What I Lost

by Alexandra Ballard

  That night, right before eight p.m., Simone came into my room and said, “Hey, congrats on your period.”

  Sigh.

  And then, in the same breath, like she was asking if I wanted my door open or closed, she added, “Oh, Tristan wants to see you.”

  Of all the people in the world I wanted to see right now, Tristan was at the bottom of the list. No, he was below the bottom. He wasn’t on it at all. I’d avoided him since the whole Charlie disaster by making sure not to be anywhere near the front door when Simone got dropped off or picked up. Whatever Charlie had told him couldn’t be good.

  Elizabeth, my rational side said, it was two weeks ago. Besides, Tristan knew. How could he not? Was that why he was here? To rub it in? I couldn’t think of any other reason.

  I turned to the door. “I don’t want to—” But Simone had already vanished.

  I swallowed and turned toward the mirror. I wished I’d showered.

  My yoga pants were dirty, and my faded green sweatshirt with Morgan Middle School presents MY FAIR LADY in big letters on the front wasn’t doing me any favors. I traded it for my favorite cardigan—a red, fluffy angora Mom got me for Christmas last year—and brushed off the lint.

  Mom. Just the thought of her made me catch my breath. We’d ended things so badly at phone therapy. I should call and apologize, even if I wasn’t sure what for.

  No. She should call me. She’s the grown-up.

  I found Tristan alone on the cold patio, his back to me in a wicker chair, a second empty one beside him. I hadn’t been outside in three days and I’d forgotten how good fresh air, even chilly air, felt in my lungs. I ignored the bite of it on my bare, sockless ankles. “Hey,” I said, in as unfriendly a voice as I could.

  Stupid. I shouldn’t have said that until I got closer, because now he turned and watched me lumber over to him, every little movement awkward and ugly. I tried doing what Mary said to do when I panicked like this. I told myself I was just nervous, that my body hadn’t changed that much in the last week. It didn’t work.

  I sat next to him, and the wicker wheezed with my weight. I winced.

  “These chairs creak when anybody sits on them,” he said.

  I didn’t respond.

  The seats were closer together than I realized. He smelled like something, something I couldn’t quite place. Doughnuts. I loved doughnuts. Not that I’d eat one. But they were so good, especially when they were fresh and hot.

  “You smell like cinnamon,” I blurted out.

  “It’s probably the cider doughnuts I ate.”

  “From Russell Orchards?”

  “Yeah. They’re pretty awesome. You had ’em?”

  “Yes.” And then, without thinking, I added, “I could go for one right now.”

  “You could, huh?” His green eyes widened in surprise and he swiveled around to look at me, reading my face.

  “I mean, if I wasn’t here.”

  “Huh.” He sat back in his seat.

  It felt like five minutes but was probably only a few seconds before he finally said, “I heard about the whole Charlie thing.”

  I felt a prick of fresh embarrassment. “Did he tell you?”

  “Yeah, in private. Heather, though, she sort of brought it up at lunch today. I guess he’d asked her not to tell and at first she didn’t, but then they got in a fight yesterday and so she told everybody just to piss him off.”

  “Oh.” I imagined Heather and Charlie and Tristan and all their friends sitting at one of the round wood tables in the cafeteria, laughing hysterically as Heather, eyes sparkling and in total story mode, tore me apart.

  “What did Charlie say?”

  Tristan paused. He reached in his pocket and whipped out his pack of Marlboros. Then he seemed to think better of it and put them back just as fast without taking one. “Nothing. He just let her talk.”

  I pulled the brass ring out from under my shirt and rubbed it between my fingers. It calmed me, like always.

  “Did you say anything?”

  “No.” He stared at me rubbing the ring. “It wasn’t my business. It was Charlie’s.”

  “Oh.” I don’t know why I was surprised by his answer. “Figures.”

  He stared at me for a second and then looked up at the sky as if asking the clouds how to possibly deal with annoying people like me.

  “Yeah. I should have said something,” he said instead.

  “Forget about it. It’s not like we’re friends or anything.” He shot me a look I can only describe as surprised. And hurt.

  He stood up and took out his car keys. “Just so you know,” he said, voice sharp, “I don’t like half the shit Charlie does.”

  “Could have fooled me.” I couldn’t tell if I was standing up for myself or just being mean. Either way, it felt good.

  “Look, I’m my own person.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “There’s no doubt about that.”

  “Great. Fine. I’m out of here,” he said.

  “Fine,” I said.

  He took another cigarette out of the package. It broke between his fingers. “Shit,” he said.

  “You’re going to get cancer, you know,” I said, fuming.

  He turned around then. “I’m trying to quit.” And then he stomped across the patio and was gone. A minute later I heard his Jeep peel out down the driveway.

  I sat there in the cold for a minute, waiting to feel embarrassed or sorry for the way Tristan and I left things. But I didn’t. It had felt good to tell him how I felt. A month ago, I wouldn’t have said a word. Who was this feisty Elizabeth? I had no idea, but I sort of liked her. She felt strong. And healthy. The kind of girl who would eat food and like it.

  28

  At four o’clock the next day, when Simone arrived, she walked into the hallway where Margot, Willa, and I were sitting on the floor playing a card game. “Tristan is here,” she said, clearly annoyed. “He wants to see you again. Sorry in advance.”

  What was that supposed to mean? With a sigh I headed out to the foyer. I couldn’t think of why he’d want to see me after yesterday. Or for that matter, why I’d want to see him.

  Tristan stood up from the bench when I walked in. His brown hair had fallen in front of his eyes and looked a little greasy. He smelled like cigarette smoke. Clearly, quitting wasn’t working.

  I didn’t say anything.

  He took a small paper bag out of his pocket and thrust it at me. “I’m sorry about yesterday,” he mumbled. “Here.”

  I didn’t reach for it. It had grease spots. “What is that?”

  “A peace offering.” His green eyes caught mine. I looked away.

  And then I smelled it. Cinnamon sweetness. A hint of apple. He’d brought me a cider doughnut. Shit.

  “Go on, take it. It’s for you.” He shook the bag a little and put it down on the bench.

  I didn’t budge.

  He frowned and pulled a second bag out of his pocket. “I got one for me, too.”

  There was no way I could eat that doughnut, even though it smelled amazing. Like, stomach-rumbling good. I tried to do what I always had in the past—turn on the part of my brain that made saying no easy, that would never even entertain the idea of putting something as fattening as a doughnut into my mouth.

  “Elizabeth? Are you okay?” He looked at me like I might spontaneously combust or something.

  And then Simone spoke up behind me. I hadn’t heard her come back. “Tristan, Elizabeth is here for anorexia. She doesn’t want a doughnut.”

  He stiffened. “Yesterday she said she did, okay?”

  “What did you think, that you’d feed her a doughnut and everything would be great?”

  “No. I—”

  She didn’t let him finish. “You have to stop doing this, Tristan. You aren’t her doctor, okay?” Simone said, her voice sharp. Then she turned on her heel and left, muttering words we couldn’t quite hear as she stormed away down the hall. Tristan’s shoulders slumped and he glanced at me, his eyes pl
eading with me to take the doughnut.

  But I couldn’t do it. I left the bag on the bench. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so, so sorry.” And then I ran off too, leaving Tristan alone in the foyer.

  Back in my room I cursed myself and felt twisty inside because all I could think about was that stupid doughnut. I could practically taste the warm golden crust and the tender, hot insides the same color as vanilla cake. And I wanted it bad. I had half a mind to go back out there and see if the greasy bag was still on the bench.

  One bite. That’s all I’d take.

  No. No effing way.

  Fifteen minutes and my mind wouldn’t budge. I told myself that Ray had probably found it and tossed it already.

  Five more minutes of pacing and I told myself I’d just go check to make sure.

  Tristan was gone, but the doughnut was still there.

  I almost turned away, but the smell stopped me. It brought back memories—good ones—of when I was little: of the piles of fall leaves I liked to kick through on our front lawn, of how the crisp air felt on my cheeks, of having the freedom to run and skip and yell and not feel like an idiot doing it. It reminded me of everything I’d been before I even knew what a calorie was, like when I was ten and at Russell Orchards with Dad, eating hot doughnuts fresh out of the fryer without guilt or worry, and for a second I missed my old life so much that I ached.

  Maybe that’s why I didn’t register the bag in my hand until I was back in my room. When I did, I threw it on my duvet like it was poison ivy and wiped my hands on my pants.

  Then I opened it.

  It looked like all the cider doughnuts I’d eaten as a kid. In other words, perfect.

  I stood up and paced. I sat back down on the bed, plastic mattress pad crackling, and jiggled my foot. I jumped up again. I wanted it so, so bad. I wondered if this was what a heroin addict felt like right before he got his fix.

  I pinched off a tiny piece of the crust with my thumb and pointer finger. Barely a taste. I put it on my tongue, swallowed, and then waited for something terrible to happen. I didn’t know what that would be, but I knew it would come. I’d convinced myself that my body couldn’t handle food like that anymore. I waited for my throat to close, my stomach to heave, or cramps to start. Anything.

  But nothing happened. The bite was small, but the flavor was pure and delicious. I took another pinch, this time from the inside of the doughnut, and it, too, was as I remembered. And you know what? I was glad for that taste, that memory. But I was sad, too, because that time in my life was gone. I was ruined.

  But … but what if I wasn’t? There were people who’d survived anorexia all over the Internet. The day before I’d come here I’d seen a girl’s blog where the title was one big run-on sentence: “I had anorexia and now I don’t anymore and I love ice cream and I love who I am so suck it Ana!” Maybe I could be like that girl.

  I’d love to eat ice cream again.

  And then, just like I predicted, that bag was like a magnet and all I wanted was to vacuum up every single crumb with my big, fat mouth. Except that I didn’t. I took another tiny taste, let it dissolve on my tongue, and then quietly, almost calmly, took the bag out into the hall and shoved it in the trash can.

  I made it back to my room before I started shaking.

  I sat on the bed and pulled my knees into my chest and yearned for the cookbooks I kept under my bed at home. They always distracted me. I don’t know why looking at photos of food made me feel better, but it did. Mostly I just flipped through the pages, but once, the week before I came to Wallingfield, I’d baked something: a coconut cake with raspberry filling and cream-cheese frosting. My mouth watered just thinking about it.

  I don’t know why I’d entered cake-making mode that afternoon. I’d lost 5 pounds in eight days. I was a little delirious. My vision often spun, and sometimes I saw double. I’d been staying home sick a lot; I was just too tired to do anything. But then, on that day, I took out my favorite cookbook, Cakes for All Occasions, and it was like one minute I was reading a recipe and the next I was wrestling my old bike out of the garage and riding to the store to buy cake flour, cream cheese, coconut, and butter.

  Three hours later, I’d baked a four-layer cake. My first. And I’d made it all without ingesting a single calorie. Not a lick of a mixing spoon or a finger-swipe of frosting. Nothing. I was so proud. I put it on a cut-glass cake stand I’d bought Mom at a vintage store a few years before for her birthday, back when I still thought that maybe she’d use it and bake something for me, back when I would have welcomed it.

  When Mom walked in the door an hour later and dropped her keys on the table, she froze, her nose in the air like a dog sniffing for birds.

  “What’s that smell?” she said, almost dreamily.

  I’d just finished cleaning the kitchen. “I baked.”

  She whipped around to face me. “Sorry, what?”

  “I baked a cake.”

  “You baked a cake.” She repeated the words back to me like I was a toddler.

  “Yes. It’s in the dining room.”

  Mom looked at me, alarmed, and rushed down the hall. I went upstairs.

  A few minutes later I heard her on her phone. She sounded upset. And I got it. It was totally weird. Honestly, I didn’t understand why I’d done it either. I barely even made myself a cup of coffee these days. “She baked a cake … No, really. I’m not kidding … I’m looking at it right now … It has coconut all over it … I don’t know where she got the ingredients … She probably went to the store … Honey, she’s sixteen and very capable of going to the grocery store by herself … What?… No! I will not have a piece to calm down … Just hurry up and get here.”

  She snapped her phone shut; I bolted to my room before she saw me and did sit-ups until my stomach burned.

  When Dad came home, he whistled downstairs. I heard him say to Mom, “I think it’s a good thing,” and offer to cook dinner.

  I came down at six o’clock to find that someone had put the cake in the middle of the dinner table. The top layer looked uneven; it had slid ever so slightly off to the left.

  I fought the urge to fix it.

  I sat down and Dad set a plate completely covered with a mountain of pasta, two meatballs perched on top like eyeballs. I hadn’t eaten anything like that in months.

  “To our wonderful chef,” Dad said then, smiling at me. “May you find your happiness here at our table.” And then we clinked glasses and I realized that Dad was celebrating because he thought the “phase,” as he liked to call my anorexia, had passed.

  After a few minutes, Dad put down his fork. “Elizabeth, aren’t you going to try it? I made your favorite.” On the word favorite his voice turned to flat-out pleading. “Please, honey, take a few bites. I made it just the way you like.”

  I shook my head. I didn’t have a favorite meal anymore.

  On a regular night, Dad would have sighed and escaped as soon as possible. But now he refused to play his part. He slammed his fork on the table. Mom and I jumped. “Damn it! Elizabeth Barnes, take a bite of your dinner.”

  I shook my head, tears dripping off the end of my nose and onto my Parmesan. I so wanted to please him, to make him smile, to keep from breaking his heart. But I didn’t have a choice.

  “I can’t,” I cried, leaping up so fast I knocked over my chair. Then I bolted, leaving Mom and Dad sitting there in silence.

  Later that night, after my parents went to bed, I snuck downstairs. The cake sat on its pedestal in the kitchen. One slice was gone—Dad, of course—and the whole thing was covered in plastic wrap. I unwrapped it slowly, one clear piece at a time. The delicious, sweet-and-slightly-sour smell of coconut and cream cheese drifted into my nose. I admired the moistness of the cake itself, the perfect pale yellow color of the layers, just like the cakes Martha Stewart made on her TV show. A lip of pale, rich frosting, perfect for a one-finger taste, clung to a cut edge. I scooped it up with my finger.

  It smelled divine.
<
br />   I brought it to my mouth, so close I could taste it. I knew how the frosting would feel silky on my tongue, how the cream cheese would cut the sweetness and make it delicious. I salivated. It would be so good.

  I went to the sink and turned the hot water on high. And then, after one last sweet inhale, I put my finger under the hot water and watched the frosting melt away. I scrubbed until my skin was red.

  After I shut off the water, I turned back to the cake, so pretty it could have been in a magazine. I fixed the crooked layer, pushing it back into place with a fingertip. When I picked it up, it was heavier than I’d thought it would be. “Sorry, cake,” I whispered. Then, with all my strength, I hurled it into the garbage can and watched all four layers sag down its metal insides, leaving a thick trail of frosting behind.

  Now, though, as I pulled on my PJs in my room that still smelled faintly of cider doughnut, I wished I’d at least tasted the frosting. I bet it was delicious.

  29

  Saturday came before I was ready for it. At home, I loved Saturdays. I’d go for a long run, then sit around and drink coffee, and then Katrina and I would hang out or go to the mall or something. But at Wallingfield? Not so much. It was Family Day, which meant a group session and lunch with our parents. Everyone pretty much hated it.

  I still hadn’t talked to Mom since our phone therapy appointment. We were at a standoff, and I was determined not to be the one to give in first.

  At 10:30, people started to filter in. From my spot on the couch in the common room, I watched the reunions taking place. There were tears (sometimes), happy squeals, awkward silences, and one angry tirade when Coral yelled at her parents about being late, which they weren’t. They just stood there looking exhausted.

  Beth’s parents sat on either side of her on a couch. They talked quietly. Allie gave her parents a tour. I wondered whether she’d take them to the fishbowl—And here, Mom, is the room where we go when we’re super screwed up. See how windows surround it? That’s so that the nurses can watch us all the time to be sure we don’t kill ourselves or run in place for six hours straight. I love the dull brown decor, don’t you?