doesn’t belong here anymore.
“Winona, I have to ask you to take your seat. This is highly disruptive.”
“Oh, come on, lighten up, Rob,” she says and looks at Tonya straight on. “Answer me. Why do you hate yourself?”
“I don’t hate myself.” Tonya shifts in her chair, twirls a blond lock of hair tight around her finger.
“Sure you do. Otherwise you wouldn’t be starving yourself. You think you’re not good enough and the truth is you’re not. None of us are, and not eating isn’t going to change that. Trust me, I’ve been there. You’ll never be good enough so you might as well eat.” She takes a chocolate bar from her bag and holds it out like an olive branch.
Rob stands up, getting between them. “That’s enough.”
Hands up, she takes a few steps back and turns around, addressing the other girls. “It’s the truth. We aren’t good enough, and if we can accept this we can stop this charade of trying to be better just so our parents don’t feel so shitty about us.” She drags her folding chair into the center of the circle and jumps up on it like a circus ringmaster. “Everyone repeat after me: I am not good enough.” No one speaks. The girls just sit tight in their seats as if they’ve been strapped in, drugged up and let down. “Come on now. One more time with feeling!” She holds her fist out to them like a microphone but there’s not a sound, nothing but the squeaking of her own chair as it wobbles. “Okay, then.” Winona steps off and drags the chair back to her spot, its steel legs screeching painfully against the linoleum floor.
Straddling the seat and hunched over the backrest, she bites into the chocolate bar. With a death stare and slow chew, she glazes over as Tonya resumes talking about her childhood. Nothing bad happened to her; as far as Winona can tell Tonya had a perfect pink life. Maybe she’s just buckling under the perfection, like a cake out of the oven too soon, a cupcake with so much icing that it tips over. Yeah, she’s a cupcake for sure. All sugar and show, piped-up frosting with silver pearls, confetti sprinkles that look nice and taste like shit. The more Tonya talks about herself, chapter and verse — the ballet recital gone bad, her recent breakup — the more Winona barrel-eyed locks in on her. If her mother was alive, Winona might have been her. If she never met Jay, she might have been her — an insipid mouth-breathing moron. Ready. Aim. Fire. “Would you shut up already,” Winona says.
“Winona,” Rob cautions.
“Rob,” she parrots. “No one cares. She’s full of shit.” Winona looks around the circle hoping for an ally, but most of the girls are just sitting with their arms racked against their chests, discreetly checking their phones. One of them is filming. Winona marches up to that girl and tells her to stop filming and when she plays dumb about it, Winona grabs the phone and tosses it against the far wall. Rob is yelling in the background, trying to regain some control, as the girl shrieks and runs over, picking the phone up as if it’s an injured bird.
She holds up the cracked screen. “What the fuck.” She lunges at Winona and grabs her by the hair and for a moment, they’re both caught up in each other, legs and arms thrashing, fingernails clawing at each other. Rob, trying to pull them apart, gets an elbow to the face and ends up on the ground. He slides back, rights himself and calls for reinforcement, all the while telling everyone to calm down. Two security guards come in and tear the girls apart. Rob’s nose is bleeding and before he can even ask what’s gotten into them, they both point fingers and blame the other.
“Winona, out,” he says, motioning to the door.
She folds her arms across her chest. “Why me?”
“Outside, now.” The way he says it, so emphatically, with blood gushing out of his nose, impresses her and she nods, giving just a little, just enough. She follows the security guards through the double doors and into the office where she’s told to wait while they call her father.
“He’s away on business. You’ll have to call my stepmother.”
After thirty minutes Rob joins Winona in the office. He’s cleaned up some but still has blood on his shirt and a wad of tissue up his nostril. He doesn’t counsel or chide her like she expected and his silence makes her feel bad, as if she went too far, and she feels even worse when Trish, dressed in her studio leggings, walks into the office and his eyes soften.
“I can’t believe you. I was teaching a class when they called. This acting out of yours . . .” She turns to Rob who’s staring at her.
“Trish.” He stands up. “What are you doing here?”
“What do you mean? Your people called me about Winona?” Annoyed, she shakes her head. “I’m sorry, have we met?”
“Well, no, not really but . . . I’m confused. You’re here for Winona?”
“Yes, I’m her stepmother.”
“When were you going to tell me that? Is that why you stopped returning my messages?”
“Messages? Look, buddy, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m just here to get Winona.” She turns toward her. “Let’s go, grab your stuff. You can explain it to your father when he gets back.”
“Trish.” He reaches for her hand.
“Don’t touch me,” she snaps, glaring at him.
Winona can see the moment he realizes it was never Trish.
“Winona?” Sitting down, he says her name like a question, a half-whispered realization.
“I’m sorry.” She breaks into a nervous laugh. “I’m not good enough and neither were you.” She feels a twinge of regret as she says it and balls up her fist so that her nails cut her palm.