Never Enough (31 page)

And she
had
a problem. Even if she tried to deny it, I couldn’t.

Claire didn’t look away, her face pale and streaked with sweat.
She really shouldn’t be working out so hard.
I glanced down just in time to see her foot slide off the pedal. She tripped, nearly falling sideways off the machine.

I was still moving at a snail’s pace, so I jumped off and caught her arm before she fell, but she came toppling onto me. We both fell down and one of my pedals dug into my back.

My elbow burned. I must have scraped it on something, too. “What are you doing?” I snapped at her. “You’re obviously in no condition to do this!” It took Claire what seemed like forever to maneuver herself off of me and into a standing position.

It took even longer to calm my breathing.

“Whew, that was embarrassing,” Claire said, looking around. And then she actually
giggled
. “I’m glad you caught me, Loey.”

Rage boiled within me. “You can’t do this!” I spit out, trying to untangle myself from the machine as she looked down at me, obviously too weak to give me a hand up. “Why are you doing this, Claire? What do you want, to kill yourself?” I was so angry at her, so scared for what she was becoming, I couldn’t hold back. “Don’t be so friggin’ selfish!”

I knew she could come up with a thousand rebuttals.
It was an accident, Loey. People make mistakes. Sheesh, you’ve made enough stupid mistakes.

But she didn’t say any of those things. She simply said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Loann.”

I stomped back to the locker room, tears streaming down my face, but I didn’t know why. I wasn’t sad. I was angry. So angry.

What was wrong with her?

After the last bell, Marcus and I walked to a small garage under Armando’s
apartment, where Marcus had been working on fixing up the used Camaro. I was supposed to relieve Armando at the café, but I’d been a wreck all afternoon. I had been too emotional to talk in the hallway at school. Part of me needed to talk about Claire, but part of me just couldn’t.

“I’m thinking of applying to Kettleton in Chicago. You’d come visit me, right?” I didn’t expect an answer. I figured he probably couldn’t even hear me from where he was working under his car. “Claire’s really messed up, and all I want to do is escape from it all. I can’t get through to her, and I just wish I wasn’t even here.”

Sitting and watching Marcus’s feet wiggle as he maneuvered
himself into different positions gave me something to focus on. “I don’t know what she wants to hear or what’ll make any difference. I mean, I tell her how beautiful and talented she is, how much she could do with her life, but she just doesn’t get it.” I ran my foot around an oil spot on the floor.

Every so often Marcus asked me to pass him some kind of tool, which I spent far more time trying to locate than if he’d just come out and gotten it himself. An hour later, I was all talked out about Claire, and apparently Marcus had finished changing the U-joints, whatever that meant.

After sliding out from under the car, he said, “We can’t always be what other people need us to be.” I knew he was talking about Claire. And maybe even his mom. “You can sit around and blame yourself about it . . .” He finished putting his tools away, and then met my eyes. “Or you can get on with it.”

Get on with what?
But somewhere inside I knew what he meant. I obviously had to tell my parents. I just really didn’t feel like I had the strength to oppose Claire. She was so good at lying now.

“Will you come home with me? I . . .” I didn’t know how else to say it. “I need you, Marcus.”

I felt bad for Armando, but I just couldn’t go to the café today. I had to talk to Mom about this. And I probably needed to do it in front of Claire.

Marcus grabbed my hand. “Let’s go.”

*   *   *

The house was empty when we got there. It shouldn’t have surprised me, I suppose. As if Claire would just wait around for me to come home and yell at her some more.

We headed upstairs for the computer room, but kept the door open in case anyone came home. I took the side seat, leaving the one in front of the computer for Marcus.

“You want to help me find a free graphics program I can use to work on some of my pictures?” My heart wasn’t in it today, but it was a good distraction and I’d wanted Marcus’s help with this for a while. He just hadn’t had time.

We didn’t have any photo software on our computer, so Marcus maximized the browser and typed something into the address bar. His hands, as usual, flew over the keys at the speed of light and I watched in amazement.

“Oops,” he said. “That’s the problem with typing so fast. Too many mistakes.” He hit the back key several times, but our old computer took its sweet time catching up. “Hmm, one too far,” he said, going for the forward button.

“Wait. Stop,” I said.

A picture of a pretty girl with a long, narrow face came up on the screen. It must have been one of Claire’s new cyber-friends’ websites. A star flashed right in the middle.

I knew we should just click out, but I reached past Marcus for the mouse and clicked on the star.

“Come to my party!” appeared at the top of the page with a sidebar at the left. I glanced over the contents: Favorite Foods, Tips and Tricks, E-mail Me, Shana’s Blog, and then that star again. I swallowed and clicked it.

The pretty girl appeared in a full head-to-toe shot. She wore thigh-high boots and a miniskirt, and couldn’t have weighed even ninety pounds. Her ribs showed through her fitted T-shirt and her boots left large gaps around her thighs. I read the words beside her gaunt frame. “Come to my binge party in Columbus, Ohio!”

The next paragraph went on to say in big, bold letters:
BYOF
. And then: “But don’t worry, there’ll be lots here. All my favorites,” which had a link. “Three bathrooms on-site. Take your turn. A party you won’t want to miss. E-mail for directions.”

“Oh my God,” Marcus said. “What is this?”

But I could barely hear him. I clicked through all the side tabs, mostly more information about the party, until I got to the Tips and Tricks page. It was a list of bullet points. The first one said:

People will want to believe you are eating right. It’s easier than you think!

I stared over the list of highest calorie-burning exercises and lowest-carb foods. At the bottom of the page there were tips on puking. I could not believe my eyes.

You don’t need a toilet or even a garbage can. If you practice, a Coke can will be enough.

How many times had Mom told Claire to lay off the diet soda lately? I pushed the mouse up to the right corner, but missed the X because my hand was shaking so badly. On my second try, I hit it, and then stared at the empty desktop. I sat there in stunned disbelief.

Marcus put his hand over mine, but thankfully he didn’t say a word. I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t answer questions about this sick life of my sister’s.

I shook my head. “I’ve been trying to talk to her. The clinic only made her worse!” I was practically choking on my words. “I don’t know what to do. What can
I
possibly do?”

I felt like I was going to be sick, and ran to my and Claire’s shared bathroom. Bending over the toilet, I couldn’t even dry-heave. It took about twenty deep breaths to calm myself down enough to stand up. As I went back to see Marcus, I heard Mom and Claire downstairs.

“I’ve saved a little money,” Claire was saying, “and I was thinking of going to visit a friend in Ohio.”

“I don’t know, honey. You’ve been away a lot this year.” I could tell Mom was distracted.

I walked over to the top of the stairs and watched them. They were still near the front closet, and hadn’t seen me yet.

“Yeah, but that was for, well, you know. I just want to
have a fun trip, Mom.” She smiled, and then even laughed a little.
Laughed
.

How could I care so much when Claire didn’t even care? I didn’t know her anymore. Didn’t know that smile, didn’t know what tomorrow would bring from my so-called predictable sister. I missed that. Even when she was popular in school, I understood her. And growing up, she’d always been on my side. Now she was just on her own side.

I turned to head for my room, but Marcus stood right behind me, like a big blockade to my sanity. He motioned his head down the stairs.
Did he really not see how good of a liar my sister was? Did he honestly think I could say or do anything that would make a difference?

“Fine,” I said, and Claire and Mom both looked up, realizing I was there. I marched down the stairs. “Do you know what’s in Ohio?” I asked Mom, but looked at Claire.

Claire looked past me to the computer room, where the light was still on. “You don’t know what you’re doing, Loann. Keeping me here won’t help.”

“What will help, then, Claire, huh?” I’d never spoken to my sister this way. I took a step back as if I’d even scared myself, but bumped into Marcus, who was behind me again. Neither Claire nor Mom had even looked in his direction.

Mom glanced between Claire and me. “What’s going on? What about this trip, Claire?”

“It’s nothing!” she screamed so loudly that Mom’s eyes widened. And then, as if the words had taken everything out of Claire, she doubled over.

“Well then I’m sure it can’t be that big of a deal whether you go or not,” Mom said in her usual patronizing tone.

But Claire didn’t argue. In fact, she let out a small whimper.

“I don’t know if you girls think we’re made of money,” Mom went on.

I ignored the fact that Mom made it sound like I wanted to go to Ohio too, and took a step toward Claire. “Are you . . . okay?”

Her hair fell in her face. She shook her head and clutched her stomach.

“I think she’s hurt,” I told Mom. “She’s really sick.”

Claire tried to stand up, but doubled over again. She took a shaky step toward the stairs and reached for the handrail to steady herself.

Mom stared, not doing or saying a thing, so finally I said, “Mom, I think you need to get Claire to the hospital.”

Mom nodded, and without hesitation Marcus took one of Claire’s arms and I took the other. Mom’s whole body shook as she locked the front door behind us. After Marcus bent to help Claire into the backseat, Mom reached for his arm. I stared down at her hand, praying she wasn’t going to do this now.

But then she said, “Thank you.”

Marcus nodded, and an understanding seemed to pass between them.

I backed away, then moved around to the other side of the car and took my place beside Claire.

Dad met us at the administration desk of the hospital.

After Claire was brought into the ER, refusing to let my parents go with her, we all sat in the waiting room in stunned silence. At least for the first minute.

Mom had started going to counseling sessions in an attempt to understand Claire, and she chose then to try to convince Dad that it was his responsibility to go with her, like this was obviously the cog in her system of raising healthy kids. Which, of course, segued into another brawl over money. Right in the middle of the hospital waiting room.

“She could die, Darren.” Mom spit his name like it was a cuss, then lowered her voice. “The clinic already told us her
liver’s congested and her stomach’s a mess. What if her heart gives out?”

“I don’t know what you want me to do about it, Beth. You want me at home. You want me at the counselor’s. I’m working all the hours I can to hold this family together.”

Marcus looked out the window, trying to avoid the whole thing. I felt bad for bringing him here. Putting him in the middle of all this. But I needed him more now than ever.

“Well, it’s not working,” Mom gritted out.

“These clinics don’t come cheap, Beth. You’re going to have to deal with Claire.”

“Oh, okay. I’ll deal with Claire.” She shook her head. “Why should I be surprised? Let’s leave this all on Beth’s lap again.”

Thankfully there were only two other people in the waiting room with us, but they looked as uncomfortable as Marcus. My parents continued to seethe blame messages back and forth until the doctor finally came and took them aside.

“Are you okay?” Marcus asked.

I nodded, even though I felt anything but okay. “I’m sorry you had to come here.”

“I’m not.” He laced his fingers through mine and squeezed my hand reassuringly. “There’s no place I’d rather be.” I attempted a smile, but I just felt like I had nothing left in me.

*   *   *

The hospital wanted to keep Claire for a few days to monitor her. We all went to visit her the next evening, but she just lay there, arms crossed, not looking at any of us. It was as if she thought it was
our
fault she’d ended up in the hospital.