“Well,” I said, “now that you mention it . . .”
“Totally got my boobs done!” she said, laughing, too, seemingly oblivious to the stares of the receptionist and the few other gym goers in the immediate area. “And the lashes are extensions. I’m only, like, ninety-eight percent organic.”
I laughed again, thrilled with the sense of normalcy it gave me. I’d done enough crying over the past ten days to last me a lifetime. “So you’re visiting your grandparents,” I said, “but how did you find me?”
“I stopped by your parents’ place and your mom told me where you’re working.” Heather’s eyes roamed to the handsome, well-muscled young receptionist at the desk, then came back to me. “Nice décor. I can see why you like it.”
“Are you still in San Francisco? Are you still dancing?”
“Whoa!” Heather said. “Too many questions and not enough time. When are you off? Can we get a drink?”
My stomach rebelled at the idea of imbibing any alcohol, but I nodded. On top of working, spending some time with Heather while she was here would be an excellent distraction. A way to help me get back on track. “I’m off around three,” I told her.
“Should we get dinner, too?” Heather asked.
“Sure,” I said, knowing I still wouldn’t be able to eat anything. I’d have to rely on the tricks I’d used as a teenager, cutting up and moving my food around the plate to make it look like some of it was gone.
“Yay!” Heather squealed and hugged me again. “It’s so good to see you. I can’t wait to catch up!”
“Me, too,” I said, wondering how I would manage to make small talk without mentioning Tyler. I hoped Heather wouldn’t ask about him; maybe if I didn’t say his name, she wouldn’t, either. I’d fill her head with stories about school and Daniel, about the engagement and our recent breakup, knowing she’d get sucked right into the drama of all that. I wouldn’t say anything about the party on the Fourth of July. I wouldn’t tell her that since that night, my insides had felt like a jumbled mass of broken glass.
“Where should we go?” Heather asked. “I want tapas and fancy cocktails!”
“Poppe’s on Lakeway is good for that kind of thing,” I said. “Or so I’ve heard.” Tyler was the one, actually, who’d told me about that particular bar. He said I couldn’t leave Bellingham without trying their steamed mussels or fish tacos.
“Perfect!” Heather said. “Pick you up at your house around eight?”
I nodded. “See you then!” I said, trying to imitate her upbeat, lighthearted tone. Fake it till you make it, I heard my own voice saying, the same cheesy line I’d feed my clients when they told me they couldn’t finish their workouts. “Pretend that you can,” I’d urge them. “Pretend it until it’s actually true.”
I waved to Heather as she headed out to the parking lot, thinking that maybe that was what my life would consist of from now on—playing pretend, a carefully orchestrated performance, a contrived but lovely outside shell covering up the nightmare of fear and dysfunction underneath. Maybe my mother was wrong and I could find a way to push down what had happened. If I asked my clients to fake it, to push past the limits of what they thought they had the capacity to do, then I should be able to do the same thing.
That was what I told myself later that night as I stood in the bathroom, getting ready to meet Heather. Since the ends of my hair were still uneven from how I’d chopped it off, I pinned it up, leaving a few pieces loose to frame my face. I put on more makeup than usual: foundation, blush, a dark slash of red lipstick, black cat-eye liner, and lots of mascara. Turning my head from side to side, pursing my lips as I stared at my reflection, I was relieved to not look like myself. The girl in the mirror was someone else entirely—a girl encased in armor thick enough to repel any memory, strong enough to protect her from further attack. She was the only one I could trust.
Before I went back to my room to get dressed, I hopped on the scale, unable to deny the rush of pleasure I felt in seeing that the number had gone down. Ten days without solid food had been long enough for me to start feeling a familiar and airy, elevated sense of strength—the ability to deny my body’s primal, basic need for nourishment was a high better than any drug I could take. I told myself that my willpower had always been forged out of steel; the rest of me could be, too.
“Why don’t you girls just hang out here?” my mom suggested when I walked into the kitchen, where she and my dad were sitting at the table, sipping glasses of white wine. Their dirty dinner plates were on the counter, and I had to look away before the sight of the gristly, gnawed-upon chicken bones made me sick.
“Heather wants to go out,” I said, as I poured myself a glass of water from the Brita pitcher in the fridge. “I do, too.” That was what I was telling myself, anyway.
“We’re not sure it’s a good idea,” my dad said. He set his hands flat on the table, fingers widespread, as though he were bracing himself for an argument. “You’ve been through a lot, and you just started back to work.”
“Which was good for me, by the way,” I said. I chugged down the entire contents of the glass, my stomach temporarily sated. “The sooner I get back to normal, the better.”
My mom shook her head. “You’re pushing yourself too hard, Amber. You need—”
I banged the now-empty glass I held on to the counter, cutting her off, giving them a defiant look. “You don’t get to decide what I need.” I wished I’d never told them what happened at the party. I should have kept my mouth shut. The more people who know a secret, the harder it is to keep.
“You’re not thinking straight,” my dad said, his voice firm. “We just want to help you do the right thing.”
“You don’t get to decide that, either.” I heard a quick honk from outside, and I peeked out the kitchen window to see Heather waving at me from her white rental car, which she’d parked in the driveway. “See you later,” I said, grabbing my purse from the counter. My mom started to say something else, but I cut her off by slamming the back door.
Ten minutes later, Heather and I were seated in a booth at the small hotel bar I’d told her about earlier. The place wasn’t crowded yet, and the only music playing was some kind of jazz, low in the background, so we didn’t need to shout in order to be heard.
“Okay,” she said, taking a sip of the lemon drop cocktail our server had just delivered. “Tell me everything. Work, school, men. In that order.”
I smiled, and gave her the shorthand version of my history over the past nine years, since I’d seen her last, leaving out any mention of Tyler and the time I’d spent in the hospital. The only place I went into detail was my relationship with Daniel, telling her how we had dated, gotten engaged, and then, broke up.
“Oh my god,” she said. “Why? He sounds so perfect.” She paused, holding up her index finger. “Wait. Don’t tell me. There has to be someone else. For you, or him?”