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"I have your parents on the phone," she tells me, her lips thinning into a wan frown. "It appears you've lost weight since you've joined us."
She hits buttons on the phone, and abruptly, I can hear my father breathing and my mother giggling. I know he's angry just from the air he's currently expelling. My mother only giggles when she drinks, and she only drinks at the country club.
"Mr. and Mrs. Bardot," Headmistress says, "thank you for joining me today. We are here to talk about your daughter. It appears Avery has continued to lose weight since joining us, and it is time to discuss the next steps in our treatment plan."
My father curses on the other end of the line, and I want to tell him that it's okay, I ate today. I saw the food, calculated the calories, and I ate it regardless. Well, some of it, at least, but I don't say anything as my mother scoffs, probably sipping low-calorie mimosas this early in the afternoon.
"What am I paying you people for?" my father nearly shouts, and there it is, the big question, the one that always gets me pulled from places like this one.
Headmistress glares at the phone and then over her desk at me. Her eyes turn into beady little cannonballs in the right light, and it feels like she's aiming them at me right now.
"You are paying us, Mr. Bardot, because Chryseum does not fail our students, ever. We will resort to the most extreme measures to make sure this doesn't happen again." She continues to glare at me. "Is that understood, Avery?"
"Yes, ma'am," I mutter through clenched teeth.
My mother cackles at something someone says. She's probably flirting with the pool boy. I'm sure her laughter puts my father in an even worse mood. He hates when he's confronted with the truth that she's not as nice and perfect as she looks.
"How much weight did she lose this time?" my father demands.
"Three pounds," Headmistress answers, looking down at her notes.
"It's just three pounds," my mother tells her, her laughter fading from her lips. "Calm down, Benjamin. She will be fine."
"With all due respect, Mrs. Bardot," Headmistress Graves murmurs, "your daughter didn't have three pounds to lose."
"She did the last time I saw her," my mother quips before she guffaws so violently she snorts. My father curses again on the other end of the line, probably planning to pour his own drink, a whiskey neat, soon enough.
"Do what you have to," he tells Headmistress, "but I expect results at our next check-in, or you can forget about the installment payment, Ms. Graves."
He disconnects from the call without another word while my mother laughs and snorts, somehow finding humor in his threat. Headmistress hangs up the phone.
This should make me happy.
This is everything I wanted, right?
Leave and let the cycle repeat.
No connections, no friends, no intimacy of any kind. I guess I already fucked that up this morning, though. I should have run from him.
Phone calls like this one are my father's own canon event at this point, only he's stuck, having to live his reckoning over and over again because he never learns and finds a way forward. He refuses to see the truth that I can only come home if she's not there.
Headmistress Graves glares at me from over her desk.
"From now on," she tells me, looking positively murderous, "you will not leave the cafeteria for one hour after consuming meals. If you are not showing progress by Friday, you will be transferred to the isolation ward to be observed by Dr. Boucher and to receive forced nutrition. Is that understood?"
"Yes ma'am," I answer as she reaches into her desk and pulls out a porcelain tea plate and a plastic bag of the things she called nutrition cubes. She leans back in her chair across from me, placing one cube after another onto the plate until it's stacked high with them. There has to be at least twenty of the cubes on it at this point, maybe even more. I'm going to be sick if she makes me choke down all of them.
"Eat," she tells me, and it shouldn't be a surprise. It isn't a surprise, but it still feels like a shock to the system just the same. My throat closes, my mouth goes dry, and my stomach pinches inside of me at the thought.
It's too much.
She leans across her desk, flattening her palms on the smooth, dark wood.
"If I have to get up from this desk," she tells me, "you will eat double what is in front of you right now, Avery."
I believe her. I grab a cube and pop it into my mouth. It's disgustingly sweet on my tongue, and I barely chew it before forcing it down my throat. I eat them as fast as I can, trying to think of anything but the calorie count.
Grab, chew, swallow, repeat.
