ThinandBeautiful.com (21 page)

I watched her run away. I knew she was crying but I told myself it was her own fault and willed myself not to cry along with her. If she wanted to stay completely out of my life, that was fine with me. It's not like we were still real friends anyway. There was nothing to miss, no one to miss.

She was wrong. I could see everything just fine. I could see that no one really cared about me at all. They were all too worried about themselves to try to understand the things that were important to me. It didn't matter. I was fine. I could take care of myself. So much for “alwaysannie.”

That night I didn't turn my computer on at eleven. I didn't want to talk to anyone. I just crawled into bed and pulled the covers up over my head hoping for sleep to wipe out the day the dragons went away for good.

May 12

“Hey.”

I was sitting by the window, watching Marina meditating in the garden and wondering whether I should go out and bug her or not. Now that I was going to group, I had a full hour of down time after each session. Wolf sat beside me and watched her for a second.

“She's probably going home next month. Did she tell you that?”

“No. She doesn't really talk about herself much.” I looked at him. “Does she talk to you?”

“Not really. Mostly she just picks on me. She was here before me, though, and I'm pretty sure she's on her way out.”

“What about you?” I tried not to sound like it mattered. I'm not actually sure if it did anymore or not. I'm not sure I have the energy to worry about boys these days. All this writing of my memories is making me think too much and I'm not all that happy with the thoughts. I feel turned inside out with my emotions sitting on the outside, exposed and raw.

“Oh, I'll be here a bit longer.”

“Can I ask you a personal question?” It was risky, but curiosity won over common sense.

“Sure. I bet I can even guess.”

“Oh, yeah? Go ahead.”

“You want to know how a guy like me ended up in a place like this. Emphasis on the
guy
part.” He grinned. My heart did kind of a slow roll and a couple of butterflies danced in my gut. Maybe I had a little energy for this after all.

“Yeah, that is what I want to know. There isn't much talk about guys and losing weight and all that stuff.” I wasn't going to bring up the disorder thing.

“Well, here's the story. It's boring, but I've had to tell it a few times, so here goes. Try not to fall asleep.”

“I'll do my best.” I smiled, as prettily as I could manage. He took a deep breath and started to talk.

“I'm probably a little like you. I wanted to get my body under control. I liked control. I liked to do things well and
please everyone around me. My parents weren't always the easiest people to please. My dad is kind of a macho guy and I never was. He wasn't mean or anything, just … disappointed in me, I guess. He thought I was soft. I tried to do some of the stuff he wanted, like sports, but I wasn't big enough for football or fast enough for soccer. I liked swimming but he didn't think it was a real sport. Anyway, it wasn't that big a deal but it bothered me. I started trying to get my body into shape so at least I would look more athletic or whatever. I started getting thinner and more buff and people started to notice. At first it was all good. Even my dad said I looked like I had been working out. After a while, I just couldn't stop. I couldn't make myself eat and couldn't seem to make myself stop exercising. I swam and walked and started jogging and running. I was tired all the time but did it anyway. I found some stuff online about this diet supplement that would speed things up. You could buy it right online so I did. It worked so I took more and more of it.”

“What did your family do?” I interrupted.

“At first, no one thought there was anything too wrong. No one thought of the whole eating disorder thing because I'm a guy and mostly girls are the ones people worry about. By the time my mom started to panic, I was pretty far gone. She found out about this place from a friend and persuaded my dad to help her send me here. He didn't want to at first. Thought it was ‘unmanly,' I guess. Anyway, they took me in here. I hated it at first, just like you. And it didn't help that I was the only guy around. But after a while I started realizing that I needed some help to get myself OK. I had to admit it.”

“Admit what?” I asked, even though I knew.

“I told you before when we first met. I'm sick with an eating disorder. Anorexia nervosa. Not enough food, too much exercise, and all those diet pills made me too weak. The doctors said that it could make my internal organs work so hard to keep me alive that they could start to shut down.”

“Sounds a little extreme. I mean, I know they say people die from starvation but not people like us. The real sick people are in hospitals. We're fine.”

“Yeah, well, I think I just missed being one of those hospital people. Lots of us here just missed it. That's kind of why we're here.”

“Not me, though. I'm nothing like that. I mean, I do admit I could have done some stuff differently now that I really think about it, which I do way too much in this place. But I was never in any danger. People just overreacted. I'm not sick so much as a bit of a jerk when it comes to people.”

“You seem pretty nice to me.” I know it wasn't really a declaration of undying love, but I'm pretty sure I heard bells ringing and birds chirping and saw a rainbow spring out over his head. I tried not to blush or bite my tongue in half.

“Thanks. Not so sure it's true but it's nice you think so.”

“Are you going to sit here all day sucking in the stale socalled air in this place and staring at the sky or are you coming outside to breathe a little of the real stuff? You remember fresh air, don't you?” The queen of interruptions had come in without us noticing and patted us each on a cheek while smiling her devilish smile.

“Fine, fine, we'll come out. Just keep your sweaty palms
to yourself!” Wolf said, grabbing my hand and making me blush all over again as the three of us went outside to soak up some sun.

lookingforlight says:
we missed u last night

bodaciousbod says:
where were u? somewhere fun i hope

nevertoothin says:
were u feeding chocolate to the mean girl?

divinethinspiration says:
no. i was basically saying gbye to my former bff

lookingforlight says:
sorry

divinethinspiration says:
she doesn't want to be there for me

lookingforlight says:
u sure?

divinethinspiration says:
sure. working against me not for me. doesn't understand

nevertoothin says:
lots of ppl don't. my b/f dumped me last year. jerk wanted me to get help for my so-called problem.

bodaciousbod says:
sounds like he had the problem!

nevertoothin says:
sounds like it

divinethinspiration says:
any of u lose friends?

bodaciousbod says:
some

divinethinspiration says:
what can i do?

lookingforlight says:
not much. she might come around. give it time

divinethinspiration says:
time is not my friend

lookingforlight says:
i am ur friend

bodaciousbod says:
me 2

nevertoothin says:
me 3

We talked and talked and I realized that sometimes you have to make sacrifices for what you really want in life. After the big final fight with Annie, I didn't want to spend time with anyone, guy, girl, man, woman, or child. I just wanted to be alone with my computer where I could talk to people who thought I had something worthwhile to say. No one else seemed to be trying very hard to get me to spend time with them, so it wasn't difficult to be alone. Even my family was avoiding me. My parents seemed to have given up talking to me about anything important, which was a good thing. Even my brother seemed to find other things to do when I was home. I didn't care. I didn't need anyone bothering me. It was obvious to me that everyone had finally decided to leave me alone, which was what I wanted.

So I was pretty surprised when I woke up one morning to the sound of banging on my door and my mother's voice calling my name. I jumped awake, figuring the house had to be on fire for her to be paying so much attention to me. I ran to the door and pulled it open.

“Happy birthday, sweetie,” my mom said in a sing-songy voice. My birthday? It was my birthday? How could I forget that? I couldn't believe it! All my life I had done the whole birthday countdown for about a month before. I had made sure everyone in a ten-mile radius knew my birthday was coming. I
would get so excited that I would stay up half the night on my “birthday eve.” Today was my birthday?

“Um, thanks?” I said weakly, as Mom grabbed me in a big hug. She was hugging me? Maybe I was asleep and this was some sort of warped dream.

“Seventeen! I can't believe it!”

“You couldn't believe that I turned fourteen either, or fifteen, or sixteen,” I said, starting to wake up as my mom squeezed my ribs. Wow, that woman was strong. I tried to gently ease myself out of her grip.

“Um, Mom? Could I, like, breathe now?” I wriggled a little to make my point. Mom hung on for a second or two longer before letting go.

“Oh, sorry, honey. I just get a little emotional on birthdays. I can't help thinking about the past when you were just a wee thing and now you're all grown up. You know, just silly old woman stuff.” She kind of brushed a tear away.

“That's OK, you can't help being old,” I said, trying to lighten things up a bit so she wouldn't cry. I didn't want to make her cry again. I don't know why my birthday would make her cry. It's like she didn't want me to get older or something, which totally contradicted the fact that half the time she seemed to want me to grow up instantly. Sometimes, I think that it might be nice to be a baby again and not have to think about anything but who was going to feed me and put me to bed. This growing-up routine really wasn't as thrilling as I thought it would be when I was a little kid.

“What's this about being old?” my dad said as he walked down the hall. “Happy birthday, honey! I assume you were
referring to yourself as old?” He gave me a kiss on the cheek.

“Oh, yes, of course, Dad.” I gave him a kiss back and turned to go back into my room. It was so nice that they were acting all normal. Or at least an approximation of normal. It was a little like being on a TV show about very nice people. Maybe there were cameras somewhere and I was really on one of those reality shows that aren't really real at all because everyone knows they're on TV so they act completely fake. Whatever it was, it was kind of nice. Like a birthday present.

“Are you going to come down and have a birthday breakfast?” Dad asked in a casual tone. I saw Mom put her hand on his arm.

“No thanks, Dad, I'm just going to grab some juice on the way to school.” I braced myself for an argument.

“OK, well, maybe later we'll have a birthday supper.” He gave me another kiss and went downstairs. I swear he looked like he was going to do the birthday crying thing too. What is it with parents?

“So, sweetie, I thought and thought about just the right gift for you,” Mom started to say.

“Oh, don't worry about me. I don't need anything,” I interrupted. I was being very grown up. Every other year, I would have submitted my list to my parents at least two months before the big day to give them time to shop.

“Well, I came up with something. I am going to take you shopping right after school for some new clothes. It'll be a special ‘girls only' time. The men will make supper for us while we're gone. We have it all worked out.” She looked at me with a big smile that looked like it was going to fall off her face.

The last thing on earth I wanted to do was to go shopping for clothes. I wasn't anywhere near the weight I needed to be to deserve new clothes! I opened my mouth to say it but the look on my mother's face shut me up.

“That sounds great,” I lied and was rewarded with a real smile. “I don't need much, though, just a couple of things, all right?”

“Whatever you want. It's your day,” Mom said, hugging me again. She gave me another power squeeze and left me to get ready for school. That was more hugging than I usually got in a year.

We headed to the mall right after school, as promised. Our suburb didn't have anything resembling a real mall so we had to go downtown. I used to love shopping trips when I was little. It was always this big adventure, heading into the city where all of the real stores were – you know, the ones in the TV commercials. I loved it a little less over the last couple of years, but it was still interesting to look at all the new fashions. It seemed that loud colors were “in” this season, shouting at us from every rack.

I really hated the way I looked in some changeroom mirrors. The lights made me look like I had the plague and the glass made me look all lumpy and bumpy, even lumpier and bumpier than I looked at home. I couldn't figure out how the stores thought that this would help them sell stuff, but it didn't seem to be a problem. Not for them anyway. The lineups at the cash were always long and filled with obnoxious people hoping their new jeans would look better at home than they did at the store.

I tried on a couple of things to please Mom. The salesgirl was sniffing around, trying to smell a sale. I guess my mom looked rich or something. When I was there alone, no one paid any attention to me because they figured I had no cash.

Anyway, every time I would come out of the changeroom, the salesgirl would swoop down and say, “Oh, lovely, so slimming.”

“If she says that word one more time, I am going to bop her in the nose,” my mother said the fourth time we heard it. I looked at her in surprise. The thought of my proper mother “bopping” anyone was crazy. She looked mad enough to do it, too!

“Mom!”