What I Lost

by Alexandra Ballard

  Or terrible. “Yeah,” I lied. “They are so great.”

  She put another one on. The guy begged to get what he wanted, and Margot studied me. “You have no idea who the Smiths are, do you?”

  “No,” I admitted. “I don’t.” Katrina made fun of me all the time for my lack of music knowledge.

  Margot snorted. “I knew it. You are a terrible liar. Want to listen with me? They’re really good.”

  “I guess. I mean, sure. I’d like to. But can I ask you a question?”

  “Okay.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “At Wallingfield?” Her face closed.

  “No!” I said, trying to open it again. “I mean, why did you come to see me?”

  “Oh,” she said, tucking her dull hair behind her unpierced ears. “I came because I was rude when you came to see me. Sorry about that. And I remembered you.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah. You were nice to me. Not all the girls were.”

  “Oh.” I remembered. No one had wanted to stand next to Margot at the barre. Everybody wanted to stand next to this girl Jessica, who had a fancy glitter leotard and rhinestone clips in her shiny brown bun. Margot—Merry back then—was probably the only girl not trying to get a place next to her. Jessica didn’t like that. “Merry has cooties,” she announced. After that, no one would go near her. I wanted to stand next to Jessica, too, but I got shoved out of the way by a girl in a baby-blue leotard and matching tights. I ended up next to Margot, who smiled at me. I’d smiled back and asked her if she knew how to do a cartwheel. We’d stood next to each other for every class after that. “Yeah, so thanks for being nice.”

  “You’re welcome?”

  She nodded, smiled, hit replay, and the guy started singing again. “Okay, so, the Smiths. Let me tell you about the Smiths.”

  And that’s how I made friend number three.

  15

  That afternoon I met Sally to plan my menu for the next week. I couldn’t wait to be able to finally have some control over my meals, but at the same time, making so many food choices at once seemed impossible. It was food overload.

  We met in the therapy wing, in a room barely large enough for two chairs and a desk. The walls were painted light blue. Soothing, of course. I felt better the minute I met her. Something about her gray bob and silver-rimmed glasses and general grandma vibe made me feel safe. When she said it was the end of veggie burgers, hummus, and pita unless I asked for them, I could have hugged her.

  “When you start to refeed, there’s a risk of getting sick from too much food too fast,” she explained. “We call it refeeding syndrome. So with new patients, we gradually increase as the week progresses.”

  The good feelings from a moment before vaporized. I shook my head, not quite understanding. “You mean the last five days were just a warm-up?”

  “Well,” she said carefully, “not exactly a warm-up.”

  “But what you’re saying is that I have to eat even more next week?”

  “Yes. But, Elizabeth, before you—”

  No. The panic started in my jaw. I clenched my teeth so hard they shifted in my gums. “I can’t do it. I can’t eat more.”

  I don’t know why I was surprised. I knew that’s how these places worked, but even so. It’s like I’d thought that if I was in control of my meals, I’d all of a sudden be able to cure myself while limiting my food to 800 calories a day.

  Sally nodded, her smile full of sympathy. “I’m sorry, hon, but you don’t really have a choice.”

  I knew she was right. I forced my jaw to loosen. “Okay, then, let’s get it over with.”

  For my three meals and three snacks each day, I needed a certain number of what they called exchanges, which were basically premeasured portions of different types of food: vegetables, fruit, protein, milk, fat, and starch (carbs). Simple enough.

  Then I saw how many exchanges I had to fill each day:

  Protein: 6

  Starch: 10

  Fruit: 11

  Dairy: 3

  Fat: 10

  That was a total of forty. Effing forty. And no veggies. Yes, that’s right. Zero vegetables besides lettuce for salad. “They take up too much space in your stomach,” Sally said. “During refeeding we focus on denser foods. We’ll introduce veggies at a later date, I promise.”

  Here’s how it all broke down on paper:

  Breakfast: 1 Protein, 3 Starches, 2 Fruits, 1 Dairy, 2 Fats

  A.M. Snack: 2 Starches, 2 Fruits, 1 Fat

  Lunch: 2 Proteins, 2 Starches, 2 Fruits, 1 Dairy, 2 Fats

  P.M. Snack: 1 Starch, 2 Fruits, 1 Fat

  Dinner: 3 Proteins, 1 Starch, 2 Fruits, 1 Dairy, 3 Fats

  Evening Snack: 1 Starch, 1 Fruit, 1 Fat

  Torture. Pure torture. But Sally and I did it, and for the first time since arriving, even though I was totally freaking out about what would be on my plate, I felt a little thankful that I could at least prepare for it in advance. Like, I knew that on Saturday night I would have one chicken thigh with skin, one small baked potato with 2 tablespoons of sour cream, one slice of wheat toast with 1 teaspoon of butter and 1 teaspoon of jelly, 1½ cups of strawberries, half a banana, and one carton of low-fat milk.

  That was a lot of food.

  It was too much.

  Too much.

  Too. Much.

  “So!” Sally beamed. “You did great!”

  I nodded.

  “Now, provided your bone density test comes back fine and we don’t need to tweak anything, we won’t meet again until a week from now.”

  “Bone density?”

  “Yes, you’re scheduled for Monday.”

  Bone density. To see if I’d basically starved my bones and made them weak like an old lady’s. Mary had mentioned that on my first day. I’d forgotten.

  “Oh,” I said.

  Sally saw the fear on my face. “Hon, I’m sure it will be fine. The test itself is a piece of cake. Really.” She took my face in her hands. “Just keep telling yourself, ‘Food is medicine. I have a disease and food is what will cure it.’ Okay?” She patted my shoulder. “Everything is going to be fine.”

  I really hoped so.

  Later that night, I wrapped my fingers around my wrist. It felt foreign, like a tree branch. I twisted as hard as I could. Pain shot up my forearm, but the bone held strong. I was okay, right?

  I focused on my heartbeat. It careened along, too fast, then, a moment later, skipped a beat. Mitral valve prolapse, just like Lexi. It had to be. It was hard to breathe. My heart blipped again and sped up. I put a hand on the wall to steady myself. Was I dying?

  Breathe, I told myself. Breathe. You are getting better every day. You KNOW this.

  But I didn’t know it, did I? Not really.

  Allie came up behind me. “You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Yes, I wanted to tell her, I had.

  Mine.

  16

  I woke up on Saturday to a hard rain, the kind that lashes at the windows and makes you want to burrow deeper into your blankets. Under there, I could almost pretend I was somewhere else. A cabin in the woods maybe, with furniture made of logs, a crackling fire, and a cute boy.

  Instead, I trudged to the cold, dim breakfast room. When I saw my tray, my heart sank. Clearly, I was horrible at meal planning. Instead of yogurt and eggs I’d tried to mix it up with French toast, a cup of strawberries, a carton of milk, and a packet of instant decaf. I’d made a crucial miscalculation, though. By not including syrup on my menu, I’d assumed I wouldn’t get any. But Sally thought otherwise. So there it was, at least a quarter cup of brown sludge so sugary it hurt my teeth. Straight calories. No nutritional value at all. And I had to eat all of it. All. Of. It. It took Kay threatening an Ensure for me to choke it all down.

  But I finished.

  After brushing my teeth three times, I headed to the nurses’ station, but my mind remained on the syrup and where on my body it would end up—my arms or thigh
s or stomach or back. The possibilities were endless.

  The dark rain matched my mood. Grim and gray. I guess if you want to get all deep, I was mourning the body I was losing each day a little, too. When I saw Ray, I barely remembered what I’d come for. “Everything okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Just a bad breakfast. It’s so hard sometimes.”

  Ray leaned forward. “Well, Elizabeth, you’ve been doing so well. You should be proud of yourself.”

  I bet he said that to all the girls. “Thanks, Ray. Do you guys have any extra journals, by chance?” The nurses kept stuff that girls might need—extra toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo—at their station. I’d brought my favorite journal from home, a purple Moleskine, but had run out of space. Doodling, mainly, and lists. Lists like books I wanted to reread now that I was sixteen (Harry Potter—all seven, The Golden Compass, and The Giver), cities I wanted to visit (Paris, Bangkok, Rome, San Francisco, New York), and college majors I thought were cool (psychology, nutrition, literature, philosophy). But most of the lists were of foods I’d eat if I weren’t anorexic. Exhibit A of insanity: Kinds of Dunkin’ Donuts: French Cruller, Boston Kreme, Jelly Sticks, Chocolate Munchkins, Maple Frosted, Chocolate Frosted with Sprinkles, Glazed Munchkins, Old Fashioned, Powdered, Coconut. Or Exhibit B, written in first-period AP Chem in hour twelve of a twenty-four-hour fast: Breakfast: French toast, Belgian waffles, blueberry pancakes, coffee crumb cake, bacon, doughnuts, lemon ricotta pancakes, chocolate chip waffles, eggs Benedict, melted butter, whipped cream, strawberries.

  Anyone reading it would have thought I was nuts, and I wouldn’t exactly have disagreed. When I got home, I’d burn the stupid thing in our living room fireplace. But until then, I’d settle for stuffing it under my bed in my room.

  Ray grinned. It was hard to feel bad when he smiled at you. “You writing the great American novel?”

  “Ha. Right.” I couldn’t help but smile back.

  “Hey, you never know!”

  A minute later, he handed me a speckled, wide-ruled composition book. I hated wide-ruled notebooks. They made me feel like a first grader.

  “Don’t fill it all in one day,” he said.

  I heard the front door open at the same time as Ray. He looked over my shoulder and his smile disappeared. When I saw who was standing there, mine did too.

  Tristan. Charlie’s best friend. And standing next to him in the doorway, his twin sister, Simone, also a junior, brushing the rain off her clothes.

  When Simone saw me, she scowled like I’d offended her. She’d combed her hair over half her face. The one eye I could see was buried under a thick crust of eyeliner. She was in black from head to toe, the only color a bit of her knee peeking out from a rip in her black jeans. She towered over her brother, who was barely taller than me, and I was five foot six.

  Their mom walked in after them, clutching a purse. She looked exactly like Simone, but better dressed. She ran a lot of the fund-raising events at Esterfall High.

  “Well, look who’s here,” Ray said.

  “Hey, Ray,” Simone mumbled. Her eye flitted over me. “Hey, Elizabeth,” she said. I wasn’t sure what was weirder—that she knew my name, or that she knew Ray’s.

  “Hey, Simone,” I muttered. I recognized the expression on her face. It was how I’d felt when I arrived: a combo of I’ve-screwed-up-my-entire-life depression plus fear plus anger.

  But then again, she always looked pissed. It seemed to be a McCann family trait. Tristan was a curmudgeon, but he got away with being sour most of the time because of his friendship with Charlie, which gave him social cred.

  But Simone didn’t have any friends as far as I could tell. The other kids called her Angry Girl. She’d missed a lot of school last year. Rumor was that it was mono and that she’d gotten it from a twenty-eight-year-old guy she’d met on Tinder, but no one knew for sure. Sometimes, when she was sitting alone in the cafeteria at lunch, I’d wonder how awful that felt, and I’d have an urge to invite her to join us. I never had, though.

  So I was feeling pretty judgy in the foyer until I remembered what I was wearing. My stupid yoga pants desperately needed a wash, and my hair was lanky. I hadn’t brushed it since I’d gotten up. Not to mention my horrible fatness. So who was I to judge Simone?

  “I was just getting a notebook,” I blurted out. “Except it’s wide-ruled and I hate wide-ruled, but, you know, it’s not like I can go to CVS and pick up something different. You know, because I am here and all. Beggars can’t be choosers! Ha, ha.”

  Tristan stared at me like I’d been plopped down just to ruin his day. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but shook his head instead and ran his fingers through his hair. He had good hair. Dark and thick and curly at the edges. My stomach blipped. He’d looked at me like that, like I was ridiculous, the entire time I’d dated Charlie. When I’d complain, Charlie would say, Trust me, he likes you. Look, everybody bugs Tristan. I bug Tristan. He’s a little judgmental, but he’ll come around. He’s super loyal. And I know he likes you. He’ll show it—someday. Charlie said that last part—someday—like it was a big joke, but it wasn’t one to me. Deep down, I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe Tristan saw me for who I really was. A loser.

  And now he was here. I hoped the universe was having a good, long laugh.

  Nurse Jill arrived then and, oblivious to my world blowing up, said, “Simone, Kathy, let’s get started on your registration,” and ushered them out of the room, leaving Tristan and I standing a few feet apart from each other. He studied the floor. I searched my brain for something—anything—to say, but I came up blank, so I hugged myself and turned to Ray for help, hoping he’d tell Tristan to leave, or me that I had some appointment I’d forgotten about. Anything. But he’d disappeared, too.

  So. Awkward.

  I grabbed the brass ring on its satin ribbon around my neck and rubbed it with my thumb, letting it calm me. Tristan watched, his eyes intense, like he was studying my insides. I had the distinct feeling that what he saw horrified him.

  “So…,” I said, hoping he’d say something to fill the silence.

  “Simone is a day patient,” he said, startling me.

  “Day patient?” I didn’t know Wallingfield took day patients.

  “Yeah. She’ll be here every day from four to eight. After school.”

  Then I blurted out, “Why are you here?”

  “I’m not here by choice.”

  No shit, I thought. Who would be?

  “I’ll be driving Simone most of the time, per my parents’ orders. She doesn’t have her license because driving scares her.” He used air quotes around the word scares. “And, since my parents bought me my car, they pretty much own me.” He rubbed his face. He had a minor zit collection on the back of a cheek, near his ear, but his eyes were like his sister’s—green, with dark-lined rims and long lashes. Pretty.

  Neither of us could think of anything else to say, so we looked everywhere except at each other. I tugged at my sleeves with my fingers and wiggled my toes in my shoes. I couldn’t bear to spend another second next to him in my horrible outfit.

  “Sorry, but I’ve got to go,” I said.

  “No problem.” He stared at me for a second.

  “Okay. Well, bye.”

  For a second I thought he was going to say something else, but he snapped his jaws shut, gave me an almost wave, put in earbuds, whipped out his phone, and started scrolling, essentially dismissing me.

  17

  Tristan, Simone, and their mom left a half hour later. Through the big picture window in the hall I saw the three of them run, hunched over in the rain, and climb into a black Range Rover. Lightning, rare for that time of year, flashed in the distance.

  My first family group session was at eleven, and I harbored an irrational hope that maybe Mom and Dad would use the weather as an excuse to cancel. Based on all the glummer-than-usual faces around me, I wasn’t the only one.

  No luck. Right before the group was to start, I saw ou
r Honda pull into the parking lot. Dad stepped out first and came around to Mom’s side of the car, holding an umbrella over the door. When Mom got out, she looked chic in her fancy raincoat that belted at the waist and the pair of high heels she always wore with a particular blue-and-white wrap dress.

  I met them in the foyer. Sure enough, when Mom took off her coat, there was the outfit. She was totally overdressed, but she still looked great. Her heels made her calf muscles look awesome, and her stomach was flat as a wall.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Hey,” Dad said back. He hesitated for a second and then pulled me in close. At first I tried to stay stiff in his arms, but it felt too good, so I let myself squeeze him back for a second, like I had when I was little. When he let go, Mom, to my surprise, wrapped her arms around me, too. She let go only when Marcia arrived. I was shocked that I hadn’t really wanted her to.

  Thanks to the dismal weather, the group therapy room felt especially grim. Marcia led us inside, turning on the lights as she went. Someone had drawn a smiley face inside the second O of YOLO on the whiteboard, and it looked like it was laughing at us. We took our seats, my parents making sure I was between them.

  The circle was small. Allie’s parents’ flight had been canceled from New York. Lexi’s parents had bailed, too, claiming the traffic from Long Island would be a nightmare. I don’t know why Margot’s parents didn’t show, but she hadn’t really expected them to anyway. Jean’s came, though. They’d flown in from Toronto a couple of days early to visit and kept staring at her with watery, grateful grins. Beth’s parents were there, too. I’d assumed Beth looked pale and ghostly because of her eating disorder, but her parents were practically translucent, too. They probably needed to use sunscreen in a rainstorm.

  Willa’s mom sat directly across the circle from me. I’d pictured her as an older Willa, wiry and short—maybe a cigarette smoker. But in real life she looked like Mrs. Claus. I bet if you stood close to her she smelled like fresh-baked bread. Even though she wasn’t wearing one, I pictured her in a frilly apron, holding a wooden spoon. Willa sat next to her, rubbing up against her like a cat. I couldn’t stop staring. They just didn’t match.