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This girl, obviously, experimented with a bit of that herself.
“Drink some water before you get up,” Alana coaxed.
“I’m really okay,” the girl told her firmly, with an authority Alana hadn’t fully expected.
“I know! Trust me. I know.” Alana was suddenly frightened at the hollowness of the girl’s cheeks. Her dark hair hung limply across her shoulders, and her ribcage snuck out from her tank top.
The girl was starving before Alana’s eyes.
And on top of it all, she’d been out on the boardwalk to exercise.
The girl sucked down a little bit of water, acting like it was a courtesy to Alana. When she stopped, she sniffed and said, “You’re really beautiful,” describing Alana in the way she’d hardly been described in years.
“Oh, gosh. Thank you. But beauty doesn’t mean much of anything,” Alana replied. “At least not to me, anymore.”
The girl looked like she’d been smacked. Alana used the opportunity to lift her slowly to her feet, drawing her up by the elbow, a hand on her lower back. Alana turned her head to catch Julia, weaving her way toward the two of them.Did Julia have experience with eating disorders? It was so easy to say the wrong thing.
The girl continued to shiver. She took a dramatic step forward and nearly toppled again. Alana wrapped her arms around her, catching her just in the nick of time.
“Easy, tiger. Why don’t we head over to that bench over there?” Alana suggested. “Besides. I’ve been eyeing your eyeliner job since I got over here. You have to give me some tips.”
The girl seemed not to hear her anymore. Slowly, she allowed Alana and, eventually, Julia to guide her to the bench, where she collapsed. Julia muttered in Alana’s ear that they should call the ambulance, which made the girl sit pin straight.
“No ambulance,” the girl ordered. “Absolutely not.”
“That woke her up,” Alana quipped.
The girl rubbed her eyes, bringing her shoulders forward.
“Are you on vacation here?” Julia asked, her voice tender. Motherly.
The girl shook her head.
“An islander,” Alana said. “Like us.”
The girl gave her a strange look.
“I know, I know. We’re not, not anymore.” Alana waved her hands as another wave of exhaustion from her trip flowed over her. “We’ve been gone a long time. But we grew up here.”
“That’s something, at least,” Julia said.
It was clear that the girl no longer wanted to talk. She kicked her feet under the bench and gazed woefully across the water. Alana glanced around the boardwalk hungrily and finally spotted the hot dog stand, no more than one hundred feet away.
“Can you stay for a second?” she asked Julia before she jumped up and headed for the hot dog stand.
Julia purchased one hot dog with a bun without ketchup, mustard, or relish. The girl probably had the calorie counts of each condiment memorized and would use it against the idea of eating.
When Julia returned with the hot dog, the girl pulled herself down the bench and away from the hot dog. Alana wasn’t surprised in the least. This was the girl’s enemy.
“Honey,” Alana breathed, hardly loud enough for the three of them to hear. “If you don’t eat at least half of this hot dog, I don’t think you’ll be able to walk yourself home.”
The girl’s eyes glittered knowingly. The darkness of self-hatred behind them reminded Alana of her previous self, a woman who’d married a narcissist and had absolutely no inkling of how to get out.
How terrible to have such self-hatred at such a young age.
The girl inched back across the bench, took the hot dog, and nibbled at the outer edge. As she chewed, her limbs loosened. After another bite, a bit of color reached her cheeks. It was just a hot dog, Alana knew that— but it was probably more calories than the girl had ingested in more than a day.
Before the girl knew what she’d done, she’d eaten the entire thing. She gaped at the space between her hands where the hot dog had been.
