Me: Tristan?
I stared at my screen for a few more seconds, convinced he’d text again and ask to get coffee, or go for a drive, or even just explain his thing for grammar. Anything. But he didn’t. I wondered if I’d ever figure him out.
The next thing I knew, it was 5:30 and I was still on the floor, tangled in my dirty clothes. I must have fallen asleep. I checked to see if Tristan had texted again—nope—and shook off my nap haziness. Then I went downstairs.
“Hi, honey!” Dad said when I entered the kitchen. “We were just about to start dinner. Want to join us?”
“Yeah, okay.” I turned to Mom, who was standing near the refrigerator. “Mom, you got my menus, right?”
Sally and I had planned my eating for the first week. Three meals and three snacks a day, just like at Wallingfield. Dinner tonight was one plain chicken breast, broccoli with 1 teaspoon of butter, 1 cup of brown rice, three gingersnaps, 8 ounces of low-fat milk, and, for evening snack, ? cup of granola and a yogurt. Doable, I told myself. Completely doable.
Mom nodded. “Yes. I met with your nutritionist. I got everything, I think.” I wondered what Sally thought of Mom, if she’d had the urge to map out Mom’s meals, too.
I grabbed a glass, filled it with water, and leaned against the counter. “Can I help?”
They exchanged glances. Dad cleared his throat and said, “You just relax and let us enjoy you.” He reached over and, hugging me tight, murmured into my hair, “I love you, kiddo.”
I blushed. “Thanks, Dad.” I felt guilty that I’d lied to him about my afternoon snack. But there was nothing I could do about it now. Besides, it was almost time for dinner. Too late for a snack anyway.
In the dining room Mom set the table with our fanciest placemats, candles, and red and yellow tulips. It looked festive and lovely and had obviously been set with the expectation that we’d be celebrating. But I couldn’t. My stomach was in knots.
When dinner came out, I picked a single spear of broccoli from the bowl in the middle of the table. Then I grabbed my knife, cut off a piece of chicken breast, and placed it on my plate. Then I took a dollop of rice. Both parents stared at my plate, perplexed, like I’d failed a test I’d studied for all night long.
I didn’t blame them. Even to me, my plate looked pathetic. Empty. No one spoke as Mom and Dad helped themselves. Mom took more than she usually would.
In a voice just a little bit too perky, she said, “I saw Shay’s mom, Carol, at the supermarket. She got a new car. A convertible! It’s lovely. Brian, wouldn’t it be nice to have a convertible?”
Dad gripped his fork a little tighter. “Sure, Karen, right after we buy ourselves that summer house on the Cape.”
“I was just making conversation. I’m not saying we have to get one. I’m just saying that a convertible would be fun to have someday.”
“And so practical.” Dad sounded defensive.
“Brian, I was just making a comment,” Mom replied, hurt.
I took a bite of broccoli. “Is something wrong?” I asked.
“Everything’s fine!” Mom leaned over, gave my arm a reassuring squeeze, and sat up straight.
We went back to eating in silence. Well, Mom and Dad ate. I moved the food around on my plate.
Dad put his fork down and exchanged a concerned glance with Mom, whose eyes kept flitting between him and me like she didn’t know whose side to take.
I managed three bites. Mom and Dad followed every single one from my plate to my mouth. The pressure was too much. “May I be excused?” I stood up so fast I knocked my chair over. “Sorry!” I said, and bolted upstairs without waiting for an answer.
They followed me. “Let us in!” Mom said through my closed door. She sounded scared. I wished I’d managed a few more bites.
“Elizabeth, open this door.” Now she sounded pissed. “We are not leaving.”
“We’ll stay until morning, if that’s what we have to do,” Dad chimed in.
I stood on the other side of the door and said, “I’m really tired, guys. We were up late last night saying goodbye.” Another lie.
They went quiet.
“The chicken was really good, Mom,” I said. “Sally said I could take it easy on my meals the first day at home.” Lie number three. “She said you could call and ask her about it if you want.” Aaaaand there was lie number four.
And yet I kept going. “I’ll eat everything tomorrow.” I didn’t know yet if that was a lie. “Don’t worry,” I said in the perkiest voice I could whip together. “Tomorrow is a new day.”
They didn’t respond. I could hear them whispering.
“We need to call right now.” Dad sounded stern. “I know she’s lying. I just know it. They would never let her skip.”
“Let’s give her a chance,” Mom said, her voice soothing. “Being home is a big adjustment.”
“Okay, but I don’t like it. I hope we aren’t making a mistake.” Then they went downstairs, the wooden steps complaining the entire way.
Sometime after midnight I slipped out of bed, pulled on my comfy fleece slipper socks, and crept down to the kitchen, where a manila folder of printed-out menus lay on the 1980s-era beige tiled counter. With the hum of the fridge behind me, I flipped through the pages and pages of calories meant for me. They sped by in the form of lists organized by day and then by meal: yogurt, chicken, granola, cheese, fruits, vegetables, cereal, milk, bread, pita, cold cuts.
It seemed so easy, like it was ridiculous not to do it. I dug through the junk drawer next to the stove where we kept a bottle of Wite-Out. All I had to do was apply tiny white dabs here and there and voilà! More manageable menus. And I wouldn’t white everything out; I’d just trim the calories a bit.
Now, I’d used Wite-Out before. I knew it sucked. But it was like Rational Me disappeared and this stupid, impulsive person took over. Or, more precisely, my eating disorder took over. Maybe this act was her last gasp. I don’t know. But whatever it was, the one thing it definitely wasn’t? Smart.
The first meal, tomorrow’s breakfast, seemed easy enough. I whited out where I’d written one scrambled egg, leaving me with one Yoplait yogurt (any flavor), one banana, and 8 ounces of low-fat milk. Much better.
And then I noticed a little bit of Wite-Out on the black line printed beneath the letters.
Cursing under my breath, I went back to our junk drawer and dug out a skinny Sharpie to fix it. I carefully drew in the line. But instead of writing over the Wite-Out, it went right through the blob and made a weird gray line.
I should have stopped right there. But instead I kept going like I was obsessed or something, blobbing and cursing and scratching my way through the next six days, whiting out one item from each meal.
And then I heard Dad padding across the living room in his slippers he’d had since, like, 1992.
I shuffled the papers together and bumped into a kitchen chair, which scraped on the floor.
“Hello?” Dad called, his steps coming closer.