by Vivian Wood
“I feel like I failed her,” he said. He’d had one quarter of an hour to think about his first line, and that was the best he’d come up with.
“An eating disorder is a mental disorder,” Joon-ki said gently. “One of the deadliest and most underdiagnosed. For all you know, your support partially helped her find the strength to seek out help. And I’m guessing that she’s suffered from anorexia for several years. How could you have failed her?”
“I didn’t see,” Sean said quietly. “She was right. She was … so scared that I’d up and leave her because she wasn’t going to be a model anymore. She’s terrified she’ll get fat. And maybe she’s right.”
Joon-ki raised a brow at him, but didn’t say anything. He’d never judge.
“Not that I’d leave her. Or that she’ll get fat, not that that matters,” Sean said quickly. “But maybe she’s right that I fell for her because of how she looks.”
“Sean, that’s natural! There’s nothing wrong with being attracted to the person you’re with. Or for that being the driving factor when you first meet. You don’t have to be a martyr, and go around seeking out people you’re intentionally unattracted to just to prove something.”
He sighed. “I know, but maybe I did something that made her feel like her looks are all that mattered.”
“I can promise you that it was society that did that. And the industry she’s been in for however many years now. Sean,” Joon-ki said as he reached across the table and gently touched his forearm. “I don’t mean for this to sound rude, but don’t you think it’s a little egotistical to think that you drove a girl to an eating disorder after just a few weeks?”
He could feel his ears burn. “Well, when you put it like that …”
“It’s really easy for us to blame ourselves when somebody we love struggles with something like this. Will you be going to therapy with her?”
“I think so. At least sometimes.”
“Then whatever issues may have impacted her disorder will be addressed and hashed out there, with a professional mediating. Just save these fears and feelings for those sessions. Not that you can’t talk to me, of course. I’m glad that you trust me. I just want to make sure you bring this up in therapy, too.”
“Yeah,” Sean said as he nodded. “I will.”
“Just remember that it’s not about how you feel. Her process is about how she feels. She’ll be fragile right now, so just protect her to the best of your ability.”
“Thanks for the reality check,” Sean said. “I needed that.”
“Should we head to the meeting?” Joon-ki asked as he finished the coffee to the dregs.
“Let’s do it.” They stood up and Joon-ki clapped him on the shoulder as they headed to the church across the street.
20
Harper
Harper put down the toilet lid and sank onto the hard plastic seat. Outside, her escort, a girl whose name she’d already forgotten, waited patiently by the sinks. Harper could see her shoes with their thick soles, but nothing else. The girl listened for the sounds of gagging.
Day three of rehabilitation and it ate away at her. She hadn’t expected it to be so hard. Of course she knew it wouldn’t be easy, but this was like being drawn and quartered. For the past six hours in group, she’d been slammed with everyone’s stories. She’d expected that—but what she hadn’t expected was to see so much of herself reflected in them.
There was Billy the ballet dancer, who everyone quickly dubbed Billy Elliott. Today, he talked about the time he’d restricted himself so severely for three days before a performance that when it came down to it he couldn’t even dance. He’d wanted to look flawless in his skintight, beige costume and hadn’t even brushed his teeth for seventy-two hours because he thought a drop of water might make its way down his throat. The lack of food and water had punched up his insomnia. When he’d arrived at the performance, he hadn’t slept in thirty-five hours and had passed out before he could even get his costume on.
“That was my last chance, that’s what the director said.” He said it so matter-of-factly, like everyone got kicked out of one of the best dance companies in the world. Billy didn’t look older than nineteen, and his life was already over. And here I am complaining about not modeling for another decade.
There was the forty-three-year-old mother of two who traced her anorexia to the year her second daughter was born. “It started out, you know, normal. I just wanted to lose the baby weight,” she said with a shrug. “I was thirty-six at the time and certainly didn’t fit the mold of what an anorexic should look like.”
“Anoretic,” one of the thinnest girls replied. Nobody liked that girl, and it wasn’t just that she tried to play therapist. Harper had instantly sized herself up against everyone in the room and knew this girl’s thighs were at least half her size.
“It doesn’t matter,” the group leader, a doctor decorated with three degrees, said. “Please continue.”
The mother sighed. “I mean look at me!” she said. “I was closer to forty than thirty, half-black, not exactly rich … who would have thought I’d get an eating disorder? I mean, I know anyone can have an eating disorder,” she corrected herself quickly. “But, you know, I just didn’t think it would happen to me. I just … it started with a diet. With working out more. I hadn’t been to a gym in like four years. And when I got to my first goal weight, why not set it even lower? I was getting attention from men who weren’t my husband for the first time since college. All these women were telling me how great I was looking … and then that I was too thin. To eat a cheeseburger and all that. And that’s what really felt good. You know? Women, they stop complimenting you when you turn into a threat.”
That hit home for Harper. It was true. Women were quick to pile on the compliments to fat women. Your tits are amazing! You have such a pretty face. But when you were really hot? They got nasty. It was how you could tell you looked good.
“Harper?” the group lead asked as she turned to her. “Is there anything you’d like to share today?”
“Um … no. If that’s okay,” she said.
“Of course. It’s a good idea to listen during your first week. Observation is a great way to get your feet wet.”
“Harper? Are you okay?” The escort’s voice sounded like a boom in the otherwise unoccupied bathroom.
“Uh, yeah!” Harper said. “One minute.” She thought about flushing the toilet, but didn’t bother. The girl knew she hadn’t done anything in there anyway.
When she emerged, she was greeted with a small but kind smile. “If you ever just need to get away while you’re here, decompress, you can always go into one of the meditation rooms,” the girl said. “Trust me, they’re a lot more comfortable than the bathroom.”
“Thanks,” Harper said. She used the last of her day’s strength to offer up her own smile.
She made her way into the bright sunlight and was thankful for the familiar scent of her car. For the first two days, Sean had driven her, but she felt guilty. Why should he spend his day chauffeuring her around? Outpatient was supposed to help keep life as normal as possible.
Exhaustion spread through her, all the way to the marrow, on the short drive home.
“How was it?” Sean asked when she walked inside. He had his feet up on the coffee table and a sketch pad in his lap.
“Tiring,” she said. “It’s going to be an early night for me.”
“Sounds good to me,” he said. “You want some tea?”
“No, thanks,” she said. “I think I’m just gonna lie down for awhile.”
“Okay. Let me know if you need anything. I’ll be out here with my charcoal.”
She ran her fingers through his thick dark hair as she walked to her bedroom. Harper was surprised at how unobtrusive he was. How he could balance on the precipice between caring and respectful. She’d somewhat expected him to go all in on therapy, but since the first day he’d kept a watchful distance. It was nice to be able to come home and not re
live the past however many hours of therapy she’d endured.
As soon as she flopped on her bed, she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep. Instead, the stories from group just kept knocking around in her head. There was another model in the group, though her career had largely been in London. She’d moved to her aunt’s house in Hollywood to get away from the scene that had nurtured her bulimia and anorexia.
She was pretty, fair, and still a teenager—the epitome of the kind of girl who starved herself. “I don’t really know when it started,” she said with a shrug. “I … like I remember my mum talking about liquid diets when I was around ten. I asked her if I could do it, too, and she said alright. I don’t think I really wanted to lose weight then, you know? It just sounded fun, like a challenge. And very adult.”
“Can you recall the first time you did take action toward restricting to alter your body?” the therapist said.
“Not really,” the girl said. “But I remember the first time I was really aware of what fat was. My mum, I think she always talked about how you could tell if a girl was prone to fat by her upper arms. I think I was in … second grade, I think you call it here. Like seven years old. I’d never thought of that before,” she said with another shrug. “But I started looking at other girls in class. And at myself. I practiced holding my arm away from me in the mirror so it wouldn’t get all pressed and fatter looking. You know? And then … we had these kind of lavish school lunches. It was a private school, kind of posh. But very English, with lots of meats and fat and everything. I started only eating the veggies, fruits and bread. Then eventually just a couple bits of the vegetables.”
“And how did your classmates react to this? Your teachers?”
“They didn’t,” she said simply. “I mean, I got good at making up excuses to ‘eat’ in various study places or whatever. I … I never had that many friends. So it’s not like it was hard to keep it a secret.”
Harper knew how that felt. She couldn’t recall a single good friend from her childhood. “Models don’t need friends,” her mom always said. “Why bother? You’ll be flying off to shoots when they’re talking about what to wear to homecoming.”
A lot of the girls in the group drove away everyone around them—or at least everyone who could possibly help them. Instead, they held tight to the ones who encouraged their restriction. Almost every time, if there was another person involved, it was their mother. Although sometimes it was a boyfriend. One who called them fat and worthless, so they tried to buy his approval with their life.
She needed something to busy her mind. I don’t want to be like them, she thought. She grabbed The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt from the shelf. It had collected dust for months. If she could escape into the life of an orphaned boy enthralled in the art world, maybe she could stop thinking about fat, calories, and the skeletons that talked around her all afternoon.
Sean looked up when she shuffled into the living room and sat across from him, but he didn’t speak. He went back to drawing.
Harper cracked open the book and breathed in its scent. It was nice, this cozy silence. She realized she’d never had that before, not with anyone in her life. She’d always been in the midst of a cacophony of noise, and had assumed that it was natural. What will it be like, letting my own thoughts, my own voice, emerge?
21
Sean
His eyes had started to grow tired. Looking for commercial real estate in Los Angeles is the job of a broker, he thought to himself. Still, when Connor had asked him to scout some spaces for the company, he’d been quick to agree. He needed to prove himself to his brother, to show that he could be an important part of the startup.
Plus, if he could find the perfect space, it might encourage Connor and Sam to move to the West Coast faster. Sean had started to think that maybe they’d just set up shop on the East Coast. Their baby wasn’t even here yet and they were already getting into nesting mode. What if the idea of moving seemed like too much once the baby was born? Sean didn’t know if he even had a job in the company if they stayed back east—or if he’d be able to move.
Harper had started to adjust to the almost-daily outpatient visits, and he wasn’t going to ask her to switch facilities. He certainly wouldn’t put the stress of moving on her. Besides, who knew if she’d even want to move if he asked?
The door slammed shut and Sean looked up with a start. “Hey,” he said as he glanced at the time. “I didn’t realize how late it was. How was it today?”
She shook her head, but he knew that look. Harper tried valiantly to hold it all together. “How’d it go?” she repeated. “It’s fucking day five of rehab and … never mind.”
He wanted to push, to prod, but he knew better. In between the constant hunt for real estate, he’d seasoned his day with researching eating disorders. He didn’t know what she was upset about, but knew that there would be a lot of inky emotions erupting from her for awhile. There was no telling what they’d talked about today, and their joint sessions hadn’t even been scheduled yet.
Harper opened her mouth to say something, but slammed it shut again. Instead, she went to the sink and filled a glass with water. He felt her eyes as they stole glances in his direction, but he had to wait it out. Let her come to you, he told himself. She’ll talk when she’s ready.
But she finished the glass of water and lingered by the sink.
“What?” he finally asked as he looked her in the eye.
She bit her lip and shook her head. Sean stood up and went to her, but she busied herself with excessively rinsing the glass.
“You can talk to me. If you want,” he said gently as he rubbed her arm.
“You’d better sit back down,” she said.
“Is this … Harper, is everything okay?”
“You’d better sit down,” she repeated.
He sucked in his breath as they both perched precariously on the edge of the sofa. Sean searched her face for clues, but found nothing. “Sean, I love you. You know that--”
“Are you breaking up with me?” he asked. It sounded like a breakup speech, and his heart sank. Less than a week in rehab and she’d already identified the problem, he thought to himself.
“No!” she said. “Don’t be weird. Just … let me get this out.”
“Okay,” he said, though a big part of him didn’t want to hear whatever speech she’d prepared.
“I thought … I thought we were being safe. But …” she trailed off and stared at the exposed brick wall. Tears started to stream down her face, but they were silent.
“Safe?” he asked with a shake of his head. “Safe … hold on. Are you … are you pregnant?”
She nodded, and the floodgates opened. With an open-mouthed sob, it all poured out.
“Are you sure?” he asked, though he knew it was a stupid question. Not only was she obviously sure, but so was he. He’d never considered it before and had assumed she was on birth control. A baby was so far out of reach for what he’d imagined his life to hold, it had never even crossed into the equation. But a baby? The idea of it felt right. Especially with her.
“Say something,” she said between sobs.
“I … I never wanted kids. If I’m being honest,” he said. Her cries cracked the silence in the room. “But, hey!” he said as he moved across the couch to close the space between them. “Sorry, I’m bad at this. I didn’t mean it like that. I mean it’s … exciting. Don’t you think?”
“Exciting?” she asked. Harper had pulled the long sleeves down over her hands and pressed a cotton-encased fist against her cheeks to dry them.
“Well, yeah! I was serious when I said it was up to you with what our lives would be. That is, if you want to keep it. That’s why you’re telling me, right?”
“I don’t … I don’t know,” she said.
“Of course you know.”
“You’re right,” she said, and a slip of a smile appeared on her face. “I do know. I want to keep it. God, I haven’t said that out loud yet.”
>
“It’s, you know, a little earlier than I would have expected. If I’d been expecting it at all. But what can you do? We’ve never been the most conventional couple.” He wrapped his arms around her and breathed in the scent of her hair as she nuzzled into his chest. A fresh wave of sobs began to rock through her. “Hey,” he said softly. “What is it? Isn’t this supposed to be a happy moment?”
“It is,” she said with a half-laugh, half-cry. “It’s just … the baby is why I’m in rehab.”
“Oh,” he said. “That makes sense. How long have you—never mind. It doesn’t matter.”
“We were talking about the importance of truth in group today,” she said. Harper pulled herself up and let him wipe away the tears. “Not just being truthful to ourselves, but to everyone important in our lives. And I just needed to tell you. You know?” she asked.
“I know.”
“I’ve been trying for a couple of weeks now to figure out the right way to say it, and I just couldn’t come up with anything. There’s no great way to say it, especially when you don’t know how it will be received.”
“You didn’t think I’d be happy?” he asked, wholly amazed.
“I didn’t know,” she said with a shake of her head. “I didn’t even know if I was happy about it for a long time. I … you know, I worried. First about getting fat, even though logically I know that’s stupid. But also about the baby. Like, how could I give a baby proper nourishment when I can’t even do that for myself? I didn’t have my period for so long. So many models have miscarriages, so there was that.”
“You’ll be a great mom,” he said. “You already are. Look at you. Prioritizing your health. You’re doing everything right.”
“I am,” she said. He couldn’t tell if it was a question or a statement, but either way he saw the certainty settle into her face.
Sean kissed her forehead. “I’ll be the first to say maybe the timing isn’t perfect. It’s not convenient. But when has anything about our relationship been perfect or convenient?”
