Letting Ana Go (11 page)

Mom: Headed home now. Need anything?

Me: No thanks. Sleepy. C u in a.m.

Jack rolled over on his stomach while I texted her back, and lay there for a second while I put my T-shirt back on.

Jack: I have to go home now, don’t I?

Me: Well, you don’t
have
to, but if you don’t, my mother may kill me while you watch when she returns.

Jack: I’d never forgive myself.

Me: Then you might want to think about putting on your shirt.

He pulled his T-shirt on in a hurry and sort of tugged the hem down past the waist of his shorts.

Me (laughing): Little riled up, are we?

Jack: Hey, that’s
your
fault.

Me: I will not stand for these wild allegations.

He put an arm around my shoulders as I walked him to the front door and we stepped out onto the porch.

Jack: Thanks for the tour.

Me: Thanks for coming by. Didn’t know I’d see you again tonight.

Jack: I did.

Me (frowning): Really?

Jack: Whydaya think I left my wallet in your car?

Then a kiss, and a wink, and he was gone.

Weight:
Can’t look yet.

The only thing missing from my birthday last night was Dad.

It’s strange, but I can’t remember a birthday without him. Because my birthday is never during school, he’d always take the day off from work at the dealership so we could have the whole day together. Every year for as long as I can remember, he always made chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. He’d drop the chocolate chips in after he’d poured the batter to arrange them in the numbers of whatever birthday it was.

Yesterday was sixteen. But no chocolate chips—just a text from Dad:

HAPPY BDAY! Call me when you can. XO

I haven’t talked to him yet. I feel guilty about it. I should at least call him and thank him for the car, but I haven’t done it yet. Every time I think I’m ready to, Mom traipses into the kitchen looking like a zombie, and it makes me angry on the inside. Not burn-down-a-building angry. It makes me just angry enough to put down my phone.

Dad was always the one up and at ’em on weekend mornings. He liked to go to the gym before he went to the dealership. He was usually back making breakfast by the time I woke up on Saturdays and because Mom usually works Friday
nights, it was just him and me eating omelets and talking on Saturday mornings.

When I got his text yesterday morning, I was lying in bed, listening to the silence of Mom sleeping late. My heart started pounding in this weird way, like I was going to be in trouble or something. I poised my thumbs over the screen to tap a message back to him, but I didn’t know what to say, and I realized I was holding my breath.

I took in several long, deep breaths like I do when I find my rhythm running. It helped my heart to stop pounding so hard, and I sent him a little smiley face back:

=)

Maybe it’s a start.

I didn’t have high hopes for my birthday last night, but Mom managed to surprise me. Not only did she take Friday night off, she was dressed and looking nice when I got back from my afternoon run with Vanessa and Geoff. To top it all off she sprang a surprise on me. She’d called the whole gang and invited everyone over for taco night. She had a gigantic devil’s food cake in the oven, and the whole house smelled so good my head got sort of light and loopy. I realized while I was standing in the kitchen with Vanessa and Geoff that I hadn’t had a single bite of anything cakelike since that doughnut Jill’s mom caught me eating on the boat. I made a decision right then and there
that I was going to enjoy my birthday, and just not care about the calories for one day.

Vanessa and Geoff arrived at the same time that Jill and Rob showed up. Jack appeared on the front steps about five minutes later with a fistful of flowers. They were long-stemmed red roses, so bright and beautiful that they took my breath away. Let me stop here and say that I’ve only seen men arrive with flowers in movies. I’ve been trying to remember a time when my dad arrived at the door with flowers for my mom or me and I simply can’t. Typically, when he showed up with a surprise, it was a car of some kind. As I stared at Jack’s blue eyes, twinkling over the tops of the roses, I decided that flowers were better than an SUV any day.

Mom’s tacos are delicious. They always are. There’s something about the way she seasons the meat that knocks them out of the park. Everybody but Jill loaded up a big plateful. Jill took half a spoonful of ground beef and a sprinkling of shredded lettuce. Mom and the boys were back in the living room plugging the old video camera into the television so that my annual birthday humiliation of watching videos of myself as an infant could commence. I’d almost made it across the kitchen to where the great room becomes the living room on the other side of the island when I heard it:

Vanessa (to Jill): Is that really all you’re going to eat?

Jill (quietly): That’s your limit.

Vanessa: What?

Jill: You get one comment about what I’m eating tonight, Vanessa, and that was it.

Vanessa: I just want to make sure that—

Jill: Mind. Your. Own. Business.

I kept walking. Jill can hold her own.

I had a headache and a stomachache this morning when I woke up. I think it was all the sugar and calories. I had three tacos and two pieces of cake last night. It was so good, I felt like I was high. Or what I imagine it might feel like to be high. I’ve never smoked anything in my life.

Weight:
126.5

I just got on the scale in Mom’s bathroom.

Mayday.

I was still at 125.5 on Thursday. Then I ran yesterday. I gained a full pound overnight, just from that crappy birthday cake and those damn tacos.

Mom was downstairs making coffee when I went into the kitchen earlier, and she was all chipper and smiling and asking if I wanted to try on the new outfit she bought me. She even wanted to make me breakfast. I poured a mug of coffee and told her I had to wake up before I could eat anything else. The cake was still
sitting out, and she lifted up the tinfoil and swiped a little chunk of it off the side of the plate. Watching her lick the fudge frosting off her fingers almost made me throw up. I sort of wish I had. What was I thinking last night? I ate like I was going to the electric chair.

The worst part is that I know I let Jill down. She was
so disciplined
and didn’t eat a single bite of cake, but still seemed to be having a great time with the rest of us. That’s just it: I still think I
need
to eat food to be having fun with everyone else. The truth is, I don’t want to be like everyone else. I want to be different. The reason Jack likes me is not because I look like every other girl; it’s because I look
different
from any other girl.

Last night, everybody else left around midnight, and I walked him outside to his car. He leaned over and kissed me for a long time, then told me I was different from any girl he’d ever gone out with before.

I intend to stay that way.

As soon as Mom left, I took the cake and dumped it into the kitchen trash can, then hauled the trash bag outside and tossed it into the garbage can on the side of the garage. I don’t need to have that in the house. And Mom
certainly
doesn’t need to be sneaking bites from it all day and night. She’ll end up eating the whole thing, and more devil’s food on her thighs is
not
what she needs right now.

My head is pounding. I feel bloated. This is the price I pay
for not sticking to my guns yesterday. I’m so stupid. I
know
better than this. I could see it in Jill’s eyes when I got the second slice of cake and was licking the frosting off my fork. She gave me this little smile, this sad little smile as if she was saying, are you sure this is worth it?

The answer is
no
.

Nothing is worth feeling like this. There are far better feelings in the world: Jack’s eyes on me as I cross the room. His hands on my body as I slide off his shirt. His lips on mine, breathing me in. Beating Vanessa by a full minute on a five-mile run.

Run
.

That’s what I need to do right this minute.

Run
.

Weight:
126

I feel so much better tonight. I ran seven miles yesterday, and Jill texted me while I was out. I called her after my run, and started crying on the phone about how I’d messed everything up, and lost control, and told her I was sorry for letting her down. I don’t know how she does it, but Jill is one of the most completely calm people I know—especially when someone else is having a breakdown. She’s in control
all the time
.

Jill: It’s not a problem. You didn’t let me down.

Me: I just don’t want to end up fat and unhappy like my mom.

Jill: Not a chance.

Me: How do you know?

Jill: Because you called me crying about eating your own birthday cake.

Me: I threw the rest in the trash and ran seven miles just now.

Jill (laughing): See? Take a deep breath and meet me at the park.

So I did.

Jill showed me this aerobic workout she does that you can do anywhere. It’s just isometric exercises mainly that give you some resistance training using your own body weight while also getting your heart rate up. It kicked my butt. She explained that if you do it correctly, it burns three hundred calories in twenty-five minutes. Anytime she feels like she’s overdone it foodwise, she does this in her room, or jogs down to the park and does it outside, here in the grass.

Afterward, we went back to her place and lay by the pool for a while. Jack and his dad came home from a bike ride while we were out there. I heard a low whistle and when I turned around, Jack was standing there in these little spandex bike shorts and
his cycling shoes. He kicked off the shoes and pulled off the helmet and his jersey, flinging sweat all over the place, then did a cannonball off the side of the pool and got us completely soaked. Jill calmly blinked the water out of her eyes and blotted her face with a heavy sigh while I shrieked.

Jill: Your boyfriend is so charming.

Me: And the only guy I’ve ever seen who looks sexy in bike shorts.

Jill: I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.

Weight:
125

If Vanessa asks me if I’m “okay” one more time, I’m going to implode. She just left, and all she could talk about was making sure that I’m getting enough calories so I don’t lose any more weight, because if I do Coach is going to start to notice. The thing is, I’ve only lost eight pounds since we started keeping track. That’s not too much. It’s perfect. When I look in the mirror, I don’t see baby fat covered in acne anymore. I see a face that looks more grown-up. (Pretty, even? I think Jack is convinced of that . . . I wonder if I’m really . . . pretty?)

I feel like I’ve finally mastered how to stay in shape and look the way I want to. After suffering through Mom convincing me
to cut my hair off in seventh grade (huge. mistake.) and then zits on my forehead and nose like fireworks until she finally took me to the dermatologist in ninth grade, it’s like I’ve come to a place where I’m not at war with my body anymore. It’s like I’ve taken control of the way I look.

My phone just rang again.

It’s Dad.

Again.

Every time I see his name flash up on the screen it makes my stomach hurt. He keeps leaving messages about coming to watch fireworks with him on July 4th. Mom has to work that night, so I guess I could, but I don’t really want to see him yet. I don’t know what to say. I know I have to talk to him at some point.

I can’t just ignore him forever.

Weight:
124.5

I just got back from practice, and I want to strangle Vanessa. She’s been great all week. She and Geoff and I have been running almost every day in the mornings. After we get back, Vanessa goes to babysit her nieces most days, and Geoff is working construction with his dad. So in the afternoons, Jill and I jog down to the park and do the workout she showed
me, then we go back to her place and lay out by the pool.

Jill is still keeping her calories down to about 1,000 per day, and I’m doing around 1,200 or so. It’s not that hard, and I feel full most of the time. I have two hard-boiled eggs for breakfast, a rice cake snack after we get back from running, and then a salad for lunch, and another salad for dinner, usually with a little chicken or tuna fish on it. Of course, I drink about twenty glasses of water every day, and I keep a couple bags of gummy fruit snacks in my bedside table. I let myself have one or two a day just to keep from going crazy. But it’s not hard, and I can’t believe how great I look in the mirror. I love my new body. I look like those girls in the workout ads for yoga clothes and running shoes. The other day when we were swimming, Jack said my six-pack was better than his. This is patently false; Jack has washboard abs like one of those European soccer stars in underwear commercials, but it made me smile and blush, so of course, I splashed him in the face so he wouldn’t see how happy it made me, and he dove at me and knocked me off my raft.

Jill looks so thin her legs don’t touch between her thighs anymore. I don’t really understand the rules of how you have to look in ballet, but she tells me that it’s all about being as light as possible so you can be lifted, and almost weightless in your jumps and spins. If “almost weightless” is the standard, Jill should have no trouble getting the roles she wants next week
when her summer ballet intensives start. If she gets any more weightless, she’ll float away.

All of this would be fine and good except that today at practice when we handed our CalorTrack printouts in to Coach Perkins, Vanessa lost her mind again. Coach glanced down at my sheets, then smiled and patted me on the back and told me I was doing a great job. I’ve been putting in a few extra things on the CalorTrack app that I don’t actually eat, but nothing major. Just adding some toast to the eggs at breakfast and a turkey sandwich to the salad. Sometimes a brownie or some frozen yogurt for “dessert” after dinner. I don’t do it for every day or anything—just enough to up the calories for the week by about 750 or so.