We had a good-bye party for Brenna today. They do it with all the patients who “graduate.” She filled out her snowflake and taped it to the dining room wall. Brenna’s snowflake said she was letting go of “not being enough.”
I like the way she put that. It’s how I feel, too. Not enough of an athlete. Not enough of a student or a friend or a daughter.
Not enough of a me.
We made a book for Brenna out of construction paper. It looks like the one I made in kindergarten, the one Mom still has in her keepsake box. I called it All About Riley and drew a picture of myself on the cover, complete with huge elephant ears and hands bigger than my head. On each page I drew a picture of something I loved:
An ice cream cone.
The Little Mermaid movie.
Puppies.
Nail polish.
I wonder what I’d draw today. What do I love now? Definitely not running. Every time I think about track practice, a hole opens up in my stomach. Not a hunger hole. A hatred hole, one that’s bleak and lonely. I hate running. It makes me push myself until I hurt. It makes me hate myself when I don’t measure up. (I never measure up.)
I’m glad I don’t have to run when I leave here.
What else?
I love watching silly TV shows with Julia.
I love reading. I love action stories, but also books like The House That Lou Built and Turtle in Paradise, books with girls who don’t care what other people think about them. I like those girls. I want to be friends with them, not with people like Talia or Camille.
I love hanging out with Emerson and Josie.
I love drawing. I love seeing what my hand can create, how I can transform reality into color and shape.
This book was for Brenna, though, one she can take with her to remember us. We each got a page where we had to write something we liked about her. I had to think for a while, because there are tons of things I love about Brenna. I doodled while I thought. I drew a wave with a surfer gliding in to shore. I drew Wonder Woman and Supergirl and Poison Ivy. I gave them different body types, one big and one small and one in-between. I drew Superman zooming into the sky.
You’re strong, I wrote. You’re the strongest, bravest person I know. You are 100 percent yourself and you can do this.
Brenna smiled at me when she read it. We hugged for a long time.
I hope she’ll be okay.
And deep down, no matter how much “trouble” I make, I hope I can be okay, too. I hope that in our family meeting this afternoon, Mom and Dad don’t yell at me. I hope they tell me how much they love me.
I hope they’ll help me be strong and brave, too.
It was quiet at lunch today. Everyone kept looking at the empty seat where Brenna usually sits. There was no one talking about how Luna was so underused in the Harry Potter books or debating which of the Avengers is the strongest. No one giving us graphic novel recommendations until everyone else rolled their eyes and I told Brenna to stop until I had a pen to write down all the titles.
I ate all my food, even with Ali staring at me the whole time. The sandwich tasted dry and the chips were greasy, but I did it. One bite at a time.
Two hours until the family meeting.
One hour until the family meeting.
I’m drawing to pass the time, as usual. I took out the pictures I’ve made of the other girls in here and lined them up on the group room table. I was planning on critiquing myself, on making a mental list of all the ways I’d messed things up.
Then Laura came over. “This looks just like me!” she said.
“Your mouth looks off, though.” I wanted to grab the picture back and tear it up. Then there’d be no evidence that my drawings were anything but perfect.
“No, it looks awesome.” Laura paused, staring at the picture of herself. “Do I really look like this? My body, I mean.”
I wasn’t sure what the right answer was, so I decided to go for the truth. “Yeah,” I said. “I mean, I think you’re pretty.” I decided not to mention the size of her body. I didn’t want to do what Ali and I used to, when we reassured each other we were still skinny. I wanted to stop focusing on our bodies, like the counselors try to do.
“This definitely isn’t what I look like inside my head,” said Meredith. “I look so graceful.” I’d drawn her in a tutu, with a poofy skirt and satiny toe shoes.
“You are graceful,” Aisha said. “I can’t wait to see you onstage someday.”
“We can all go together!” Laura laughed.
“Have you made one of you?” Aisha asked.
I blushed. There was a drawing of me, buried inside the pages of my drawing notebook. I drew it this morning after breakfast. It was hard to draw, maybe the hardest thing I’ve ever made. It felt wrong to spend so much time on myself, to think about how I looked without judging. I wanted to make every part of me smaller. Narrower. Tinier.
I tried to make it realistic, though. I tried to make it true. In the end, the picture didn’t look exactly like me. But it was close. I didn’t throw it away, and it didn’t look hideous.
Maybe I don’t look hideous, either.
Even if my drawings don’t exactly match the images in my head, that doesn’t mean I didn’t do a good job. And even if I don’t look exactly how I want to be, that doesn’t mean I’m not a good person.
My drawings are unique, something only I can create.
Me.
Only me.
I thought therapists were supposed to be nice all the time, all reasonable and calm and “you’re doing wonderful and you’re amazing.”
Not Willow. Not today. Today Willow only wanted to talk about what I’d done wrong. She acted like I was a juvenile delinquent who’d thrown eggs at the police station or driven a car into a house.
A kid who’d stopped eating her meal plan.
“Skipping meals, Riley?” Willow wasn’t angry; she was disappointed. And that was so much worse.
“I didn’t want to eat.” I could have told Willow how angry I was at Mom and Dad. How I’m so scared about having no friends that my stomach is tied up in knots.
Except I couldn’t get my mouth to work. I couldn’t get my lips to move, even though I knew we only had a half hour together before Mom and Dad showed up. All of a sudden, I was angry again. I was angry at being confronted. At always being the one who’s wrong. At Willow not taking the time to talk to me about how I felt, not just what I’d done.
“We need to talk about this, Riley. You don’t want to go backward. You have so much to look forward to.” Willow’s hands were in her lap. She had a silver ring on her right hand. It was new and made her fingers look long and slim. I wonder if Willow likes the size of her fingers. I wonder if she likes the size of her body.
I wonder if she even cares.
“What do I have to look forward to?” I finally exclaimed. “Getting out of here and having Mom on my back about everything I eat? Emerson and Josie realizing we don’t have anything in common anymore? Dad shutting me out of his life?” I didn’t know why I was yelling. It was hard to breathe. My heart was fighting to escape my chest. My body wanted to escape her office. I wanted to tell Willow that I do want to get better, I really do. But the words wouldn’t come.
“Life.” Willow’s voice was calm and even, like I wasn’t freaking out in front of her, like tears weren’t rolling down my cheeks and snot wasn’t dripping from my nose. “You have life to look forward to.”
“What kind of life?” I asked. “One where no one cares about me? Where people make fun of me?”
“Riley.” Willow leaned forward. “We’ve talked about this before.”
“I know, I know,” I said. “People like me. The ones who don’t shouldn’t matter. Blah blah blah. I get it. I should know this by now. I should be better. But I’m not.” The tears came faster. “I still don’t believe everything you tell me. I still feel awful all the time!”
“You’re supposed to feel awful,” Willow reminded me. “Recovery isn’t all rainbows and daisies.”
“But you just said I should be happy.”
“I want you to be happy eventually,” Willow said. “I want you to love your body eventually. And you will. But it takes time. And beating yourself up for not being further in recovery will only make you feel worse.”
“It does.” My voice was small.
“Even ‘normal’ people aren’t happy all the time.” Willow looked at the clock. Twenty minutes until my parents showed up. “They have hard days and they cry. Normal people even dislike their bodies sometimes.”
“They do?”
“They do,” Willow confirmed. “But bad feelings pass. The anxiety wave rises and crests and falls. And those people move on with their day and with their life. They move on to the next happy moment. Those happy moments will come, I promise. You don’t have to starve your body to numb the bad feelings anymore.”
“I know,” I whispered. I looked at the swirly painting on Willow’s wall, the one with all the colors of the rainbow that always feels like it’s sucking me in.
“I don’t want to be alone.”
“You won’t be, Riley.” Willow put her hand on my shoulder. “Your family and friends might just surprise you. And if they don’t, you can handle it. You’re strong. You can beat this disease.”
Willow’s words were a hug, wrapping me in belief and love.
“So can you explain why you skipped those meals?”
“I was upset,” I said. “And sad. It made me feel better to have an empty stomach.”
“Is empty better?” Willow held up a hand. “Take a few seconds to think about that.” She leaned back in her chair and looked at the clock again. Tick tock! Tick tock! I could almost hear the Jeopardy! music in my head.
My first instinct was DUH! OF COURSE EMPTY IS GOOD. Then I realized that I’ve felt awful for the past few days. I’ve felt awful for the past year.
“It felt good at first. But then I felt guilty. The Boosts were gross, and skipping meals got me in trouble. It didn’t make Josie and Emerson visit. It made me feel guilty. Hungry, too.” I felt like I was going to cry. “I was just so angry at everyone. And I didn’t hide that brownie. Really!”
I started crying again. I’m so sick of crying.
“It doesn’t feel right anymore! Why doesn’t it feel right?” I didn’t know why I was crying. I didn’t know if I was upset that I’d skipped meals or if I was upset that I didn’t want to skip meals anymore. I’m so confused. Is this what getting better is like? Constantly changing my mind? Feeling guilty about feeling guilty?
“What doesn’t feel right?” Willow put a hand on mine. Her hand was soft. I wanted to hold on tight. I wanted her to promise never to let go.
“Lying. Hiding. Being sick.” I squeezed my eyes shut, afraid of what would come now that I’d said the words out loud. Saying them changed things. It made my decision to recover real.
It made it impossible to go back.
Willow leaned back in her chair. She smiled. I kept talking. “It’s like I’ve been wearing a sweater for the past year. It used to be comfy and soft. It used to keep me warm and safe. It kept branches from scratching me and rain from chilling my skin.”
“What’s happened to that sweater now?” Willow asked.
“It’s tight now. It’s itchy and scratchy and doesn’t fit anymore. But not in a ‘because I’m gaining weight’ kind of way. It just doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t protect me.”
“It gives you a rash?” Willow looked like she was suppressing a giggle. I let myself crack a tiny smile.
“An awful rash.”
“You’re recovering, Riley.” Willow’s smile was the biggest I’d ever seen it. “And I do believe you. Even if you have been acting out. Because that’s what recovery is. Slips and falls and learning from your mistakes.”
“You believe me?”
“I do.” Willow nodded. “You didn’t hide that brownie.”
“I didn’t.”
Willow believed me!
“One step at a time,” she said. “I’ll be here to help you. And hopefully, so will your parents.”
That’s when I heard the knock on the door. Mom’s voice in the hallway. Dad coughing.
My parents were here, but I definitely wasn’t ready. Especially since they didn’t even pause for a hug or a kiss or whatever signs of affection parents usually give their children.
“Why did you hide food, Riley?” Mom asked. “You were doing so well.” Mom had tears in her eyes. Dad stared at his hands.
“I didn’t do it.” I’ve been repeating those same four words for the past two days. I’ll keep saying them until everyone believes me. “Someone must have put the brownie there. I was framed. I know who did it, too.” I felt like I was on some TV legal drama where the judge was about to bang a gavel and condemn me to life in prison. All the evidence was against me.
And to my parents, my word meant nothing.
“You’re here to gain weight, Riley, not to waste this opportunity. You need to get back on track.” Dad rubbed his eyes. “Do you know how much this place costs?”
Of course. Money is what matters here.
“Dad, that’s not the point. You have to listen. Ali set me up. She put the food under my bed because of the whole crunches thing.”
“Crunches thing?” Whoops. Mom wasn’t supposed to know that part. “You’re doing crunches? And what kind of place is this that patients can just sneak out of the dining room with food?”
“The staff is allowed to make a mistake, Mom! Maybe someone looked away for one second while Ali hid her brownie. It doesn’t mean this isn’t a good program.”
“So you’re defending this place now?” Dad looked like he was about to explode. “Of course you are; you’re still skinny. You’re still sick.”
A thrill ran up my spine. Still skinny! I’m still skinny!
No! That’s not what matters. What matters is getting through to my parents. What matters is making them understand that I don’t want to be sick anymore.
Willow raised her hand. “Miranda. Nathaniel. Riley’s right; we may have missed something. Another patient’s actions were overlooked. But we’re human, too. We’re doing the best we can. Let’s try to focus on what Riley has to say without blame.”
I snorted. “Without blame. Right. That’s not going to happen.”
Mom stood up. “Well, what am I supposed to think, Riley? You didn’t want to go out to eat with me a few days ago. Now you’re hiding food and blaming other people. Where’s all this progress we’re supposed to be seeing?”
“Did you even hear Willow?” I asked. “I. Didn’t. Do. It. Anyway, you guys don’t know what I’m doing in here! You don’t know how hard I’m working every day. How I’m eating and being honest. How I’m actually feeling better about this whole weight-gain thing.”
Most of the time.
“But you’re not following the rules.” Dad sounded confused. He kept looking at Willow like he expected her to yell at me. In my parents’ world, that’s what would have happened. When people break the rules, they get in trouble. When they’re not perfect, they’re scolded.
“That means you’re still sick.” Mom spoke like she was the therapist, like it was her job to deliver the verdict on whether I’m sick or not.
In her mind, maybe I’ll always be sick.
“Riley’s going to be sick for a while,” Willow said.
Mom and Dad smiled, like Willow was on their side. My mouth dropped open. “Hey!”
“I’m not blaming you, Riley,” Willow said. “And I’m not saying you’re not working hard. What I am saying is that you’re still sick. Would you agree with me on that point?”
Well, yeah.
Willow turned to Mom and Dad again. “Recovery is a journey,” she said. “It takes months, sometimes years. You can’t rush it.”
“Why not?” Dad grumbled under his breath. “It shouldn’t be that hard.” But I totally heard him. We all totally heard him.
“Recovery is hard.” Willow looked Dad in the eye. She stared at him until he looked away. But then the coolest thing happened—Willow waited for Dad to make eye contact with her again, like he was some misbehaving toddler who’d drawn on the wall with crayons. She waited and waited until he finally looked up.
“Thank you,” Willow said. “We all need to be part of this meeting for it to help you three. We all need to listen and learn.”
“I don’t need help,” said Mom. “Neither does Nathaniel. Riley’s the one with the problem.” Mom said problem like I had some weird disease that turned my skin blue with pink polka dots. Like I’d grown fangs and warts and smelled like a skunk who’d bathed in rotten milk.
“I don’t have a problem!” I exclaimed.
Mom raised her eyebrows. Dad sighed, that long-suffering sigh he does when someone from work texts him during dinner.
That’s when I started crying. “Okay, I do have a problem. I know I have a problem. But I’m trying. I’m the only one trying. Mom, you won’t stop dieting. Dad, you won’t talk to me. My friends hate me and Ali wants to ruin my life and my head keeps spinning. I can’t stop thinking and my body is growing and I don’t know what’s going on.”
There were so many tears. So much snot. I snorted a few times, too.
Mom didn’t say anything.
Dad didn’t say anything.
I didn’t say anything else.
“Recovery is hard.” Willow’s voice was soft, but we could all hear it. The only other noise in the room was the clock, counting down the minutes until my parents left me again. “Riley isn’t doing this on purpose. She doesn’t want to disobey the rules. She wants to recover.”
“I do!” I piped up.
“Then why is she still sick?” Here’s the weird part. Dad didn’t sound like he was blaming me. He didn’t sound like he was mad. He sounded scared, like I was one of the glass figurines Mom has on a shelf in the dining room and a light breeze would shatter me into pieces.
“Right now, Riley’s brain is wired to keep her sick,” Willow said. “Her body is, too. The chemicals in her head increase Riley’s anxiety when she breaks her old routines and tries new things. Since her body is underweight, it’s harder for her to use logic. So even though Riley’s trying, parts of her are pushing back. She’s going to make mistakes. That’s normal.”
“Normal,” I echoed.
“Riley’s not normal, though.” Willow smiled at me. “Riley is extraordinary. But her journey is normal. Riley, you’re not doing anything wrong. You’re working and eating, and I can tell from our sessions that you have a wonderful life ahead of you.”
It’s nice to have someone believe in me.
“You guys need to try, too.” It wasn’t Willow saying that, though. It was me! I couldn’t believe the words came out of my mouth. I imagined Mom and Dad stomping their feet and turning their backs on me. I imagined them disowning me for disrespect, packing up all my stuff and throwing it on the front lawn.
They didn’t do any of those things.
“Try how?” Mom asked.
“I don’t know what to do,” Dad said.
I waited for Willow to answer, but she looked at me. “Tell them,” she said.
So I told them how Mom’s diets made me feel. I told them how I thought Dad hated me. I told them how I’ve been drawing portraits and am nervous to show them.
“But aren’t I allowed to eat what I want?” Mom asked.
“I’ve been busy, Riley,” Dad said.
“We’d never judge your art, you know that,” Mom said.
I don’t know that. Except I didn’t get a chance to tell them that, because Mom started talking again.
“So you’re saying this is all our fault?” Mom looked at Willow the way I look at Willow, like she could reach out a sturdy tree branch and save our family from drowning. Willow’s not a savior, though. She’s not a superhero.
That’s what I’ve learned in here: we have to be our own superheroes.
“Mom—” I started.
“No.” Mom held up a hand. “I get the whole brain-chemicals stuff. But haven’t you been on medication? Aren’t there groups here? There has to be a point where the excuses stop. You can’t keep blaming your disease. Or your old roommate.”
“I’m not blaming anyone—”
“I still don’t believe you.” Mom pinched the skin between her eyes. “Just last week you told me you were doing better. We had that heart-to-heart, remember? What happened?”
“Stuff happened.” It wasn’t much of an answer, but it was the only one I had. My parents didn’t cause my eating disorder. My friends or Ali or running or the media didn’t, either. I got sick because of a whole list of ingredients poured into a pot. Sometimes I can taste one ingredient more than another, but everything contributes, along with a few extra ingredients I can’t quite identify.
I don’t know exactly why I got sick. I don’t know why it’s so hard to get better. All I know is that I have to move forward and figure out how to turn off the flame for good.
“You don’t just skip dinner because of stuff, Riley. You need to eat.”
“I know I need to eat! I am eating!” I wanted to scream at them and pound a pillowcase. I wanted to jump inside their heads and force them to see the truth.
But here’s the amazing thing: You know what I didn’t want to do? I didn’t want to run. I didn’t want to skip my next meal. I didn’t think about my body. I was totally focused on my parents and my anger.
I tried to explain what was happening in my head and how cool it was. Willow was proud. Mom and Dad were confused, but they at least congratulated me.
“I’m getting better,” I said. “I promise. Please don’t make me leave.”
“You’re not leaving,” Dad assured me. “You need to be here.”
“But can you afford to let me stay?”
I wanted them to tell me that I was worth more than all the money in the world. That I was priceless and important and they’d never give up on me.
“We’re okay as long as insurance is paying, honey,” Mom said. “You just need to get better. Stop lying. Stop breaking the rules.”
“I’m not lying. I didn’t hide that brownie. Why won’t you believe me? Willow does!”
“Willow doesn’t know you like we do. And Riley, you’ve lied to us a lot.” Mom said it gently, but her words burrowed under my skin like pointy, accusing needles.
Poke. Poke. Poke.
My parents are never going to change. They say they want me to get better. They say they love me. But they’re never going to change.
“Why’d you do it?” Ali and I were alone in the group room. The other girls were waiting for the bathroom, and Ali was engrossed in her book. I had to pee super badly, but it was the first chance I’d had to confront her. We weren’t alone at night anymore, and the counselors usually trailed her like the stink of BO follows the boys in my grade.
Now, though, it was just me and her. I could tell she wasn’t reading, either. She’d been on the same page forever.
“Why’d I do what?” Ali’s voice was laced with innocence, but the fake kind, the kind that oozes off Talia when she “compliments” me on my outfit:
“Wow! That shirt actually doesn’t make your arms look big.”
“Nice skinny jeans. You’re totally brave to wear them.”
I always stayed silent, even though what I wanted more than anything was to confront Talia or call her a jerk.
I was always too chicken to do that. I’m not chicken anymore, though.
“You hid food underneath my mattress. You got me in trouble.” I forced my voice not to tremble. It’s a good thing I have the very best willpower in the whole wide world.
“I didn’t.” Ali looked down at her book again. She turned the page. She was such a faker.
“You did. You’re the only one who was mad at me. It had to be you.”
“So what are you now, a detective? Little Miss Nancy Drew? Do you need a magnifying glass and a trench coat?”
“Whatever.” I turned around in my chair. I’d given Ali a chance to explain. To prove that, deep down, she did bad things because she was struggling. Because she was haunted by the same ghosts that visited me so often. But she still wanted to shut me out. She still wanted to be sick.
I can’t break through that brick wall. I know that from experience.
Then I heard Ali crying. First soft sobs, so quiet I thought it was the trees rustling outside. Then louder, the choking sobs I’ve cried so often myself.
“I don’t know why I did it,” she sobbed. “I was so afraid you’d tell on me about the crunches. Then I was so mad you did tell. So I did what I’ve done with my food a few times. But this time I put it in a different place. And I told Jean it was you.” Ali glared at me. “Now they won’t leave me alone. I have to follow all the rules.”
“You have to recover, you mean?”
Ugh. I sounded like a Goody-Two-shoes. I sounded as annoying as I thought everyone else did when I first got here. But we should follow the rules, right? As hard as it is, we do have to recover.
“You sounded like you were going to die.”
“I wasn’t going to die.” Ali rolled her eyes. “Everyone says I’m going to die, but I’m not.”
“Why don’t you believe them?”
“Because.”
“That’s not an answer.”
I knew what Ali meant, though, because I feel the same way. Yeah, I know eating disorders kill people, but I never think that could happen to me. I’m not a statistic. I’m stronger than my hunger. I’m invincible. I thought of Brenna and her superheroes again.
“We all have Kryptonite, you know.” I said it softly, more like I was talking to myself than to Ali.
“I don’t even know what that means.” Ali sniffled a whole bunch more. “You’re so weird.”
I didn’t take it as an insult, though. Today, I’m reclaiming weird as a compliment. Because weird doesn’t always have to be bad. Weird just means different, and different can be good.
Different means that I’m me.
“Don’t do it again,” I told Ali. I don’t know if I sounded fierce or if she’d really learned something, because she answered right away.
“I won’t. Never again.”