What I Lost

by Alexandra Ballard

  34

  I went to my room. How could it not be him? It had to be.

  I’d been so sure.

  By dinner, I’d decided that Tristan had lied, and I was right. The clues were too obvious to ignore.

  By evening snack, I’d changed my mind. I’d made a colossal error. Tristan wasn’t the guy. I’d humiliated myself. Again.

  By bedtime, only one thing was completely clear: I was a fool.

  * * *

  I didn’t tell anybody what happened between Tristan and me. When I woke up the next morning, I had the luxury, for a second, of having completely forgotten what had happened.

  And then I remembered, and the day passed in a daze, until right before my Mary session. That’s when Simone caught up with me in the hall.

  “Elizabeth?”

  When I turned around, it was like Tristan’s eyes were staring at me from Simone’s head.

  “This is for you.” Simone held out a battered blue iPod shuffle with white earbuds.

  I didn’t touch it.

  Simone held it out farther. “Take it. Please?”

  “No.” I sounded like a stubborn toddler refusing to eat peas.

  She pressed it into my hand. “It’s from Tristan.”

  Obviously.

  Next, she handed me an envelope with my name on the front. The handwriting was familiar.

  I’d seen it on all the packages. “What’s going on, Simone?”

  She ignored my questions. “Just listen. His playlists are really good. He used to make them for me all the time.” Simone tucked her hair back behind her ears. Then she leaned in closer. “You were right, you know. Tristan sent those packages.”

  “What?” Relief flowed through me. I wasn’t delusional.

  But he’d lied to me. What an asshole.

  “Did he send you here to say that?”

  “No. I’m actually not supposed to tell you anything. Look, I know he comes off as a grouch, but he’s an okay guy.”

  “But why didn’t he just say it was him? Did he send me all that stuff to make fun of me? Was Heather in on this? I mean, the things he sent—”

  “I don’t know, I guess he wanted to keep the whole secret thing going, but then when you figured it out, he kind of freaked and just denied it.”

  “Well, why me, then?”

  She smiled a sad, tiny smile. “Why not you?”

  I didn’t respond.

  She stood a little taller. “Look, I have to go. I’m going to be late for my nutrition meeting.” And then she walked off down the hall, the heels of her Doc Martens scuffing with every step. At the corner, she turned around. “Give him a chance, Elizabeth,” she said. “Underneath everything he’s a good guy.”

  I opened the envelope right there. Inside were two folded pieces of lined paper. The first was a playlist, titled J-Curve. The second was a note.

  Elizabeth,

  Okay, so you’re right. I sent those packages. I’m not always good with words but I thought these things—things that mattered to you—might cheer you up. You just seem so … sad. And I don’t want you to be sad. Sad sucks. The world is tough enough already without a bunch of sad people walking around in it.

  So I made you a playlist. Even if you think I’m a jerk, you should listen to it. Think of it as an anti-sad playlist. Put it on if you’re feeling low, or shitty, and keep listening. It’ll let you wallow for a few songs, then it will cheer you up. Like the letter J.

  And, oh yeah, sorry about yesterday. Also, I accept your apology for not eating my doughnut.

  —Tristan

  With everything that was happening, I forgot about my session with Mary until she stuck her head out her door to look for me.

  The minute I sat down, she said in a suspiciously perky voice, “Elizabeth, I’d like to talk with you about something.”

  “What’s wrong?” I held my breath.

  “Nothing’s wrong, Elizabeth. I met with your team about your discharge date.”

  “Oh.” I sat up straighter. I’d had a feeling this was coming ever since I’d gotten my period.

  “We are really pleased with your progress. Your health has stabilized, and you’ve increased the range of foods you are willing to eat. You don’t have as much anxiety. The fact that you’ve started to menstruate again is important. And your BMI is up. So, keeping all that in mind, we’ve set a date to get you home.”

  “How much weight have I gained?”

  Mary looked at me for a long minute. “You are currently a hundred and four pounds.”

  “Oh.” I felt the panic set in deep, at the bottom of my stomach. I took a deep breath. Fourteen pounds. I could live with 14 pounds. Right?

  “Elizabeth, we’re proud of you. You’ve worked so hard.”

  A hundred and four pounds. A nagging voice in my head kept saying, Fourteen ugly pounds! Fourteen gross pounds! But I ignored it the best I could, because, in a weird way, I did feel proud.

  Maybe I was ready to go home.

  I thought of my bed first. My wonderful, comfy bed. I’d get to sleep in it again!

  Then I thought of myself back in the school cafeteria, everybody looking at me as I carried my tray. I had no idea what I’d eat or how much.

  And what would school be like? What about Priya and Shay? Should I act mad at them for totally blowing me off? Pretend nothing ever happened? And what about Charlie? And Heather? And Tristan? Would we still be friends outside Wallingfield? Suddenly, right where I was felt like the safest place—the only place—for me in the world.

  “When am I leaving?”

  “We’re looking at next Friday, November ninth.”

  One week. Holy crap.

  Mary watched me carefully. “I know this can feel overwhelming. We’ll take it a little bit at a time.”

  A little bit at a time. No matter how little the bits were, it was only a week away. A week!

  “One of the first things we do to prepare you is make sure our patients have at least one real-world eating experience before they leave.”

  That’s what Lexi had skipped before she left. Nurse Jill sometimes took girls out to eat at a local restaurant, Finch’s Bar & Grille.

  Unfortunately, it was the most popular dinner place in Esterfall.

  “You’re on the list for dinner next Wednesday, the seventh,” she said with a big smile, like suffering through dinner with a bunch of other anorexics and a nurse was an honor.

  “What? Do I have to go?”

  “Elizabeth, we can talk it through. I think you’re ready for this.”

  “Who else is coming?”

  “Jean.”

  That made me feel a little better. “Is she going home soon?”

  “It appears that’s the case.”

  Good for her. She’d been here for so long. I wondered if she was scared out of her mind, too.

  “We’ll go over the menu ahead of time so that there aren’t any surprises. You can do this.”

  No, I couldn’t. “Please, Mary, I can’t go. I’ll see people I know at Finch’s. It’ll be really, really, really humiliating.” Tristan, Charlie, and Heather ate there all the time. “And I … and I … I think it might make me less ready to go home.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “If I screw up and order the wrong thing, I might have a relapse.”

  “Well, if that happens, we can talk about it.”

  For the rest of the session, I dredged up reasons to not go out to eat, and Mary countered with strategies to “handle” my concerns. As I was leaving, she said, “Elizabeth, you can do this. You are going to be fine.”

  “Define fine,” I said from the doorway.

  “Okay.” She set down her pen. “You’ll be fine because you are tough and strong and have learned a lot while you’ve been here. You’ll have support from all of us to help you with any negative thoughts. You’ll already know what you will eat ahead of time because you and Sally will pick it together. And no matter how hard it may be, it is only two
hours. Two hours.”

  Only two hours. Two hours could feel like a lifetime. Trust me, I knew.

  * * *

  Later that night, Simone found me in the common room. As she put on her wool coat, she said, “Tristan will be here any second. Will you come?”

  I nodded and followed her to the foyer.

  Tristan was already there, sitting on the bench with his legs crossed. He ran his hand through his hair like he always did. Simone turned to me, mouthed “Good luck,” and disappeared back down the hall.

  “So,” he said, fiddling with a button on his navy peacoat, “I sent the packages.”

  “You told me that in your note.”

  “Right.” He exhaled and looked around. “Well, what did you think of them?” For once his voice didn’t sound defensive. It sounded hopeful.

  “What? What was I supposed to think?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What do I mean? You had to know how much the stuff you sent would mess with my head. How it would remind me of Charlie. Why would you do something like that? Was it funny to you?”

  He scowled. “What? No! Like I wrote, I just wanted to cheer you up.”

  “Cheer me up? You made me look like an idiot, Tristan. I called Charlie. Because of your presents. That’s screwed up.”

  He sat straighter. “First off, that wasn’t supposed to happen. And I never signed his name. You created the Charlie theory all on your own.”

  “Are you kidding me? You had to know I’d think that. I mean, look at what you sent.”

  Tristan’s cheeks reddened. “That’s not true at all. I sent you that stuff because I noticed you liked it. The brass ring? You used to talk about Flying Horses all the time.”

  Well, that was true, I guess. I had talked about Flying Horses a lot. Mainly because I was afraid Charlie would forget his promise to take me there. “The only reason I talked about that place was because Charlie said he’d win me a free ride someday, and I was excited.”

  “Look, all I remembered was that you talked about Flying Horses. And that brass ring was my lucky charm. I won it when I was twelve.” He looked at the ring hanging from my neck. “I was trying to be nice.”

  I’d forgotten I was wearing it. I stuffed the red ribbon inside my shirt. “Look, if you’d just signed your name, none of this would have happened.”

  He threw his hands up in the air. “I know! I know, all right? Believe me. But Simone said it might be sort of cool to get a mystery gift, like from a secret admirer. She said it might cheer you up. And I was only going to send that one thing. But then I was at the pizza place, and I saw those plastic rings, and I knew you collected them, and I … I don’t know. I got one for you and mailed it.”

  “I only collected those rings because Charlie gave them to me.”

  “Oh.” He rubbed the back of his neck. The tips of his ears were pink.

  “And what about the sand? You knew Charlie and I loved the beach.”

  “Elizabeth, everybody loves the beach. Besides, I used to see you run there in the mornings.”

  “You did?” I sat down next to him.

  “Yeah.” He tapped his heel on the floor. It made the bench shake and I wondered what part of me would jiggle. Don’t think about it, I told myself. You need to focus on what is going on around you. Not on body parts.

  He jumped up and started pacing, his movements tense. “Sometimes I’d come down in the morning with coffee and there you’d be.” Tristan’s house had a private path to the beach. “And right before you headed back to the road, you always took a moment and climbed up onto the lifeguard stand and stared out at the ocean like you were meditating or something. I thought it was cool that you did that.”

  Back in the summer, before I got too weak to run, I ran the mile from my house to the beach every morning. I loved the briny smell and the sound of the waves, and when I sat high up on the wooden tower and focused on the horizon, my brain would quiet and I’d feel at peace.

  Tristan sat down again, and his hand brushed mine.

  I pulled it away.

  “Tristan,” I said, suddenly annoyingly shy. “Why me? If you wanted to do a good deed for some girl in here, why didn’t you choose someone else?”

  He stopped and stared at me then. He bit his lip for a second. “Don’t you get it? I liked you, okay? I liked you. I might even still like you.”

  He couldn’t like me. I was a mess on a good day. “Look, I appreciate everything you’re saying, really. But I have to go. I just—I can’t take this right now.”

  He stood up abruptly, his coat sliding to the floor. He picked it up and rammed his arms into the sleeves. “I’m sorry I made you so miserable. Don’t worry, I won’t send you anything else. I promise.” He flung the door open and walked out.

  Simone came around the corner, her black jacket in her hands. “You okay?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yeah, he didn’t handle that very well.” She sat down next to me.

  “You listened?”

  Simone shrugged and sighed. “If I tell you something, you have to promise not to tell anybody, okay?”

  I nodded.

  “Not even your friends. Or even your mom.”

  I would never tell Mom about this. “Okay, I get it.”

  She settled herself on the bench. “So remember when Charlie asked you out that day in Scoops?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, Charlie wasn’t supposed to do that. He knew Tristan liked you. They were going into Scoops to check you out.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. Charlie was supposed to be Tristan’s wingman. But then he asked you out instead. Tristan was super pissed, but he didn’t say anything.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. Tristan was mad for a day or two, but then he let it go. He figured that Charlie would dump you or Heather would get to him like always. But then Charlie started to actually like you, and he was so different. He was nice. He actually apologized to Tristan, saying he was so sorry, but that he lov—” She stopped.

  Charlie loved me?

  “You were so into Charlie that Tristan figured he’d never had a chance anyway.”

  “Charlie never said anything about this.”

  “Well, why would he? You probably would have thought he was a jerk.”

  Right after it happened, maybe. But not much longer after that. I’d seen Charlie be an asshole to plenty of people, but he was never mean to me, and that was one of the reasons I liked him so much. He made me feel special.

  A horn honked outside. Simone ignored it. “Anyway, he told me he was going to send you his brass ring, and I suggested that he make it a mystery. I mean, who doesn’t want a secret admirer?”

  “I can’t believe this.”

  Simone continued. “Look, I didn’t know the shit he chose had anything to do with Charlie. But I guess that makes sense. I mean, think about it. He only hung out with you when Charlie was around.”

  She was right. We were never alone. Except once. In July. And just like that, I solved the riddle of the umbrella, the one gift I hadn’t been able to figure out.

  I’d been walking to work on Route 127. A thunderstorm had rolled in and the wind turned my umbrella inside out. As I tried to fix it, a car roared by me, drenching me in a tidal wave of puddle water. Dirty rivulets ran down my face and silt burned my eyes.

  I was so in shock that I didn’t notice Tristan’s Jeep until he’d reversed all the way back to me.

  “Hey,” he said. “Sorry about that. You okay?”

  I grimaced.

  “You’re soaked. Do you need a ride?” I could tell he wanted me to say no, but it was already 1:56. I had four minutes to clock in. Sharon, my boss, was going to murder me if I was late.

  My wet white T-shirt clung to my chest like Scotch tape. “Okay,” I said, wiping my eyes, “I’ll take a ride,” and I climbed in, shivering in the air-conditioning.

  I’d only been in
the Jeep once before, after a beach bonfire a couple weeks earlier. Charlie got wasted after too many drinking games, and Tristan drove us home.

  Now water oozed out of my Converse and pooled on his rubber floor mats. Without looking at me, he passed me a plastic grocery bag from a ball of them in the door pocket. “Can you put this under your feet? I just got the car detailed.”

  “Oh,” I said, startled, then annoyed. It was his fault I was wet in the first place. “Okay.”

  We rode the rest of the way in silence.

  The Jeep clock read 2:07 when we pulled into the parking lot. Sharon glared through the Scoops window.

  “Thanks for the ride.”

  He touched me on my forearm. His fingers were gentle and warm.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled.

  I nodded and hopped out, trying not to notice that I left a butt-shaped wet mark on his leather seat. The second I’d closed the door he was gone, taillights winking.

  Even though it was nothing—just a ride—I never told Charlie about it, and I guess Tristan didn’t either. And then Charlie and I broke up, and Tristan and I didn’t speak again.

  Until now.

  35

  On Saturday morning, I put in Earbuds and listened to Tristan’s mix. It was the least I could do, I told myself, since he’d gone to the trouble. I planned to listen to it once and be done with it. I listened to it twice, and during the second time through I found myself warming up to him a little. Not in a dating kind of way or anything. Just a friend way. The mix was really good, full of indie bands I’d never heard of. I couldn’t wait to get home and look up the lyrics on my computer, to see if he’d put as much thought into the message as he had the music. I had a feeling he had. When the very last song was about to start—Kelly Clarkson’s “Stronger,” a totally old Top 40 hit that even I, a total music ignoramus, recognized—I heard a buzz of voices outside my room.

  When I opened my door, I found my entire cohort crowded around a narrow girl with dark hair and a Long Island accent I’d recognize anywhere.

  Lexi was back.

  She’d made it fourteen days. Fourteen stinking days.

  “Elizabeth!” she called, a huge smile on her face.

  I stiffened.

  She walked over to me with open arms. Her face was waxy and her frame skeletal. She looked way worse than when we’d arrived together. I dodged her and she stepped back, surprised.