How I Got Here (14 page)

‘What’s she got?’ Tiff looks between then questioningly. They’d been looking at each other for a solid minute, frozen on the spot, just silently accepting that he was there for her, and that she was sorry for getting so mad at him.

‘I just asked your uncle for something in my letter, and he’s nice enough to say yes, even if I don’t really deserve it.’ River smiles down at Tiff.

‘You do deserve it.’ Oliver clears his throat.

‘See he’s nice like that, that’s why you shouldn’t be mad at him, because he’s always nice.’ Tiff laughs, ‘Oh and he bought you something as well.’

‘He did?’ River smiles and looks back over to meet Oliver’s eyes, ‘I wonder what it could be?’

‘Tiff you see that concrete block over there?’ Oliver points to the block a few feet away from them, she nods her head, ‘well if you sit there you can see out across the city, a clear view that is
really amazing, why don’t you go over and see what you can see, don’t move from the block though, so I can keep an eye on you.’

‘But I want to play with River, I like her.’ Tiff’s voice starts to take on a whining tine, one he knows only too well, in about a minute she’ll be in full on tantrum mode.

‘What if I buy you an ice cream on the way home?’ Oliver suggests, not mentioning that he’d already planned on getting her one, because she’d made River give him the letter.

‘Mommy doesn’t like me eating
that; she says I get too hyped up.’ Tiff giggles, ‘I like it though, because it tastes better than fruit.’

‘Well then we won’t tell your mommy, it’ll be our little secret.’ Oliver sighs, ‘I need to talk to River alone for a bit.’

‘Is that because she’s your special friend?’

‘Tiff,’ He looks at her, his voice going a little sharper but at the same time staying kind, Tiff rolls her eyes and hugs River.

‘I’ll be back soon.’ Tiff promises, running over to climb up on the block.

‘So I’m your special friend?’ River smiles teasingly, seeing how uncomfortable it’s making him, as he dips his head sheepishly, she smiles and decides to tease him a little more, and adds with a mock innocent tone ‘I wonder what that could mean?’

‘Tiff asks a lot of questions, on the way here she kept asking why I spent so much time with you, I told her it was because we were friends, she’s smart though, she said that she has lots of friends, but she doesn’t need to see them every day, so I told her that you were – special’ he looks out across the city, she put it together and has decided that makes you my special friend.’

‘I suppose I should fit into that category really, I’m specially messed up, I’m a special friendship because I’m not a typical friend, I’m not really a friend at all, I’m a patient, so yeah I guess special friend works.’ She looks away, suddenly the light teasing is gone from her voice, he takes her hand in his own and strokes the back of it with his thumb, using his other hand he places two fingers on her chin, gently angling her head to him, forcing her to meet his eyes, which she does reluctantly, revealing the tears forming in her own eyes.

‘That is not why you’re special to me, there are so many reasons why I think you are special, and they don’t have anything to do with your illness, or the fact that you’re my patient, I would never think of you that way.’ Silently he adds, ‘even though I should.’

‘I’m sorry, you were just being nice and I start being all emotional and self-pitying, I know you don’t think of me like that, I wonder why sometimes, I often think you must be crazy, maybe crazier than me, because you actually seem to like spending time with me, but I know that you don’t do it just because I’m your patient, it was unfair of me to say that.’

‘I don’t expect an apology, if anything I should be giving you an apology, what I said to you earlier, snapping at you about holding things back – I was just frustrated and,’

‘Oliver it’s ok you don’t need to explain, I deserved you snapping at me, and actually I don’t mind, I don’t want you to feel like you need to be careful around me, say what you mean, tell me when I’m being stupid, call me out on stuff. I think I need someone to be honest with me.’ River laughs sadly, ‘I’ve spent way too much time being treated like I’m about to fall apart, I kind of like that you can yell at me, it makes me feel like I’m more than your patient.’

‘You are.’ The air between them grows heavy; he moves his hand and brushes the hair from her face, they stay like that for a moment, his fingers gently touching her cheek, their eyes locked, until River clears her throat and looks away sharply, causing his hand to drop from her cheek, down to his side.

‘So – uh’ she looks around her nervously, ‘um Tiff said you bought me something.’ She fixes her gaze at Tiff, changing the subject as sharply as she’d moved her head.

‘Yeah, now this is both a gift from me as your
special friend
,’ he smirks trying to lighten the tension, ‘and as your doctor, and you can throw it off the roof if you want, but I hope you won’t.’ He takes out the container with Amanda’s leftovers in it, ‘I remember you telling me once that you are a vegan, and my sister, well she isn’t vegan but sometimes she likes to pretend that she is, anyway recently she’s been on a vegan kick and she made this, there was so much of it and while I was eating, I couldn’t stop thinking about you,’ He pauses again, wondering if admitting he couldn’t stop thinking about her was the right move, she doesn’t flinch at his wording though, so he carries on, ‘I thought that you would probably like it, and I know that you’ve not been,’ he trails off, not knowing how to say it without being too blunt.

‘Eating, no I haven’t, that’
s what the drips are for. You can say it you know.’ She finishes his thought for him, her eyes flitting to the container anxiously, almost wishing she’d remained mad at him, then he probably wouldn’t have offered her the food, he wouldn’t have risked it, but she wasn’t mad at him, and so she only had one option. ‘Would it make you happy if I ate it?’

‘Yeah it would,’ he nods ‘but if you aren’t ready to handle it, if you don’t want to then you don’t have to, I don’t want to push you into this.’

‘Pass it here.’ Even though there are only a couple of inches between them, and she could easily take the container from him, she’d rather he passed it over.

‘Are you sure?’

‘You are a terrible doctor. Your anorexic patient just asked you to pass the food, and you’re asking if she’s sure, seriously?’ She jokes, but seeing the concern on his face she relents, becoming serious herself, ‘I want to make you happy, I don’t want to do anything that will hurt you and – and seeing me like this is hurting you, I know it is because I see you watching me sometimes, when you think I’m not paying attention, when you think I’ve just slipped into a daydream, you watch me and look sad, and I can just tell that seeing me like this hurts you, so be a good doctor and hand it over.’

‘I want you to get stronger; I want you to be ok.’ He can’t disguise the catch in his voice, ‘you know I never imagined this would happen, when I took this job I never thought any patient would make this much of an impact, and then I met you, and even though you didn’t speak to me for ages, I just knew you were – that you were more than an average patient.’

He still doesn’t make a move to give her the container, so she reaches over and takes it from his hands. Inside there is a plastic fork and she picks it up, hesitating with a forkful of food halfway to her mouth, then she puts the food in her mouth and eats, slowly and hesitantly making her way through the whole dish. It feels strange to her at first, to be eating again after such a long time, it makes her feel sick, she almost pushes it away more than once, but Oliver is looking at her with such pride, happiness and a trace of something she can’t quite put her finger on. So she pushes herself on, and by the time she’s finished it all, she actually feels proud of herself.

‘Are you ok?’ He asks once she pushes the empty container away, taking in a deep breath.

‘Yeah,’ she nods and gives him a small smile to reassure him, he lets out a breath and relaxes a little bit, she looks over at Tiff and then back to him, ‘I want to keep doing this, I want to start eating normally again.’

‘You mean not vegan food.’ He teases.

‘No,’ she rolls her eyes good naturedly, ‘I’m still a vegan but I do want to get stronger, I want to get out of this place, so let’s start with the eating problem, and then we can move onto the anxiety, the obsessive behavior, the fear of being touched,’ she starts rambling, stopping only when he takes her hand.

‘We’ll take baby steps.’ He offers, she calms down and nods her head gratefully.

‘Yeah baby steps sound good.’

Chapter Thirteen

Letter 7

I think that when I realized that I wasn’t eating, part of me hoped that somebody
else would notice, that way I could tell them how bad I felt all the time, like it was a way of me being forced into telling someone, because I couldn’t face just opening up and saying it, admitting that actually I needed help. To me it just seemed so much easier to be asked if everything was ok, be forced to tell people what was going on with me, because I don’t know if you know this about me, but I don’t exactly like asking for help.

I can see now how stupid that was, but I’m ashamed to admit that it lasted a long time. I couldn’t make myself ask you for help, not until you were a permanent (are you permanent?) fixture in my life, already working to help me, already helping me through so much, it was only when I knew that you understood, that I could ask you for help getting me back together, and even then it was no easy task. When is it ever easy to ask for help being put back together?

That’s how I think of it nowadays, that I need putting back together, because I really did fall apart these last two years. That’s accurate enough, and I also believe that you can help me, and for some reason you actually want to help me, which is an even bigger bonus for me, because how bad would it have been if you’d said no, if I had handed you that letter, asking for your help, and you said no, if you’d told me I was way too hard to deal with, because I get mad at you for little things. That would have been bad, so thank you for not giving up on me, I can’t promise I’ll never get mad at you again, but I officially give you written permission to get mad right back.

So now I have something to tell you, and it’s something big, something that I’ve not really wanted to speak about, because I’m ashamed of it, but now it’s got to the point where I have to tell you. The next part of the story takes place in May.

I officially dropped out of high school on May 18
th
2010, almost two years to the day before I met you. I was sixteen and scared out of my mind about doing it, even though I had basically stopped going weeks before, there was something so petrifying to me. I had thought it over so many times, this big looming decision which I knew was inevitable, yet at times I thought about staying on at school, dealing with the bullying, keeping my head down for the next two years. I did go back as well, for a few days anyway, but things there were still awful, and so I went into the office, my mind finally made up, and I told that I wouldn’t be coming back, that I had thought it over, and there was nothing they could do to change my mind. They of course called my parents in, and neither my mom or dad were thrilled about being dragged down to the school in the middle of the day, especially my mom since she had to come to her old workplace, and she would have to face all of the teachers, that she’d gotten to change my grades.

If they thought that I was doing it as a cry for help, they didn’t exactly step up and offer me any. We spent the best part of the afternoon in the principal’s office, with my parents, the principal and the school therapist, going a little something like this.

‘River I really don’t understand you recently, you’ve become so distant, even your friends don’t come over anymore. You need to stop pushing everyone out,’ my mom said in a voice which sounded more exasperated than concerned, then she turned to the principal, ‘we’ve really been trying to get to the bottom of this, but what are we meant to do when she won’t talk to us.’

‘
I think it’s important that we emphasis how important an education is, there is so much that you would be missing out on.’ The principal sighed.

‘We could discuss you doing the work from home, but I really don’t recommend it, if what your parents say is true, that you are withdrawing from people, I think it’s important that you stay in school, reconnect with your peers. Socializing is an important part of high school.’ Miss Simmons pushed her rimless glasses up, looking from me to my parents. I remained silent, in truth I hadn’t even considered doing the work from home, just submitting everything online, it was something which hadn’t occurred to me, all I knew was that I needed to get out.

Throughout the entire conversation, none of them asked me if everything was ok, none of them asked why I wasn’t talking to my friends, or why I felt I couldn’t remain in school. They presumed I was dropping out because I was now failing my classes, none of them felt the need to ask why I was suddenly doing badly in school, I guess my mom was worried I’d bring up the grade changing scandal, the same was probably true of my father, but the principal and the therapist? Isn’t it their job to ask those questions?

They decided amongst themselves that it was all down to self-destructive behavior, and I suppose to an extent it was, because I was doing this to myself, I could have told them the truth, been transferred to a different school, but I couldn’t face that, I didn’t have the strength. So I sat there, agreeing to give home schooling a try, promising I would discipline myself into keeping up with the work. They didn’t look hopeful, and truthfully I wasn’t either.