Willow says I can do this, but I feel like a baby getting ready to take her first steps. Emerson and Josie say they’ll help me if I wobble, but I’m the one who’s going to fall flat on her face, not them.
I don’t want to crawl forever, though. It’s only going to hold me back.
I can learn to walk.
Then I can learn to fly.
We’re in the restaurant now. This place is super dark. There are lamps over every table, but they’re dim and the rest of the restaurant is all shadowy. I don’t know how the waiters deliver their orders without tripping over something. Maybe they’ll drop my food and I won’t have to eat it. That’d be a great excuse for skipping dinner.
No! I don’t want to skip dinner. I have to eat dinner. I’m normal. Normal people eat at restaurants. They like eating at restaurants. I can totally be normal. Yep. Normal Riley, that’s me.
Emerson and Josie are in the bathroom now. Josie drank three cans of Diet Coke this afternoon and this is the second time she’s peed since we got here. She ordered another one when we got here. I had to order regular Coke.
I’m proud and annoyed at myself. I didn’t have to order regular soda. Emerson and Josie don’t know the rules, and no one at the hospital would ever find out. Even Emerson’s parents, who are sitting at a table across the room, don’t know about my meal plan.
I know, though.
My eating disorder voice is really loud out here. It’s like I was wearing headphones in the hospital—the chatter wasn’t silenced, but it was muffled. Now the world is turned to full volume.
There’s an entire section on the menu called “Skinnylicious,” which is pretty much the dumbest thing ever. I don’t want to be anything-licious. It’s all diet food and there are calories listed next to each option and I’m pretty much freaking out right now.
I forced myself to tell Emerson and Josie that I was nervous, that my brain was trying to convince me to change the meal order I had planned.
Emerson shrugged. “Then change your order. I bet everything tastes good.” Emerson doesn’t know what’s going on in my head, though. She doesn’t see the mental calculator adding up the numbers, comparing one choice to another. She doesn’t see the gears spinning so fast that all my logic and planning is going up in smoke. I don’t care about the taste. I care about the fact that I can’t stop seeing those Skinnylicious calories in my head, even though I turned the page. They’ll be there forever, like the Sharpie unicorn I drew on the kitchen wall when I was six.
Then Josie surprised me. “You planned something with your nutritionist, right?”
I nodded. I knew that if I talked, I’d cry.
“Is it on the menu?”
I nodded again. I pointed to the third page. “There.”
“Then order that.”
It sounded so simple. Maybe it was so simple.
“Do you want me to order it, too?” Josie asked.
Maybe Josie does understand. Well, as much as anyone without an eating disorder can understand.
“You don’t have to.” She shouldn’t have to. I know that I need to learn how to eat in the real world. I know that people won’t always be ordering the same meals as me.
“I want to,” Josie said.
“And if we eat it, you’ll know it’s okay,” Emerson said. “Yummy, too!”
I felt like a baby, but maybe I am a baby when it comes to eating. At least I don’t have to eat pureed carrots.
We all ordered from the non-Skinnylicious menu. And you know what? It was yummy.
Emerson and Josie wanted to dress up for tonight, even though we had no idea what the dress code was. Or what professional artists wear. They could wear funky T-shirts with pictures of superheroes on them or satin ball gowns with stilettos. We went for something in-between.
“Skirts!” Emerson pulled a bunch out of her closet. Mom had dropped me off right from the hospital, after making me promise a billion times that I’d “follow the rules.”
“Dresses, too!” Josie had brought some of her clothes over. Mom had packed up some of my old stuff, too.
“We need to look older. Professional.”
Josie nodded. “So the famous people take us seriously.”
I didn’t want to dress up, but they convinced me with squeals and music and an impromptu dance party. With makeup, too. I took it off right after I looked in the mirror, though. I had so much eye shadow on that I looked like a purple raccoon. I felt fake.
I don’t want to be fake anymore.
What I wanted to do was wear my sweatpants and fuzzy socks, like I’ve been doing for the last two months. I didn’t want to try to squeeze into my old clothes. I knew nothing would fit, and I was right. My favorite dress was too tight in the hips. None of my jeans zipped or buttoned. My shirts squeezed me like a hug. I ended up borrowing something of Josie’s. Her clothes didn’t feel strange, either. They fit. They were comfortable. They were right for my new body. I felt confident.
So why am I hiding in a bathroom stall right now? Why did I run out of the art show?
I told Emerson and Josie I had to pee. I almost asked them for permission. Then when I did pee, I had to stop myself from counting out loud. I would have totally scared the lady in the stall next to me. She’s gone now, though. She washed her hands and left. I’m still here. It’s quiet and peaceful, even if it does smell like that gross lemon air freshener that gives me a headache.
There are so many people out there. Kids with perfect posture who strut around like they’ve won every award in the world. Kids with cool clothes who probably sweat creativity. Adults with shiny shoes and pictures hung in shiny frames. There are signs pointing to ceramics classes upstairs and still-life classes downstairs, acrylics down one wing and metalwork down another.
I want to try everything.
I want to hand my portfolio to every teacher who walks by.
I want to hide my portfolio forever.
We pooled our money so I could buy twenty entries into the raffle. I want to win, but what if it turns out that I’m talentless and pathetic? I’d have to give up drawing then, and I need to draw. It’s the one thing that makes me feel normal. It’s the only thing I have left.