25
Lunch was stir-fry. Oily stir-fry. The good news? It had broccoli, the first vegetable besides lettuce to appear on my plate since Sally told me fourteen days ago that veggies weren’t allowed. The bad news? I couldn’t get my parents out of my head.
When I was little, Mom used to never let me have three-person playdates. “Someone always ends up feeling left out,” she’d say. I never thought it would be the same way with families, too.
“Elizabeth!” Lexi said, holding up her fork. “Look! Broccoli!” She seemed to be in a great mood—I had no idea why—and hell-bent on cheering me up.
Not wanting to be a downer, I held up my fork. “Broccoli!” I said. Her being all happy made me feel good, and all of a sudden, right there at the table, I decided I wanted to be happy for once, too. So I put my parents in a box and pushed it to the back corner of my mind.
And besides, getting broccoli really was a thing to celebrate.
“Cheers!” I said, only faking my smile a little.
“Cheers!” Willa raised hers, too.
“You guys are all nuts,” Margot said.
“Wait! I have a toast,” Lexi said. We all held our broccoli up in the air. Even Margot. “Ahem … Okay. Here’s to the men we love. Here’s to the men who love us. If the men we love aren’t the men who love us, then screw the men! Here’s to us!”
“Hear, hear!” I said, and we clinked our broccolis together.
The chicken was too fatty and the sauce was salty and my parents were a whole separate problem, but we had broccoli and I cherished every single limp and floppy piece.
And, when I thought about it, I did have things to be happy about. I’d finished my lunch. In fact, I was proud to report that I’d finished every meal and snack in the past week. Because of that, I felt better both in my body and my brain. I wasn’t psyched to be gaining weight, but my thoughts were clearer and they moved through my head faster.
Even so, when I went back to my room, I couldn’t help walking in jittery circles, the greasy chicken haunting me.
Lexi watched. “The stir-fry was bad,” she said. “But you’ll be okay.”
I stopped walking. “How can you be so calm?” Lexi was like a little island of Zen on her bed, calmly writing in her journal like lunch had never happened. “Didn’t you see all the oil?”
She shrugged. “Yes, but I’m trying not to think about it.” In the eleven days since our bone density tests, Lexi had become a star patient. I guess getting her test results really had changed her. She made it look easy.
“Oh.” I shut up.
To calm down, I lay on my bed and tried to take long, slow breaths. Breathing like that was supposed to calm you down, right?
I was at ten when Lexi interrupted me. “Hey, Elizabeth? I know this probably isn’t the best time, but I have something to tell you.”
“What?” I asked, only half listening.
I felt a slight weight on my bed as Lexi sat next to me. “I had a meeting with Michael last night.”
“Oh?”
“I’m leaving.”
“What?” I sat up. She couldn’t leave. I must have heard wrong. “When?”
She paused. “Tomorrow.”
“So soon? That’s impossible!” Usually, when people left, there was a protocol Wallingfield followed. The staff would always take you out to eat to “practice” in the real world, schedule extra therapy sessions, and plan out your home meals. No one left with only a day’s notice.
“I know it’s soon, but my insurance will only pay for four more days, and since Dad has business in Boston tomorrow, it’s most convenient for him to come then. Mom wanted me to stay for the four days and then fly home, but of course, once Dad heard Mom’s plan, he insisted that they pick me up in person, so tomorrow it is.” Lexi’s parents were divorced.
“But there’s all that stuff you need to do before you can go. What about eating out?” Lexi and I were supposed to leave on the same day, together. That’s what I’d always pictured. Wallingfield wouldn’t be Wallingfield without her.
“I don’t need it.” She turned to me and took my hands. “Elizabeth, I feel ready. I know I can do this.”
“How do you know?” She’d only been doing better for ten days. Ten. Barely enough to warrant a departure, in my opinion.
“I just know. I can feel my body wanting to eat. I don’t want this life. From the minute I saw my health records, I realized what I was doing was crazy. I want to live, Elizabeth.”
I could already feel her pulling away. “Will you write to me?” I felt stupid as soon as I asked the question.
Lexi whacked me gently on the shoulder. “What? Of course I’ll write you! Do you think I’d just leave here and never think about you guys again?”
That’s exactly what I thought. I’d never seen a girl here get a letter or a package from somebody who’d left. Ever.
“Elizabeth, everything is going to be fine. I’m going to be fine. And I think you are going to be, too. I just know it in my gut.” She stood up. “You’ll see,” she said.
I wished I felt as confident.
The next morning after weights and vitals, Margot and I sat on my bed and watched Lexi pack up her suitcase. She’d breezed through her meal, looking like she actually enjoyed her eggs.
Girls came in our room for the next half hour to say goodbye. With everybody there, it felt like a party, or rather the first few minutes of a party, before it gets fun, when people are all quiet and awkward and super polite. Beth told Lexi she was a role model. Jean said she was a wonderful person. Margot told her to “do good things out there.” Willa cried a little and said she’d miss her. Allie told her to call us, “like, every day, okay?”
And then it was time for our first meetings of the day. “Elizabeth,” Margot whispered as everybody around us procrastinated. No one wanted to leave Lexi. Or go to their appointments, for that matter.
“Yeah?”
“You didn’t say anything!”
“I don’t know what to say,” I whispered back.
Margot gave me a stern look, the space between her brows crinkling. “You have to say something! You’re her roommate!”