“I didn’t try any new foods at his house last night,” you tell Shayna, “but now he knows that I have ARFID and it didn’t freak him out.”
“That’s great,” Shayna says. “It’s really important that those you care about and who care about you are in the know and support you during this journey. It’s going to be tough.”
Shayna asks you about the rest of your week and you share about your family dinner and how you ate some lettuce, which was not your favorite thing to do but you did it anyway. She asks about your anxiety levels during the week, and your mood and how things have been at home with your family. You’re honest with her and it feels good to talk with her so openly. You also admit that you’re not looking forward to school, and she says most of the girls in group feel the same way.
You’re surprised when she looks at her watch and mentions that time is up.
“Take a little break and we’ll meet up for group in fifteen,” Shayna says.
You part ways, check your phone, and see that Ben texted you: Just thinking about you. ?
It brings a smile to your face. You text him a quick note letting him know you’ll call him later and you head into group, feeling less nervous than the last couple of times you were there.
You take a seat on one of the couches and soon the girls are filing into the room. A couple of them nod at you, some say hi, and you say hi back. Shayna arrives and takes her seat on the main couch. When everyone has settled in and quieted down, Shayna clears her throat to begin group.
“Tonight, we’ll be doing something a little different. We’re going to talk about your fears. What scares you, what concerns you, things like that.”
One of the bulimics, Hailey—yes, the one who tried to call you out during last week’s session—says, “My biggest fear is a bag of Double Stuf Oreos.”
You laugh because you think she’s joking, and everyone else laughs too. Shayna says, “That might be funny to some of you, but maybe to Hailey that’s a real fear. It’s something for all of us to think about.”
The room goes quiet and Shayna slowly looks around.
“I’ll pass out some paper and pens, and what I’d like you to do is spend about fifteen minutes thinking—really consider this: What are your fears? Anything and everything. Afterward, if you’d like to, you can share.”
The paper and pens are distributed and you stare at the blank sheet in front of you. You absolutely without a doubt know your number-one fear and that’s the monster, so the first thing you write down is: Monster.
You’re slightly embarrassed to be sixteen years old and have your main fear be a monster, but that’s what you’ve written. The next thing on your list: Food.
You think some more. Everyone is scribbling away, lines and lines of fears. It’s that easy for them? Why can’t you think of more fears? But then, isn’t it good that you’re struggling with this task? Think. Think. Think, you think.
Meat.
School.
Not being liked at school/popular.
Rumors at school.
Alex.
Mom drinking.
Todd being a douche.
Dad not being enough of a dad.
(Wait, how is that a fear? Just write, don’t think, this is your list.) Ben not liking me anymore.
BEN NOT LIKING ME ANYMORE.
That is your biggest fear.
Forget the monster. You have a new biggest fear.
“Okay, I think that’s enough time,” Shayna says. “Who wants to share?”
You sink into the couch. You’re not sharing this.
These are your fears, and yours alone.
24
You wake with the monster. It’s the first day of school and he’s nudging you, scratching at you like a dog that needs to be let out. You feel him there, in the back of your throat, whispering. You try to shove him down, but can’t. You don’t want to get up. You remember how school was last year. Ben won’t be there with you. You don’t have any classes with Jae, and you’ll only see her at lunch. You don’t know how you’re going to get through the day.
You lie there for a while, listening to your alarm go off three more times. Once every five minutes you hear the annoying sound that you set—a tune called “Walk in the Forest.” You wanted a melody that would lull you gently from sleep, but now, when you’ve listened to it four times in the last twenty minutes, it sounds like music straight out of a vampire movie. You imagine a thick forest and the vampire coming to get the stranded girl. You need to change the alarm. It’s looming and desolate and you never want to wake up to it again. You feel like you never want to wake up again, ever.
Your mom comes into your room with that huge forced smile on her face.
“Honey? You getting up?” She’s trying for you. If she smiles, she hopes it’ll make you smile. It doesn’t work but you say you’re getting up, although you don’t move.
“You’ll be fine,” she says. “You’re doing great. Things will be great today.”
You flip the covers off, make your way into the shower, and turn the water on as hot as you can stand it, wishing you could accidentally scald yourself. Third-degree burns from the shower and a trip to the ER sound better than school.
You dress in a T-shirt and shorts and a pair of sandals, and put on a quick swipe of mascara and some lip gloss, although that much makeup feels like a lot of effort. You pull your hair back into a hair tie. You don’t really care how you look even though you and Jae discussed first-day-of-school outfits last week at length. You feel like the monster is trembling inside, surging, trying to get out, trying to do something big, yet you don’t know what, you don’t know how it’s making you feel. Just that he’s there, gliding along the surface, searching for a way out.
You wish more than anything that you and Ben went to the same school. To have him in the same building—to see him at your locker in between classes—would give you the confidence you need to get through the day. You’re so not in the mood to watch the Instagrammers pose with one another on the first day of school as they snap their pictures and post them, then watch as they slink their way through the halls. You’re not in the mood to listen to their chatter about what they did all summer long, to watch as they flit from group to group, making their way through the crowds of popular people, flipping their hair, flaunting their bodies as if they were the most important people on earth.
You get downstairs and Todd has already left in his car for football practice. You don’t understand why a team needs to practice twice a day but when you say anything about this to Todd, he simply says, “State champs two years in a row, sis.”
Although you can’t stand Todd, you wish you didn’t have to take the school bus, but getting out the door at six a.m. is not really something you want to do. And Jae lives in the other direction from school so she can’t pick you up, so the bus it is.