“I’m just stating the obvious,” Hailey responds snidely to Shayna.
When no one backs Hailey up, you speak again.
“Well, I have never, ever in my entire life looked forward to eating food. I have never in my life thought, ‘Oh, I cannot wait to have a piece of pizza or a burger,’ or, ‘I’m so excited to go out with friends for dinner.’ Now, there are times when I’m hungry, of course—we all have to eat to survive—but unless it’s one of my safe foods, I don’t care about food.” You search the eyes of every girl in the room. And you continue.
“And Shayna says that ARFID can stem from trauma in utero. My mom thought she miscarried me. That’s the trauma that probably started my whole disorder, as science-fiction as it sounds. You guys, from what I heard last week, have had traumatic experiences at older ages, like divorce or abuse, or something bad happening later. And that’s awful, and I’m so sorry that happened to you. But you used to be able to eat normally before you had your disorder. You used to sit down with your family and have a regular meal and talk about your day and be able to put stuff on your plate and chew and not think about what was in your mouth. But I never ate normally. I don’t know what it’s like to want to eat normally. I don’t know what it’s like to desire food. You guys, at one point, have desired food. Maybe you still do? I don’t.”
You’re mad and frustrated and also emotionally drained from admitting all of this and then one of the girls nods in agreement, and another girl gives you a thumbs-up. Shayna smiles big and bright and you look around the room, stunned. You totally called them out, and were not so nice about it, telling the girls that your stuff was more serious than their own problems, and that they didn’t understand what you were going through.
“Very, very good,” Shayna says. “Thank you for processing your feelings with us today. I know that was hard for you.”
You can’t believe these girls aren’t pissed at you. They’re actually okay with what you said? This is what group therapy is all about?
What the hell is going on here?
16
Jae’s sitting on your bed next to you and the two of you are watching YouTube on your Mac. You’ve been hanging out for hours, streaming videos on makeup, hairstyles, and how to do your nails. You’ve also watched a couple of those stupid YouTube challenges, like how many food items you can put in a blender and drink without puking.
You hit Mute on the blender food challenge when the girls in the video start gagging while drinking a mixture of oysters, avocado, chicken wings, ketchup, soy sauce, milk, and Hershey’s syrup.
“How can you watch this video when you can’t even eat?” Jae asks.
If you think about it, even a blender challenge with milk and strawberries would put you into cardiac arrest. Those little seeds in the strawberries—you cannot even fathom. The monster won’t let you.
“No idea.” You close your Mac.
“Does Ben know yet?” she asks.
You know what Jae means and she’s trying to be helpful; she’s not interfering at all. So you tell her how you wanted to tell Ben about your food problems at putt-putt golf, but that it didn’t happen. “It wasn’t the right time,” you say.
“You should tell him,” Jae offers kindly. “You don’t want another Alex situation on your hands.”
“I know.” And while you appreciate the fact that Jae cares about you, you also want to change the subject. “Oh! Get this! Ben said he’ll watch The Fault in Our Stars with me sometime.”
“The Fault in Our Stars, really?” Jae asks.
“He says he wants to see it.”
“What guy wants to watch Fault in Our Stars?” Jae says.
“I know,” you say.
“Wow.”
You fall back onto your pillow. “Yeah, wow. Oh my God, kill me. I sound so basic,” you say.
“But seriously, is he just like, everything?” Jae asks.
“Pretty much,” you say.
Jae has never had a boyfriend, nothing serious, and you’re pretty sure it’s getting serious with you and Ben. You’re pretty sure you want it to be serious.
It’s just that Ben seems to get you, at least what you’ve shared of yourself. The times you’ve spent together, you’ve laughed and joked, and he understands your sense of humor and there’s never a lack of words—you pull from each other, like magnets, and there’s always something inside his head that you want to learn about, that he wants to share, that you want to know from him.
And the kissing, the kissing has just been … You can’t stop thinking about the kissing. It stops the frenzy you feel about life, but it also brings up a storm of, you don’t know what. It’s like a nice, beautiful storm. A storm where you want to sit outside and watch the clouds roll over the sky. The kind that you know will roll in and not cause any damage, just a pitter-pattering of rain to clean away the dirt, refresh everything, and then the skies will shine bright again. Kissing Ben is that kind of storm.
You’re both quiet for a while, then you open your Mac to turn on some music and Jae asks, “Do you think you’ll do it with him?”
“Oh my God! I don’t know.”
Because you don’t. You haven’t thought of that. Not yet. You’re only sixteen but Ben’s almost seventeen, and you know practically everyone does it by the time they’re your age. Sure, you’ve thought about sex, but you haven’t thought about actually doing that with Ben yet. You just know you want the first time to be with someone you love.
“I haven’t been seeing him for that long,” you say. “Do you think he’s done it before?”
“How would I know?” she asks.
“I don’t know. He’s friends with your cousin. He would know. Aren’t they like pretty good friends?”
“I guess.”
“And you’re really close to your cousin. You could text Braden and ask him.”
So Jae texts Braden, and you watch as the words fill her iPhone: Hey cuz, is Ben a virgin?
You watch as the three little dots fill the space as Braden types his reply: Bro code. Tell his gf I say hey.
On the one hand you’re bummed out because you didn’t get the info you wanted, but then you squeal a little when you see he calls you Ben’s girlfriend. This means Ben’s been talking about you to his friends.
“Shit,” Jae says.
“I know, right! I’m his girlfriend!”
*
The next night your parents plan to go out and Todd’s heading to some football party. You ask if Ben can come over to watch The Fault in Our Stars.
“I don’t like the idea of the two of you in the house alone,” your dad says.
Shayna has started discussing interpersonal skills in your one-on-one therapy and how to ask for what you want, so you try this new skill out on your dad. “You could stay home too then?” you suggest.