Paperweight (9 page)

Friday, July 11, 5:32 a.m.

I'M first to the villa for weight and vitals the next morning. I yank the ties on my hospital gown into unforgiving knots. The fabric sticks to the curve of my belly and the tops of my thighs and my ass. I can even see the outline of my scar. My eyes are dry, my head cotton-stuffed. I lie still like a corpse on one of the couches in the villa while Hannah pumps the bulb on my blood pressure cuff. When I sit up, she slides a stethoscope over my back. She takes notes in a black three-ring binder, the kind I used for school. It's strange, knowing I'll never buy another binder. So I don't think about it.

“You look tired this morning, Stephanie,” Hannah says as she leads me into the tiny room with the upright scale. She closes the door behind us, and there is barely enough room for both
our bodies. She is too much at this hour—her lips slathered with frosty drugstore magenta, her every breath an effort. Her short orange hair is curled into perfect hard semi-circles.

“Didn't sleep,” I mutter at my feet. I hate weight and vitals. So much measuring and recording, the nurses gathering up numbers as if they are desperate to solve some mystery. There is no mystery. I am dying.

“Sorry to hear that,” she says too cheerfully.

I stiffen when she slides her palms along my ribcage and over my hips, to be sure I'm not wearing underwear or hiding anything beneath my gown.

“On the scale for me?” she prompts.

The scale rattles beneath my weight as I step onto it, turned away from the numbers. The seconds here are always torture, as she slides the weights on the scale back and forth, back and forth, until they are just right. I hate that she can see the numbers and I can't. It isn't fair. They aren't hers. They're mine.

“Alright! Thank you, Stephanie.” As she records my weight, she purses her lips together for a fraction of a second. She recovers quickly, but it's too late. I've read her. And I understand: I've lost weight. The realization shoots through me potent and fast, as good as the first high.

Good girl,
I think, stepping off the scale and onto the cold tile floor.

Then,
Oh, shit. I don't want a tube. They'll give me a tube.

I dress quickly and go outside, lying in the cold spongy grass beyond the patio. I have to think—the important kind of thinking that can only be done in secret. When other people know you're thinking, they start to think for you. And the last
thing I need is Shrink's
you can do it
s and
I'm so proud
s because I
am
doing it, my way.

It's dark, still. I blink at the sky. One eye, then the other, so it looks like the stars are jumping. In the riding ring, the horses are restless.

“Doing a little stargazing?” At the sound of Shrink's voice I suck in a cold, hard breath that makes my lungs feel like they're the wrong size.

“Holy shit.” I sit up fast.

“I didn't mean to scare you. Mind if I sit?” She settles next to me, in jeans and sneakers and a hoodie that's dark green or navy or black. Her hair is damp and smells like coconut, which I know because she's too close.

“What are you doing here so early? Do you live here or something?” My heartbeat is clumsy, like it's trying to clap a rhythm it can't quite find.

“Feels that way sometimes. But no.” She leans back on her palms and looks up at the sky. “I got here early, to see if you had any interest in a trail ride.”

“Like, on a horse?”

“Like, on a horse.”

“But I'm still on red,” I say, all panicked, like,
I
am
still on red, right?
Right
?
I check my wrist to make sure. “It's against the rules.”

“Promise I won't tell,” she says. “I just thought we could do something special.”

“Why?” A reward after my behavior in group yesterday seems unlikely. I eye her warily. Is she going to yell at me for purging? Ashley must have told. I'd prefer yelling to this gal pal routine, anyway.

“Because I know the binge experiential yesterday was difficult for you. So I'm asking you to take some time to do something relaxing. Something fun. Treatment is hard work. I know that, Stevie.”

I can feel the warm red blood humming just below surface of my skin. If she's going to bust me, I'd rather she just get it over with. “I don't think so.”

“Why not?”

“I've never been on a horse.” It's almost not a lie. I've only ridden a horse once, when I was seven. At a birthday party for Emily P., who was the most popular girl in my class and who only invited me because her mother was the kind of mother who made homemade valentines for every kid in the grade.

“I'll be right there with you. And it's a chance to get out a little. Come on, it'll be fun.” Shrink springs to her feet and extends her hand. “We have to get moving, or you'll miss breakfast.”

I get up without touching her.

“That would be tragic,” I say.

Shrink takes a horse named Whimsy and I get Ernie, a coffee-two-creams-colored horse whose name sounds familiar, but I can't remember why. I clutch the reins clumsily in one hand and gather a fistful of mane in the other. The hair is coarse and oily.

We do a lap around the ring, my horse following Shrink's, and everything is coiled like a snake: my muscles, my hands, the too-small riding helmet that smells like another girl's sweat. The line of raised flesh on my leg is tight, as if it's ready to burst.

“Doing okay back there?” Shrink calls without turning around.
She leads the way out of the ring and cuts across the pasture, toward the main road.

“Yeah.” I can see my breath in the early morning air, which seems out of place in the desert. “I'm fine.” I focus on an invisible line on the horizon, where the watery pink meets the just yellow, and go back to thinking. Technically, I should want a feeding tube. Tubes are reserved for the very best girls, the ones who are so close to death that they can reach out and almost stroke it with their skeleton fingers. But I have to prioritize, and what I want more than the honor of being almost dead is to be actually dead.

“. . . I know yesterday was difficult,” Shrink is saying. She tugs the reins on Whimsy until we're just two girls riding side by side, carefree into the desert sunrise. We're practically a tampon commercial.

“It's fine.”
Just say it.
Does she really not know that I purged yesterday? Maybe I should have given Ashley more credit.
Focus, Stevie.
If I don't want a tube, then the only option is to fake getting better until the Anniversary. By then, I can stash enough pills to do the trick. I hate this plan. It means that I'll have to eat at least a little, and after yesterday I'm starting to think that I can't. As in, I have trained my body so well that it will carry on the crusade, with or without me.

Mostly, though, I hate this plan because this ending is wrong.

“What was it like for you, the experiential?” Shrink takes her eyes from the road. Her cheeks are the same pink as the sky; the welt beneath her eye is turning green.

“Sucked.” I don't give her any more than that. She doesn't deserve it, after she's taken away my ending. The one I designed was
perfect. Poetic. And Shrink stole it. Every person should be able to choose her own particular brand of suffering. It's a fundamental human right. Death. Liberty. The pursuit of unhappiness.

“Stevie, I want you to know that I understand—”

“You don't.” I stare straight ahead, but I've lost the invisible line on the horizon. She ruins everything.

“I'm sorry?”

“You don't understand because you're not me, so seriously, just . . .” I don't finish, because I don't think the words are coming out in the right order and she won't get it anyway. I chew the inside of my cheek, trying to slow the erratic flutter of my heart in my chest. It feels untethered, like it's this angry captive bird that's going to find a way to fly out of my body at any second.

“You're right. I'm not you.”

“I'm not getting a feeding tube,” I inform her. “I decided.”

She doesn't answer.

“It's disgusting,” I say. “I'm not letting some nurse shove plastic in me.” In that moment, I know for sure. Whatever I do, I do on my terms.

“Okay, so you don't want a tube.”

“That's what I said.” My voice quivers as Ernie, then Whimsy, head up a small hill, kicking pebbles in their wake. I grip the reins so tight my hands start to tingle.

“Good. What do you need to do to make that a reality, then?” She steers Whimsy until we are side by side again. The sun pushes higher.

“Don't ask questions you already know the answer to.”

“But I don't know the answer. I don't know your answer, anyway.”

“I guess I'll try not to lose more weight. But I'm not gaining.”

Shrink's head lists to one side, like her helmet is too heavy. “I am really, really proud of you for making an effort to maintain your weight, Stevie. That's awesome.” Her eyes are searching.

“You don't think I can do it.” Why am I arguing with her? I don't care what she thinks. I care only about Josh. About finding a way to get to him when everyone here insists on keeping us apart.

“Stevie . . .” She pauses. “I get the impression often that you think I'm not being honest with you. Game playing, maybe. I've gotten that feeling a few times since you started treatment.”

“Perceptive.”

“Here's the thing, though. I'm not game playing. I will always be honest with you.” She pats her horse on the neck, and he tosses his head at her touch. “Do you know what I want for you during your time here?”

“Doesn't matter.” I shrug.

“Well, I'll tell you anyway. Here's what I want. I want you to want to get better. I want you to learn how to eat and how to feel—and trust me, both will feel like absolute shit. I want you to get pissed when you need to and to feel sad when you need to. I want you to heal, Stevie. Okay? So there it is. No hidden agendas.”

Jesus, she has a talent for making things weird in record time. I wonder if this is what she's like on a date. I picture her in some vegan café, and the guy across from her is like,
Hi, my name is Dylan
, and she's like,
I'm going to be completely transparent with you, Dylan. These tofu nuggets are making me saaaad.

“Why do you even do this?” I ask, before she gets any more TV-movie moment on me.

“Do what?'

“This. This.” I flap one of my hands between us. “Therapy or whatever. To fix people?” My stomach swoops a little and the desert around us suddenly feels faded and out of focus.

“No.” She squishes her lips together. “I think . . . I do it because I know that we all carry heavy burdens in life. I'm not naïve enough to think that I could shoulder someone's burden for them. I have my own weight to carry.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I've got my own problems, just like everybody.”

I don't think shrinks are supposed to say that kind of thing out loud.

“But I do feel honored to walk beside someone as they learn how to carry their own particular burden. Maybe they figure out how to adjust the straps on their pack, or how to lighten their load by unpacking a few things they don't really need anymore.”

“So what do people need you for?”

“To share skills or offer suggestions. Or maybe to ask good questions or make observations. And always to offer support. Because we're not meant to walk alone in this life. We're meant to be part of a
we
. Something bigger, something outside of ourselves.”

My
we
died with Josh. She doesn't get to step in, the homely girl understudy who slaps on an extra coat of makeup on opening night.

“What's yours?” I ask.

“My what?”

“Your burden.”
World hunger
, I expect her to say, or maybe,
My twin sister steals my favorite sweater sometimes. You have no idea
how
annoying
that is.

“I'm an alcoholic. Recovering.”

“Oh.” I'm almost positive shrinks aren't supposed to say
that
kind of thing out loud. What am I supposed to say? Probably something murmury and sympathetic. But what comes out is, “You're fucked up, too.”

I'm surprised when she laughs. Her laugh is fat and unapologetic.

“I'm human, Stevie. And I used to have not-so-good ways of coping with life, and now I have better ways and I try really hard to use them. That's it. It's not magic.”

I picture Shrink in the Stacks, laughing too loud on wobbly high heels. It makes me want to laugh and cry.

“So, what's it like to know that about me?”

“I don't know. You don't seem like an alcoholic. Eden is one. Or will be, I don't know.”

She pulls Whimsy to a stop, and Ernie follows. I shield my eyes and look around. There is nothing here, just a few pathetic scrubby plants beneath us, and the occasional cactus. It's too quiet out here.

“You spent a lot of time with Eden, didn't you? At the bar, after the class you took. What was that like?”

“It was . . .” I know what she's doing, but I give it thought anyway, because she's just shared some deep shit or whatever and it will be awkward if I don't play
.
“She sent me a letter. Yesterday.”

Shrink bobs her head, once.

I shift on my saddle. “And I couldn't really sleep that well last night 'cause I kept thinking about it. She acted like I'm not even here.”

“Like you don't exist? Or like you're not in treatment?”

“Like I'm not in treatment. She acted that way when I was home, too. Like I didn't have a problem. She didn't even notice that I was losing a lot of weight. She just would say how good and skinny I looked, and stuff.”