Letting Ana Go (20 page)

All I remember is Jack.

Holding me.

And crying.

Jack held me in the backseat of his dad’s car all the way to the hospital. When we walked through the doors of the ER, every single head in the waiting room turned to stare, and I realized we were still wearing formal clothes. Jack slid off his tux jacket and draped it over my shoulders.

At that moment, Mom came through the doors from the parking lot into the waiting area. She stopped short at the sight of us standing there, me with blood pooling in a paper towel at my chin. She held up a finger to James, then disappeared through the double doors into the emergency room. James
turned back to Jack and me. He had the kindest smile.

James: Everything’s going to be okay.

Me: Everything’s fine now. I don’t think this cut is bad.

James nodded, and Jack held on to my shoulders as an orderly came back with my mom and a wheelchair, and Dr. Nash.

Me: I don’t need that wheelchair.

Mom: Sweetheart, don’t make this any worse than it is.

I turned to look at Jack. His eyes were red and glossy from tears, but he smiled and said one word.

Please
.

Something about that word made me feel so tired, like I could fall asleep standing up. I nodded at him and let him help me into the wheelchair. He got down on his knees in front of me and said three more words:

I love you.

Then the orderly handed him his jacket and wheeled me away.

I passed out one more time after they got me onto a gurney in the back and started an IV. When I came to, Dr. Nash was talking to my mom:

Dehydrated

Overexercise

Her body is in a famine mode

Drastically restricted fats to the point that her liver is shutting down

Thirteenth floor

When I woke up this morning, Mom was sitting in my room. I tried to reach up and wipe the sleep out of my eye, but I felt something tighten around my wrist. I looked down and saw restraints. I looked at Mom, and she was crying.

Me: What the
hell
, Mom? Why am I
tied up
like a
crazy person
?

Mom: Oh, honey. You kept waking up and trying to pull the IV out of your arm.

Me: What is in this IV?

Mom: It’s fluids and nutrients.

I knew what that meant. It meant they were pumping me full of sugar water. I couldn’t help myself. I started shouting.

Me: You are pumping me full of calories! Of course I want to pull it out. You tell them to take it out of my arm this second. Don’t you see what you’re doing? I’m going to get so fat just lying here. Is that what you
want
? It
is
what you want, isn’t it? You
want
me to be
fat and miserable
just like
YOU
.

I was out of breath, and Mom was sobbing, saying, “No,” and “Oh, honey,” over and over again. She stood up and I saw she had something in her hands. It was a mirror. She held it up to my face. I closed my eyes and turned my head away.

Me:
No!
I don’t want to see how
fat
I’m getting. I don’t want to see what the sugar you’re pumping me full of has already done to my face.

She cried, but she wouldn’t go away, and she wouldn’t move the mirror. Finally, I turned to look into it.

Mom: Can’t you see it? Your hair is getting thin and breaking off. Your cheeks are so hollow. Your eyes don’t even shine anymore. Your skin is gray. Where is she? Look in this mirror and find my sweet girl! Where did she go? You’re starving her to death.

As I looked in the mirror, I realized I didn’t know when the last time was I’d actually looked myself in the eyes. I was always too busy looking at my body, checking for places that should be flatter or more toned. My eyes seemed dull and gray. Hadn’t they been blue once? I stared until I didn’t recognize myself anymore. The only way I knew it was me I was looking at was when I saw the tears start to fall, and I felt them, hot and wet, trickling down my cheeks.

Weight:
112

They released me this morning. Mom’s insurance won’t allow me to stay there for longer than seventy two hours without being
sent to long-term treatment. Dr. Nash said if I don’t start eating again, she’ll make sure I get locked up for twenty eight days.

I hate her.

I want to text Jack and tell him I’m okay. I want to text Jill and ask her what I should do next. Mom won’t let me have my phone back yet.

I hate her, too.

Weight:
113

This is a nightmare. Mom still wouldn’t let me go to school today. She’s taken some vacation days from work, too. Jack stopped by after soccer practice today. He brought me flowers. Gerbera daisies. Red this time. Mom invited him in and called me downstairs. Was it only five days ago I walked down the stairs to meet him and felt like a movie star? When I saw it was him, I wanted to run back up to my room. I stopped on the stairs for a second. Everybody just waited. I was staring at my feet, and then I started to cry. I didn’t want him to see me like this. I guess I know in my head somewhere that I’m not really fat, but I
feel
so fat and ugly right now. I have stitches in my chin. I’ve been pumped full of crap at the hospital.

Jack set the flowers on the island and walked up the steps
toward me. Mom followed him and stood at the foot of the stairs in the living room. He wrapped his arm around me like I was fragile and might break in two if he squeezed too hard. Something about being close to him made me feel safe, and I leaned into the soft skin of his neck and just cried.

Jack: What is it, babe?

Me: I don’t want you to see me like this.

Jack: You look amazing to me. I haven’t seen you since Saturday night. That’s way too long. I’ve been jonesing.

How does he know how to say the right thing every time? He turned to my mom.

Jack: Do you think it’d be okay if we took a walk down to the park?

Mom: It would be totally fine, but we have to leave in about twenty minutes to get to the doctor.

Me: What? What doctor?

Mom: I made an appointment for us.

Me: For
us
?

Jack: It’s okay, babe. I’ll come back tomorrow.

He kissed me on the forehead and left before I could stop him or figure out from Mom where this appointment was. Turns out Mom has booked us with a shrink. I’m so pissed off right now I can barely hold the pen. I shouldn’t be going to see a therapist, I should be going to school. I should be walking
down the street right now with my boyfriend, holding his hand, hearing about his day.

I told Mom she was ruining my life. She told me if I don’t go with her, I wasn’t going back to school.

I’ll do anything to not have to sit at home with her all day.

The car ride to the therapist’s office was complete silence. Mom tried to talk, but then gave up. Thank God.

Of course, once we were in Dr. Crane’s office she let the floodgates open and it all gushed out. Dr. Crane is this little bald guy who is probably in his forties. He has a nice smile and bright eyes, and he was really friendly. I think he might be gay. He’s in remarkably good shape and wears very cool glasses. The lenses are rectangular and sort of disappear because they’re frameless. I kept staring at his glasses, sort of blurring my eyes a little, seeing if I could make out the lenses at all while Mom cried her eyes out about how scared she was. How upset she felt that she couldn’t stop me. How angry she was that I didn’t see what I was doing to myself and to her and to my dad.

Dr. Crane: How do you feel about that?

Me: How do I feel about what?

Dr. Crane: All of the things your mother just said.

Me: I feel like I don’t want to be here right now. I feel like I don’t want to talk about this. It’s none of anyone else’s business.

Dr. Crane gave me his little friendly, bright-eyed smile. He nodded. Then he asked my mom if she would mind stepping out so he could have some time alone with me. Mom looked sort of bewildered, but she dried her eyes and left the room. I settled back into the deep cushions of the couch, and Dr. Crane asked if I wanted any water or anything. I told him no.

Dr. Crane: Is there anything you want to tell me that you’d rather your mom not hear?

Me: No.

Dr. Crane: Do you trust me?

Me: I’ve actually watched television before in my life, so yes, I am familiar with the idea that psychologists are generally trustworthy.

It surprised me when he laughed.

Dr. Crane: You’re funny.

Me: I bet you think I’m too skinny, too.

Dr. Crane: I don’t really care what you weigh.

Me: You’re the only one, then. The rest of us just can’t get enough of it.

Dr. Crane: Who is this friend Jill your mom talked about?

Me: She talked about Jill?

Dr. Crane: Yeah. You were sort of staring at me during that part. I wasn’t sure if you were actually listening or not.

Me: Yeah, I wasn’t. I was checking out your glasses. They’re really cool.

Dr. Crane: Thank you.

Me: Jill is my friend.

Dr. Crane: Your mom is pretty upset. She just told me that she wishes she’d never let you hang out with Jill.

Me: Jill isn’t making me do this.

Dr. Crane: Do what?

Me: Count calories. Lose weight.

Dr. Crane: Does Jill do those things too?

Me: Yes.

Dr. Crane: But it’s not your disease that makes her your friend.

Me: My . . . disease?

Dr. Crane looked at me with eyes full of concern. It made me angry.

Dr. Crane: Yes. The reason you’re here is the disease of anorexia.

Me: I don’t have a
disease
. I have
willpower
.

Dr. Crane flipped open a chart on the little glass table next to his chair.

Dr. Crane: What you have is a liver that is shutting down,
signs of scalp hair loss, elevated levels of serum sodium, potassium chloride, and carbon dioxide from continued dehydration, muscle wasting, and no regular period for months. Those are not signs of willpower. Those are symptoms of a disease called anorexia.

He said all this softly and gently, and then held my gaze as I sat there blinking at him.

Dr. Crane: Is anorexia what makes Jill your friend?

Me: No. Of course not. I’m not sure if she’ll even want to be my friend anymore after this.

Dr. Crane: Why wouldn’t she?

Me: She’s got to do what’s best for her. She’s got to stay thin so she can be the best at ballet she can possibly be.

Dr. Crane: What other friends do you have? Your mother didn’t mention anyone else by name.

I thought about telling him about Vanessa and Geoff and Rob and especially Jack. None of those names left my lips, though. When I opened my mouth, I didn’t recognize my own voice.

Me: I feel like I am my best friend. When I’m able to get through a meal without eating too much, there’s this thing I feel inside of me—this strength. It’s like a place of power, and when I don’t eat too much, or when I exercise enough, it makes me feel invincible. It keeps me company.

Dr. Crane: Your disease has become your best friend.

When he said those words, I couldn’t speak anymore. I just looked at him, nodded, and cried.

Weight:
119

It’s weird how two weeks can seem like two years. My life has been a completely different place since that night at homecoming. I’ve been seeing Dr. Crane three times each week. He runs an outpatient program for people with eating disorders at the hospital where Mom works. I go three days each week after school: Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays.

On Tuesdays I see Dr. Crane one-on-one, and on Mondays and Thursdays, it’s a “group therapy” session. Dr. Crane leads the conversation with seven or eight other girls. Most of us are in high school. Most of us are anorexic. A couple of the girls are bulimic and do a lot of bingeing and purging. A girl named Amy talked about eating a whole box of cupcakes, then making herself throw up. Just hearing her talk about it made me feel sick to my stomach.

This girl named Kim, who is a senior in Jack and Rob’s class at school, is in the group. I was shocked to see somebody I knew there—especially her. She’s a cheerleader and has big
boobs and what Jill likes to call an “athletic spread,” which means her butt and thighs are full and curvy. She doesn’t look like she’s missed a meal in quite a while. Today I found out that’s because she hasn’t. She’s been what she calls “recovered” for three years.

Dr. Crane usually starts the group off with a topic. Today was about what we see when we look in the mirror. He calls it body image. When it was Kim’s turn she said that she knows she needs to be careful when she gets too caught up in the mirror. She said that’s when she knows her vision can start doing funky things.

Kim: Sometimes I catch myself staring at something in the mirror besides my eyes, and I know that’s a trigger for me. I have to remind myself that I don’t always see what’s actually in the mirror.

Dr. Crane: Can you tell us a little bit more about that? What does it feel like?

Kim: Well, it used to be that I weighed about ninety-eight pounds, which meant for my height I was almost twenty-five pounds underweight, but I’d look in the mirror and see fat hanging over my waistband. I’d convince myself I had a muffin top, or that my thighs were too big under my cheerleading skirt.

Dr. Crane asked if anybody else had experienced this. Everybody in the circle raised a hand. Except me, at first.
When I saw everybody else’s hand in the air, I sighed and put mine up too.

Dr. Crane smiled his little smile at me.

Afterward, Kim came up to say hi.

Kim: I’m glad you’re here.

Me: I can’t say that I am.

Kim: It gets better, I promise.

Me: I can’t believe you aren’t scared all the time.

Kim: Scared of what?

Me: Of becoming one of those girls that can’t control how much she eats.