Not Just a Number: A Young Adult Contemporary Novel

by Sara Michaels

  I loved Ryan to bits, but I really wished he wasn’t so right all the time. Every excuse I came up with in my head came to naught. I could not talk myself into a good reason that I should continue on this path. I also could not talk myself into a good reason to not tell my mom. I was hobbling down the road, relying on my friend to keep me upright. The time had come to admit defeat.

  As my house came into view, I felt relieved again. The sight of it was like the entrance to a warm, safe cocoon.

  In the last few weeks, I had turned it into a battle zone with myself, but its comfort stood fast, like it was just patiently waiting for the real Abby to come back home. I didn’t know whether the real Abby was about to walk through the threshold, or whether it was still the disordered Abby. Maybe it was a combination of the two. Maybe it didn’t matter. All I knew was that as soon as I entered that house, everything would be okay.

  No matter what happened, it would all eventually be okay.

  I realized with a fresh jolt of pain that I would not have this warm cocoon to return to for very long. Where would I go for comfort and stability when I was in Chicago? Ryan would be there, of course, but I could not rely on him for everything. It was bad enough I had pulled him in so deeply into this mess. He would probably hook up with a girlfriend as soon as we got there and he met all those amazing college girls and forget all about me. Just because no one at school had tickled his fancy didn’t mean that he was going to stay single so that I could moon over him for the rest of his life. College girls were a lot more mature. He would be mingling with girls that had similar interests to him. I just knew that I would lose him to one of them.

  Ryan opened the front door and walked closely to me as we made our way into the kitchen. Had we been in any other situation, I would have been embarrassed at all the physical contact we’d had in the last hour. It felt right, though. Nothing about Ryan holding me felt awkward. Plus, if he didn’t, I would fall over on my face, so there was that.

  He pulled out a stool for me at the breakfast bar, and I did not object. My mom was not home yet, but she would be soon.

  “Okay,” he said, turning away and opening the fridge, a blast of cold air flooding over us both, “we need to get some food in you.” The thought filled me with horror.

  No, we really didn’t! Had I not suffered enough?

  Then he turned to me. “I am waiting here with you until your mom gets home. I really think you need to tell her as soon as possible, Abby.”

  I had hoped I could at least sleep first. I was so exhausted that I was quite sure I wouldn’t be able to even string a sentence together, never mind admit my deepest, darkest secret to my mom. Maybe I would fall asleep on the kitchen counter, and when I woke up everything would have been a bad dream.

  “When she gets here, I’ll leave the room so that you two can talk privately, but you have to do it.” He looked at me so intently that I was worried I would cry again. I was all over the place emotionally, and I was glad when he turned away from me again to continue eyeing what was in the fridge. “Eggs?” I didn’t understand that he was actually asking me if I wanted them until he held up the egg carton questioningly.

  “Ew, no.” My stomach turned at the thought. “Nothing so big.” I remembered a time when I would polish off two eggs, bacon, and toast for breakfast and still eat lunch and dinner without a problem. Now even one egg with no toast seemed an insurmountable challenge.

  Undeterred, he continued calling out food items for my approval. “Cheese sandwich?”

  “Too much bread.”

  “Yep, sandwiches are pretty bready,” Ryan joked.

  I couldn’t help but laugh. There was that helpful humor of his again.

  “Leftover curry?”

  It had been too hot for me the first time round and had burned my completely empty stomach. I was also pretty sure we had eaten that five nights ago, so it should probably go in the bin. My mom was a bit of a leftover hoarder.

  “Abby, seriously!” He was exasperated now, and I felt bad. I was acting like a child. I hung my head, which only made me feel like I was sulking even more.

  “There’s Cup-a-Soup in the cupboard,” I said softly. “The chicken one is nice.”

  “Good idea!” Ryan seemed relieved that he was not going to have to force me to eat something I hadn’t suggested. He filled the kettle and placed it over the gas to start heating. “Where are your mugs again?” He stood in front of the row of kitchen cupboards, his hand moving from handle to handle indecisively. My mom moved them around a lot, and he had made the mistake of opening the wrong cupboard a few times, so now he just asked whenever he wanted anything.

  “Second one on the left.” I directed him to the cupboard that held our mugs and coffee-making supplies.

  He picked out my mug without having to ask which one it was—white with little pink bunnies on it—and selected one for himself that he knew guests would usually use. I loved that he knew me well enough to know which mug was mine. He really was an amazing friend.

  The kettle whistled on the stove, and Ryan flicked the switch off to kill the blue flame that licked the underside of the kettle. He tore the packets of Cup-a-Soup open, emptying the fragrant powdered contents of each into a mug, and then filled the cups with boiling water. The spoon clinked against the side of the mugs as he stirred, and the aroma of chicken soup wafted over to me. I hadn’t known until the last few weeks that food could smell good and gross at the same time.

  I knew that the grossed-out reaction probably came from this thing that was trying to convince me I needed not to eat.

  Ryan sniffed the contents of his mug. “Mmm, that does smell good!” He put my mug in front of me, and I placed my hands around it, taking in its warmth.

  “I really do feel cold,” I said, motioning to my jacket in a desperate attempt for him to know that I was not lying about everything—just everything related to food and exercise, and perhaps a few other things that I had to lie about to make the food and exercise lies work. I groaned inwardly.

  “I’m sure you do. You probably don’t have any body fat left on you to keep you warm. Your body processes must be all out of whack.”

  I sipped the soup and resisted the urge to count how many calories each sip contained. Just drink the soup, Abigail, I thought. I just wanted to be in the moment and not have my mind racing about a hundred different possibilities that every mouthful of food contained.

  “Good, right?” he asked. I smiled wanly at him. What had I ever done to deserve a friend like Ryan?

  We sat in comfortable silence as I sipped my soup, feeling my insides start to come alive at the introduction of sustenance. It still occasionally felt wrong. Part of me still wanted to toss the rest of the soup down the drain, order Ryan to get out of my house, and go work out, but most of me just wanted to be sitting there with Ryan, enjoying a snack like a normal person. Like a person that did not have a disorder, like normal Abby.

  Every time I formed the word in my mind, I balked. That other part of me questioned who Ryan thought he was to be diagnosing me with an eating disorder. I wanted to snap at him that he was acting like he was a licensed therapist and not just a high school kid like me.

  The Professor Ryan quip sprung to mind. That was completely unfair, though, and I knew it. In the core of me, no matter how hard this thing fought to take back control, I knew that everything Ryan had said and done was out of love.

  We both heard the tires of my mom’s car crunch the gravel in the driveway at the same time. I briefly hoped it was UPS instead, but I knew the sound of my mom’s car.

  Ryan gave me a comforting smile and reached for my hand. “You can do this, Abby.” His touch sent a jolt through my body. He had touched me more that day than in the entire time we had been friends. I mean, I had my head in his lap!

  My face flushed at the thought. Could I do this, though? He seemed very convinced, but I was not.

  I set my mug down on the counter as I heard the front door open. I could pictu
re my mom dropping her handbag on the couch and then making her way toward the kitchen, but my heart still jumped when she pushed open the door.

  She eyed Ryan holding my hand with interest, but he didn’t pull his away, instead squeezing my hand comfortingly, transferring his strength to me. I was going to need it because looking at my mom standing in front of me, I didn’t think that I could do this.

  “Hey, Ryan!” my mom said kindly. She had always loved Ryan and thought he was a great kid and friend to me.

  “Hey, Lorraine.” Ryan said brightly. My mom didn’t like the “Mrs. Hall” thing, and even though that was how Ryan had started out, just like Jacob, he was soon told to call her by her name. He’d confided in me that it felt weird because he’d always been taught to call adults by more respectful titles. His dad was one of those people who called anyone he didn’t personally know ‘ma’am’ and ‘sir.’ “How was your day at work?”

  My mom kissed me on the top of my head and cast an eye over my face. It was one of those “mom scanner” looks that somehow managed to sum you up in just one look. A flash of concern passed through her eyes, and I figured that I must look like hell. She said nothing about it, though, and replied to Ryan. “It was good, thanks. Very hectic, but good. We have a rather big project on the go, so everyone is in full gear.” She smiled, then trying to dig in an attempt to uncover what she was sensing happening. “And you two? How was school today?”

  Ryan took this as an opportunity to start the conversation that I really did not want to have because he knew very well I would back out if given half the chance. In fact, even as he spoke, I was considering bolting. I was feeling a lot stronger physically now after the soup. I could probably make it upstairs, or even out the door before either Ryan or Mom stopped me.

  I could not do that to Ryan, though. It would look so weak to leave him holding the bag. I would have to come slinking back sometime anyway.

  “Well, actually, school itself was fine, but Abby needs to talk to you about something.”

  The concern returned to my mom’s eyes, and she pulled out a chair and sat down. This was actually happening. “Okay,” she said with uncertainty about whether it really was ‘okay’. “What’s up, guys?” She looked at me, and Ryan slipped off his chair.

  I wanted to scream at him not to leave me alone with my mom and my secrets, but instead I just looked at him imploringly, hoping that he really could read my mind.

  He seemed to be able to do that. “I’m going to give you guys some space.”

  Now my mom really looked worried, and I stared down into my soup. I had managed most of it, but there were a few sips still left at the bottom of the cup starting to congeal. I suddenly thought that I was really glad Ryan had not offered me bread with my soup.

  Mom was going to be so disappointed in me. My deceit was going to break her heart, I was sure of it. I had never had to speak to her about something like this before, and I had no idea where to even begin. There was silence in the kitchen except for the ticking of the clock on the wall.

  “Abby?” my mom eventually said. “You guys are worrying me. What’s going on?”

  I could not form the words, and even if I could, I didn’t know exactly what I was supposed to be saying. I thought I might have a problem? I didn’t even know what to call it. Ryan had called it an eating disorder but that sounded far too over the top. I had seen pictures of girls with eating disorders, and I didn’t look like that. It wasn’t really a disorder, was it? It was just this other part of me, this voice, telling me I needed to look better, be better, and try harder. Constantly. What was wrong with trying to be better?

  Ryan took a deep breath and sat back down in his chair. “I’m sorry, Abby. I’m worried that you aren’t going to do this.”

  My mom looked from me to Ryan and back again. Just say it, I thought. Just tell her. No, wait, don’t tell her! Oh my gosh, maybe I was losing my mind.

  I don’t know which part of me nodded my head in agreement that he speak the words, but before I knew it, he was speaking again. “Lorraine, Abby passed out on the way home from school today.”

  My mom immediately gasped in that way that moms did when they thought their children could be hurt. “What? Abby, are you okay?” She held a hand up to my forehead, the universal test for fever, and cupped my face in her hands. She studied me as though the answers to every question lay in the bags under my eyes and my parched lips. “You do look pale. I thought so when I came in. I’ll make an appointment with the doctor.” She started to get up, and Ryan stopped her with a hand on her arm.

  “No, Mrs. H—Lorraine. There’s more.” I felt so bad for Ryan. Not only was I putting him through all this worry, but now he had to try to have this conversation on my behalf because I was too weak to do it myself.

  My mom stopped and sat back down, now wholly confused. “More?” she asked. The word was a ream of questions on its own.

  Ryan inhaled deeply again. I could not look at him. “I think she needs help.”

  Help. The universal code for white jackets and padded rooms. That was the other part of me thinking that, I knew, the part that had gotten me into this situation in the first place. I was so tired.

  “Well, yes, so let me call a doctor.” Her words came out slowly, like she was trying to get us and herself to understand.

  “I think she might be anorexic.” He just blurted it out, like the words had been burning his tongue and if he did not get it out at that very moment, a pain buried deep in his stomach would swallow him up whole. The statement hung in the air like a hollow-point bullet. It was impossible to know where it was going to strike, but there was no doubt it was going to cause a massive amount of devastation and pain when it did.

  “Anorexic?” My mother said it like the word was part of a foreign language.

  To be fair, it was. I did not think it was a word we had ever said in our house. We had never needed to. It was like any other syndrome, disease, or disorder that didn’t seem real until it visited your doorstep. The word was part of someone else’s life, until it was suddenly a part of yours. I wondered if this was what Kya’s family had gone through when her mom had been diagnosed with cancer—the acceptance of this alien word that had suddenly turned their lives upside down.

  The room filled with silence again, but I could almost hear the gears in my mom’s head turning as the reality sunk in. “Of course.” She spoke with such understanding that I looked up at her, and my heart broke at the terror in her eyes. “How could I have missed this?” She shook her head at herself. “You always say that you’ve eaten breakfast, but I’ve never checked. I never thought to.”

  And you shouldn’t have had to, I thought. Who the hell lies about breakfast?

  I wanted to bury my head in my hands and sob. The tears could wash away my pain. I wanted to run up to my room and leave the two of them to figure this out. They could fight the alien; I had no strength left to do so.

  Mom continued, “I always assume that you were eating dinner, but I never actually saw you eating, or looked out for it, and you have had all these weird food aversions recently. Suddenly you didn’t like foods that you used to love.” She was not saying these things to anyone in particular. It was her way of putting together the pieces of what, she now realized, was a shattered reality. The picture she’d had of her daughter, and her happy family life, now lay smashed on the floor in a million pieces. I had done that, and I could not put the picture back together now. “How did I not see this?” She repeated the phrase softly to herself several times, and I wondered for a moment if I may have driven her to madness. Perhaps it had all been too much for her and she had gone off the edge along with me.

  At least we would be together in our madness, I thought.

  Suddenly, she stood up and pulled me into her arms with such force that I almost fell off my chair. She hugged me tighter than I ever thought possible. It was like she was holding onto me instead of just holding me. Desperately trying to stop me from slipping away
from her.

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” I eventually managed in a broken voice.

  She shook her head vehemently. “No, Abby, honey. You do not have to be sorry. You have had so much going on in the last few months, and clearly you needed help managing your feelings. Mental health challenges are no one’s fault.”

  Mental health challenges. I wouldn’t say sorry for having diabetes or a cold, so it made sense that, in a way, this wasn’t really my fault. I had allowed it to continue, though, and I had made the choice to allow it to progress to this point and not ask for help. There were elements of it that I enjoyed too, and that was possibly the strangest part.

  “I just can’t believe I didn’t see this.” My mom was sitting with her hand over her mouth. I felt terrible for making her feel like this. She couldn’t have known, really. I had been so good at hiding it from everyone, even myself. I wanted to tell her that, but I was not ready to admit the depths of my shame.

  Ryan had said the words, but I was not strong enough to elaborate yet. “Lorraine, you can’t blame yourself.” Ryan’s voice of reason arose. He had been so quiet after eventually getting those horrible words out that I had almost forgotten he was there. “I didn’t put the pieces together until today either, and I see her the whole day at school.”

  My mom smiled at him. “Thank you, Ryan, for being there for Abby. You have no idea how much I appreciate this. Goodness knows what could have happened if you were not with her today.” I knew that her mom-brain was running through all the disasters that she could have come home to, perhaps the worst disaster of all being that she hadn’t found out and I had been allowed to continue on my destructive path.

  We sat at the breakfast bar until the light started to fade from the sky and darkness filled the kitchen. We let it go dark, and no one got up to switch on the light.

  Ryan had messaged his mom to say he would be home a bit late.

  I was grateful for his presence.

  He spoke about the various things that had led him to the conclusion that I could have an eating disorder. It was all laid out bare. He spoke about me not eating lunch at school, skipping milkshakes, and always wearing a coat even when it was not cold. All of those things combined with my declining physical appearance had set alarm bells off in his head. It turned out that his cousin had an eating disorder several years before.