“Hey Pea.”
Your dad has called you Pea since before you existed. That’s what they tell you. That your parents found out they were pregnant and they were thrilled. But then a week later, your mom started bleeding and they thought they were losing you. The ultrasound detected no heartbeat, in fact. The technician told your mom, “We’re sorry, there’s no heartbeat. You can have a D&C or let the miscarriage happen naturally.”
Your mom decided to forgo a D&C. Your parents spent a couple of weeks grieving the pregnancy, but your mom, while she continued to have light bleeding, also continued to have pregnancy symptoms. A follow-up ultrasound showed your little heartbeat thumping on the screen, hard and fast. Your mom cried and your dad announced, “There’s our little Pea.”
Stubborn and strong, then and now.
Every time he calls you Pea, you imagine rolling a tiny hard pit with your tongue and you choke at the thought. It’s come to that. Imagining that small piece of vegetable caught in your throat, this name he calls you, you choke it down, feed it to the monster. You cringe.
“Hi Dad.”
Your dad is Vice President of Athletics at a local university, and when he’s not focused on sports at work, he’s focused on them at home.
And right now he’s where he always sits. In the family room, the TV set to ESPN, watching a game. It’s not important what kind of game, just that it’s a sport.
You used to think your dad was the most handsome man in the world, a prince. He was so big and strong and you thought he could save you from anything.
He tilts his head in your direction.
“How’s that new friend of yours?”
“Ben?”
“The track star,” he says.
It’s the only way he’s going to remember him.
“He’s fine,” is all you offer.
“He didn’t try anything funny the other night, did he?”
“Don’t worry. He didn’t even kiss me.” You’ve given your dad the answer he needed to hear, the truth.
Ben hadn’t tried to kiss you after the movie. He asked if you were hungry. You weren’t, but you shrugged and said, “Whatever you’re up for.”
You went to Jimmy John’s and he asked if you wanted anything, and while you were scared to be in an eating environment with Ben, you said maybe you’d have some of the chips that he got with his sandwich. You felt like you could eat chips. You talked about the movie and you fed the monster some of Ben’s salty chips. Because no matter how much you hate the monster, he’s important. You take care of him because he tells you to. It’s that simple.
The two of you ate, and you talked, and you looked into each other’s eyes. When your hair got stuck on your lips, Ben moved his fingers slowly across your cheek, touching your face.
“Your hair,” he said. “It’s…” Then you shook your head to move your hair away and laughed.
“I like it when you laugh,” he said.
So you laughed again.
You laughed all night. Somehow you made him laugh all night too.
When he dropped you off, he rushed out of the car before you could get out and went to your side to open the door for you.
“Wow,” you said.
“What?” he said.
“I’m just not used to being treated this way.”
“What way?” he asked.
“Like I’m special.”
“Get used to it, because you are.”
Your knees got a little wobbly. He took your hand, squeezed it, then rubbed your palm gently, as if you already had a secret hand-holding ritual. It was no less spectacular each time. In fact, it started feeling more spectacular the more he held it. Every time he touched you, you felt like you were spectacular.
At the door, he took both of your hands into his and put his forehead to yours.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey back.”
“This was a great date,” he said.
“Yeah.” It came out sort of like a whisper from a dream that you didn’t want to wake from.
“But you know what?”
“What?” you asked.
“The next one is going to be way better.”
He squeezed your hands in an urgent kind of way like he wanted to not leave, like he wanted to do what you were dying for him to do—lean in, tilt his head, and put his lips on yours. You wanted to smell him that close, to breathe him in, to know what it would feel like to kiss him for the first time.
But you knew it wasn’t going to happen, and that was okay. Because you’d never get that first kiss back, and you knew it would be one of those first kisses that you were going to want to put into a box and take out every day of your entire life to relive over and over again.
Your foreheads were still touching and you stood like that for what seemed like forever. You didn’t want to move. There were outside night noises: crickets chirping, a sprinkler going off, and the neighbor’s dog barking. You thought you heard Ben’s heartbeat, but then you realized it was your own heart beating out of your chest.
He put his warm lips to your forehead and you felt the sensation course through your body like an electric wave.
Just as quickly as it happened, he moved his lips away. You looked up at him, and you must have seemed desperate. You didn’t want to be desperate.
“I’m going to text you as soon as I get home, okay?” he said.
“Yeah.”
10
It’s late Monday afternoon and you and your mom meet with Shayna for your first one-on-one therapy session. Normally, your mom won’t be here, but for this first meeting, Shayna suggested she be present. The plan is that every Monday, you’ll have your one-on-one with Shayna, then you’ll have a fifteen-minute break, and then, down the hall, you’ll attend group therapy for girls with eating disorders. That’s the part that has you nervous, but you have to commit to this. Mondays are going to suck.
On Thursday when you and your mom met with Shayna for the first time, she did a series of tests. She now explains to you both that you were born with very few taste buds, where a normal person has hundreds.
“Also,” Shayna says, “I could tell that the insides of your cheeks are very sensitive, which must make chewing, tasting, and swallowing extremely unpleasurable to you?”
“Yes, it really is,” you say.
“Well, what you have is ARFID.” Shayna presents this diagnosis to you and your mom like she’s offering you a gift, like this is an amazing announcement.
You shake your head in confusion, and your mom asks, “What’s ARFID?”
“ARFID stands for Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder and it means there’s a feeding or eating disturbance not due to anorexia or bulimia, and not caused by self-esteem issues. It means you cannot tolerate many foods and may gag when presented with new foods. You have a small bank of ‘safe’ foods you are comfortable eating. And we know there is probably some psychosocial interference involved. My guess is that you don’t do well in social situations where food is at the center of the event?”