by Susan Soares
Somewhere in the thick fog, I knew I heard the front door, but I couldn’t break myself from his mouth to acknowledge it.
“Hey, no sex on the couch.” Fiona’s voice cut through the air, and I broke free from Devin and his sweetness.
We both sat up innocently, I repositioned my top so my bra was covered. “Oh hey, hi,” I stammered.
“No making whoopee on the couch is one of our roommate agreements.” She smiled her witty, devious smile.
There was a small throw pillow near me so I grabbed it and chucked it at her. “We’re fully clothed!”
“And as I’ve told you before, if you do it that way, you’re doing it wrong.” She winked at me and then turned her attention to Devin. “I’m Fiona, by the way.”
Devin stood up, the bulge in his pants still evident. He extended his hand to Fiona. “Devin. Nice to meet you.”
She stared at his crotch. “You too.” She let out a cackle. “I’m going to my room now, but remember you two, this is a common area. I don’t want to have to get out a black light and search for remnants of bodily fluids, understood?”
“Go!” I threw another pillow at her.
She tossed it back to me. “The walls have ears,” she sung as she walked away.
I sunk back in the couch and cuddled near Devin. “Sorry. She’s like that. We’re thinking of having her tested.”
Devin chuckled. “Don’t worry about it. She seems cool.”
“She is. She’s a pain in the ass,” I yelled out the last part so she could hear me. “But yes, she’s cool.”
Devin popped open his soda. “How long have you guys been roommates?”
“Well, eight months, but we’ve been sisters for three years.” I cracked my own soda.
“You’re sisters? Oh yeah, you mentioned her when we went to breakfast, right?”
My heart fluttered that he actually remembered. I took a satisfying sip of my drink. Making out makes you parched. “Actually, we’re ex-step sisters who happen to be best friends and roommates.”
Devin’s eyebrows crinkled. “Okay, my brain’s a little foggy since I don’t have full blood flow there, but give me a second to process that.”
I gave Devin the quick rundown of my dad’s four marriages and Fiona’s mom’s three. “It was really hard because once they got married and Fiona and I met, we just totally thought that it was all meant to be. We immediately felt like best friends and sisters. We used to joke that we must be related, but we got separated when we were little.” Talking about it always brought back the feelings of sadness from when they separated. Luckily, Fiona and I stuck in spite of our parents.
“What happened with your birth mom?” Devin asked.
I took another sip of my soda. “Well.” I paused for a beat needing another moment before continuing. “She took off when I was seven.”
“As in went out for cigarettes and never came back?”
It actually made me laugh. “Well, not quite. As in left for Vegas to nurture her gambling addiction.”
“Whoa. And do you talk to her at all?” Devin lightly rubbed my back.
“She used to call on Christmas and my birthday. But that stopped when I turned thirteen.” The hole inside me felt like it was expanding. I was uncomfortable and didn’t want to think about her anymore. “What about your parents?”
Devin shifted in his seat. “Well, my mom’s great, and my dad’s a military man. Strict. Orderly. Demanding.” He took a deep breath. “He moved out two years ago. He just couldn’t seem to handle raising another kid. Kyle can be challenging, and without me around to sort of offset things he just, I don’t know, couldn’t handle it. But at least he still has visitation with Kyle and stuff. So. I don’t know. I guess it’s not too bad.”
Part of me wanted to ask more questions, and find out more about his family. But the other part of me knew that talking more about his family meant talking more about mine, and I’d thought enough about that for tonight. Besides, the feeling of Devin’s fingers slowly running up and down my back was clouding my brain. “Do you mind if we talk about something else?”
He leaned into me and kissed the skin just behind my ear. “Or we could not talk for a while.”
It was like he read my mind. I let his mouth overtake mine, and we slipped away into a place where no one could touch us.
***
To distract myself, I’d taken to counting the number of dogs I saw as Fiona drove us to our parent’s house. My preference for that Friday night was to be with Devin, but Fiona insisted that it was best for all parties involved if we went to dinner. Apparently, these “family” dinners were going to become a new thing for us all in an effort to make things more functional in our little dysfunctional group. It was odd. After talking to my dad, I’d come to accept that things weren’t going to be warm and fuzzy, family-wise. It was something I’d wanted since I was little, but hell, I wasn’t little anymore, and it was time to just be happy with the fact that I had family who loved me. That would have to be enough. There would always be a little empty hole inside me, but at least I had people around me who could fill up some of it. Part of me wondered if there was some other reason these dinners were going to occur. Was there more to the story? More than meets the eye? Dirty details yet to come out? Or was it just my brain jumping to obtuse conclusions again?
The warm scent of apple pie filled the air when we entered the house. Apple pie was one of my favorite desserts, which was why I couldn’t have any, and somehow, I thought Janet would have remembered that. The smell sparked a twinge of anxiety in my stomach. “I really don’t feel like doing this tonight,” I whispered to Fiona as we entered the dining room where my dad and her mom were already seated.
“Just relax. We’ll be in and out, and you’ll be in Devin’s arms before you know it.” She squeezed my hand before heading to her seat. “Mom, Jack,” she said before sitting.
“Dad, Janet,” I said flatly while pulling out my chair. There was a bowl of salad already at my place setting, and I exchanged a grateful smile with Janet.
“Girls,” my dad said while plopping a heaping spoonful of mashed potatoes on his plate. He handed the bowl to me. “How’s everything?”
I took the bowl from him, inhaled a longing breath of the buttery carb-o-liscious dish, and set it down on the table near Janet. “Everything’s fine. You?”
“Same old, same old. You know how it is when you’re my age. Nothing much ever happens.” He took a swig of his gin and tonic.
How is knocking up your ex-wife same old, same old? “Dad, you’re not that old.”
“She’s right, Jack. Oh wait a second, I do see the grim reaper looming behind you. You might want to tell him to back off.” Fiona teased as she scarfed down her chicken pot pie.
The banter continued as we stayed on safe topics of discussion. The food, the weather, my dad’s favorite sports teams, the summer. And then, just as I finished my salad and placed a wheat roll and a small spoonful of chicken pot pie on my plate, it happened.
“So, Mallory, have you made a decision about where you’re going this fall?”
Even though I knew what he meant, I played dumb. “I’m going to the mall to get some new sweaters.”
He wiped his mouth with his napkin and dropped it down onto his empty plate. “I mean about school. This is the year you’re going to college, correct? The gap year has come and gone, and per our agreement, this fall is when you start college.” He was putting on the because-I’m-your-father tone.
A quick glance to Fiona let me know that she knew this was going to come up tonight. I tried to bore a hole into her forehead with my gaze, but it didn’t work. And what agreement? We never had any agreement. “Well, Dad, I haven’t narrowed it down yet.” Lie.
“Well, let’s at least hear your choices.”
I looked to Janet, who was exchanging uncomfortable glances with Fiona. Obviously, I was a deserted island here. All on my own. “Again, Dad, I don’t really know.” With my fork, I star
ted separating the ingredients in my chicken pot pie. Carrots, peas, chicken, potato.
My dad let out a heavy sign. “It’s time to focus now, Mallory. Walking dogs for some TV personality guy is not going to be your future.”
I stared at the pool of sauce in the middle of my plate. “I never said it was.”
“Well, now it’s time to get serious. I want you to start school this September. There are plenty of good business schools around here.”
Business school? Never once did I ever think of going to business school.
Janet cleared her throat. “Jack, maybe Mallory just isn’t interested in business school. There are plenty of other options for her.”
I looked at her with grateful eyes. Thanking her for trying, at least.
“Nonsense.” My dad downed the last of his drink. “I’m paying for business school because that’s the most logical degree for her. She can do anything with it. And she will.”
Even though I could hear him rambling on, I tuned him out. He and Janet were speaking back and forth, but it became more of a series of low versus high tones being muttered around me. The food on my plate seemed to taunt me, and my stomach twisted as I put a piece of chicken on my fork. Slowly, I took it up to my mouth and separated my lips wide. I removed the chicken from the fork with my teeth and began to chew in tiny motions. Then I placed one pea on my fork and repeated the same process, never letting the food touch my lips.
“What was that?” My dad’s voice was sharp and curt. “Why did you just do that?”
The force of his voice pulled me from my trance. “What?” I dropped my fork onto my plate. “What are you talking about?” Even Fiona’s eyes were wide at me. “What?” I said to her.
“You didn’t let the food touch your lips,” Fiona said. The look of concern from their eyes was weighty.
My dad leaned in towards me. “Mallory, do you need to talk to us about something?”
“What? No!” I snapped and pushed myself away from the table. I knew what was coming.
I could hear their footsteps behind me as I rushed towards the door.
“Mal, wait!” Fiona yelled.
“You find out what’s going on with her. I’m not going through this again,” my dad said.
“Jack, please, Fiona will talk to her,” I heard Janet say as I flung open the front door and dashed to the car.
I sat stoically in the passenger seat as Fiona buckled her seatbelt and started the engine.
After driving for about a mile she finally spoke. “So is there anything you need to tell me?” Her voice tread lightly like she was walking on a newly frozen pond at the start of winter.
Part of me was super hurt at the fact that she even thought I had something to admit, and part of me totally understood.
“No. I swear. I don’t know what happened. It was just an old habit. It didn’t mean anything. Really.” I rambled on thinking that the more I talked, the more she’d believe me.
“Okay,” she said with a nod of her head. “I believe you.”
Grateful, I let out a sigh. Suddenly, I wondered if I believed me.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“I promise it won’t be that bad,” Haley said to me as we stood in my bathroom. We’d just binged on a large pepperoni pizza, a pound of chocolate peanut butter cups, two bags of potato chips, and a pint of ice cream.
The binge started after she came to my house, pizza in hand—half of it gone already. She was complaining about her stepfather again. Granted, her stepfather was an asshole who treated her mom like crap, so she had plenty to complain about. I had been studying like crazy for my French exam, knowing that I was going to fail since I’d spent more time French kissing Marc Hoover than I had learning how to conjugate French verbs. Needless to say, I was happy for the break. And for the binge.
“Do we really have to go this far? I mean, why can’t we just work out for the next three hours or something?” I said to Haley, who was holding the bottle of ipecac syrup out to me.
She wiped some syrup from the corner of her mouth after taking a swig. “Because that’s not working anymore. I mean, it did for a while but now I’ve gained three and a half pounds. We’re going to have to move on to more drastic measures.” She looked at the bottle. “This stuff is supposed to make you throw up, like, really fast.” She put her hands to her stomach. “It’s starting to hurt.”
“Wow, that is fast.” My hands shook as I took the bottle from her.
Haley was the one who first told me about her binge and manic exercise routine. Once I tried it, I had to admit I liked it. I’d always had a sort of messed up relationship with food. For some reason, I couldn’t have just one bite of cake; I’d want the whole cake. Never just one or two slices of pizza, but the whole pie. So I avoided all the foods I wanted to gorge on. Better safe than sorry. But the desire always seemed to be brewing in the background. Then Haley told me how I could pig out all I wanted and then just exercise like a freak for three hours. The system was perfect. Well sort of. It allowed me to control myself. It allowed me control, period, and I liked that. The feeling of being able to do whatever I wanted without repercussions was a high I’d never felt before. Having my best friend doing it with me only added to the high. We’d been doing it for months. But we were crossing into a different realm. The binge-and-purge realm. It was scary. Really scary.
“Oh, God. Here it comes,” Haley said before her body lurched over the toilet bowl and she began to vomit. I held her blonde hair back as she puked. When she was finished, she splashed some water on her face and rinsed her mouth out with mouthwash. “Okay, your turn,” she said to me with a supportive smile on her face.
My stomach was bloated and in so much pain from all the food we’d eaten. I wanted to get rid of it. I really did. But I wasn’t sure if this was the right way Maybe I could just stop. Maybe I could learn never to binge again. I’d develop a system. I could get it all under control.
“You’d better hurry up before you start digesting that shit,” Haley said, pushing the bottle of ipecac closer to my mouth.
With my eyes closed, I took a shot of the vile stuff. A mixture of fear, anxiety, pain, and heat swirled in my stomach like a whirlpool. Within a minute, I was hurling more shit than I thought I even had in me into the toilet while Haley held my hair back.
She handed me a cool, wet face cloth. “See, that wasn’t so bad, right?”
“Sure,” I said. My voice and hands shook. “Not so bad.”
She wrapped her arms around me in a big bear hug. “You’re the best friend a girl could ever have.”
For how shitty I felt, her words and her hug made me feel better.
***
The progression happened quickly. Soon after Haley’s stepdad beat her mom for the first time. That’s when she changed. She no longer wanted to binge and purge. She no longer wanted to eat, anything, ever. She dropped down to ninety-seven pounds in two months. While she was disappearing, I was binging and purging over my fear of what was happening to her. I couldn’t eat normally. Every thought I had was about food. I didn’t want to lose her but I didn’t know how to stop her either.
“Don’t let the food touch your lips,” she said.
I was at her house and her mom had made a birthday dinner for her. Mrs. Emerson ignored the truth that was right in front of her. That her daughter was anorexic. She’d found ways to hide how bad she really was. The baggy clothing. Hiding food in her napkins. She had lots of little tricks.
“She’ll be watching to see me eat. So I have to. But it will be the smallest amount I can. And it’s super important to not let the food touch your lips.” She was putting on extra makeup to hide the dark circles under her eyes.
“Why?”
“It just is!” she snapped.
I nodded my head and would do what she asked. I didn’t want to lose her. Only eventually I would.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“There you go my dear,” Eliza said as she handed me my iced French vanilla coffee
.
“Thanks,” I said while admiring her makeup today—dark smoky blue eyelids with orchid lip gloss drenched in glitter.
I turned to meet Devin’s smile. “We have a problem.” His voice was as serious as a tsunami.
“What is it?” Never say those words unless you want to hear my heartbeat overtake all other sounds in the room.
Devin pointed to my self-designated spot “Look.”
When I turned, I saw that someone had the nerve to be sitting in my booth. “You’re kidding me!” I made a sarcastic huff like a territorial poodle.
“Shall I inform them of the error of their ways, or just kick their ass?” he joked.
The woman sitting there working on her knitting as she sipped tea—probably decaf—didn’t seem to need an ass kicking; a pacemaker maybe, but definitely not an ass kicking. “She’s lucky I’m in a good mood.”
“You are?” Devin draped an arm around me.
“More so all the time.” I tilted my head to him, and he bent down to lay his soft, warm lips on mine.
It had been two days since I’d seen him. He worked a few twelve-hour days with his uncle, who was a contractor, doing sheet rock work on some houses his uncle was renovating to rent out. In the fall, Devin had a full-time job lined up at some big electronics company in the IT department. But for the summer, he was just doing odds and ends when his uncle needed help.
I scanned Perked for another place to sit, but all I could find were some open tables. “We might have to be fish in an aquarium today.”
Devin shifted his weight from side to side as his eyes darted around the room. It seemed like he was just scoping out the place, only his face looked serious and intense.
“Or we could just hover near a booth if that’d make you more comfortable,” I said, noticing his shoulders were raised and tense.
“What? No, ah, how about we just go for a walk or something.” He placed his hand on my lower back and guided me out the front door before I had a chance to answer. “The open air feels good doesn’t it?” he said once we were walking.
