“I don’t know if it works like that,” I said. “Simone could want more than anything to get better, but maybe she isn’t ready yet.” I didn’t know if I was talking about Simone or myself.
“Bullshit! She could get better if she tried, but she’s not even trying.”
“It’s really hard, Tristan.”
“Whatever. She should have figured it out the first time.”
“She’s been here more than once?” I knew it. That’s how Ray had known her the day she’d arrived.
“Yeah. Last year. First she was in Philadelphia for her bulimia. Mom and Dad claimed that they chose the place there because it was good, but I think they sent her that far so they could be sure no one from Esterfall would see her. You know, the whole Yankee keep-it-in-the-family thing. But then, when she flunked out of that one, they didn’t care as much anymore. They wanted her close by, so they sent her here. But apparently it didn’t work, so here we are for round three.”
I wanted to correct him, to say that you didn’t really flunk out of a place like this. Usually, failure meant that you came back, that you flunked in.
The chairs made quiet creaking sounds as we rocked and looked out the windows. The view was beautiful, all trees, but I wished that when I looked out, I could see people walking by, or stores, or any sign of civilization. The woods were starting to feel like walls keeping us in. Like prison.
Apparently Tristan felt the same. Or something. “Can we get out of here?”
“Um, I’m not exactly allowed to leave.”
“No, I mean, can we go outside or something? I need a cigarette.”
“Um, yeah. Sure. If you want. We can go to the patio.”
“Great.” He stood up a little fast, sending his chair rocking wildly.
When we got to the patio, he knocked a cigarette out of the pack, brought it to his lips, and lit it. The smoke made me feel ill.
If he’d been anybody else, I’d have given him grief. But Tristan already thought I was a Goody Two-Shoes, so I kept my mouth shut. He could worry about his own lungs.
We sat down on two hard outdoor chairs. “I was the one who caught her this time.” He spoke softly. “Things had been better. And then I heard her puking again. And I was so angry. She didn’t even try to deny it. She just begged me not to tell, but I didn’t have a choice. Do you know what it’s like to make your dad cry? Do you know how awful that is?”
Yeah, I thought. I do. “I’m sure Simone didn’t want that to happen.”
“Simone doesn’t care about anything but herself.”
“You know, this whole thing sucks for her, too.”
“Yeah? Well, why does she keep choosing it, then?”
Was he saying all this because he wanted to talk to somebody and I happened to be there? Or did he want to talk to me? “Well, I don’t know if she’s choosing it. At least, not now.”
“Oh, she’s choosing it.”
“It’s not like that.” Did he think that about me, too? That I’d just “decided” one day to get all anorexic?
What he didn’t understand was that we weren’t choosing this. Not anymore, anyway. The first time Simone threw up, she made that choice. And no one else made me go on my bikini diet. But after a while our eating disorders messed with our brains. They became something we didn’t have control over. Something we couldn’t stop by ourselves even if we wanted to.
He scoffed at me. “But all you have to do is eat something. All she has to do is not puke. It’s not like you guys have cancer.”
The blood rushed to my cheeks. “I wish it were that easy, Tristan.”
Tristan took a drag of his cigarette. “So were you happy to come here?”
“No! I didn’t speak to my parents for three days before I came. I feel sort of bad about that now.” I’d locked myself in my bedroom. Dad had knocked on my door over and over, begging me to come out and talk. Mom had texted me every couple of hours. I’d ignored them both.
Tristan looked at his watch. “I’ve got to go. I have soccer practice.”
“Okay,” I said, relieved.
Tristan smiled then. “I feel a little better.” That made one of us. I hadn’t even gotten a chance to ask about Charlie.
He fished in his pocket for his keys.
I was gone before he found them.
21
I kept walking until I’d reached the hallway with the phone. I leaned against the wall and tried to calm myself by taking deep breaths. I knew some people felt the way he did about eating disorders, that they were a choice, but no one had ever said it to my face before. Anorexia wasn’t something I ever wanted. It was something that happened to me. Right?
The phone rang, and I ignored it. No one liked answering the phone. If it wasn’t for you (and it never was), everyone expected you to find a pen that worked, and some paper, and take a good message, and find some tape to fasten the message to the bulletin board. If the person on the other end of the line said the message was private, then you had to actually find the person and deliver the message yourself, which was a huge pain in the ass, especially if they were in a different cohort.
I relaxed when the ringing stopped. But then it started again. This time I sighed and picked up the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Hi. May I please speak to Elizabeth Barnes?”
“Katrina?” I couldn’t believe the phone was actually for me. That never happened. I felt guilty for not picking up the first time. “Hi! It is so good to hear your voice! What’s going on? How are you?” Hearing her voice was like taking a happy pill. I smiled like an idiot in the empty hallway.
“Good! Guess what?” She sounded excited, too.
“What?”
“Are you free right now?”
“For about fifteen minutes. Why?”
“Perfect! That’s all I’ve got too. You need to go outside to the driveway. Like, right now.”
“Why?”
“Because somebody, and by somebody I mean me, is here … standing in front of … HER NEW CAR! Come outside so I can show it to you!”
I squealed so loudly it could’ve matched Allie’s mail squeals, but I didn’t care. “Oh my God! K, that’s amazing! I’ll be right out.”
I hung up the phone and walked as fast as I could to the foyer. Ray was in the nurses’ window, filling out forms on the counter. “Ray, my friend got a new car and wants to show it to me. Is it okay if I go outside for just a second? Please? I promise I’ll walk really, really slow.”
Ray nodded without looking up from his paperwork. “Don’t be gone long, though. Nurse Jill will read me the riot act if she finds out.”
“I promise.”
Katrina was right outside the door, leaning against the cutest cherry-red Honda Civic I’d ever seen.
“Oh my God! It’s adorable!”
“I know!” We hugged and jumped up and down a couple of times.
“Why did your parents get it for you?” Had I missed her birthday? No. She was a July baby.
“Because I just took the SATs, and guess what my score was?”
The SATs. I’d forgotten that they were a couple of weeks ago. Katrina and I were supposed to take them together, for practice. I’d backed out, saying I had allergies. The truth was that I couldn’t concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes at a time. The SATs were four hours long.