AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Eddie and I use the Life360 app to track each other, if that’s easier,” I say.
“This is better,” he says, holding up the tile. “It’ll work even if you lose your signal.”
“Okay,” I say, handing him my phone.
He attaches the tracker, hands me my phone, and I program his number into it.
I suddenly feel scared about heading into the city alone, and once again, I’m tempted to tell him about the threatening text I received on the plane.
She’s running out of time.
If I tell him, he won’t want me to go anywhere, and I need to go. At least he’ll know where I am at all times.
“Eddie also wanted me to make sure to give you breakfast before you left,” he says. “I already ate on the plane,” I lie. “But I’ll come back for lunch if you’re free.”
“Sounds great,” he says.
My phone vibrates—a text from Eddie. Actually, from Sarah on Eddie’s phone.
It’s Sarah. I’m going to school. I miss you Beans.
I miss you too,I text her back.
More than she knows.
CHAPTER32
March 1998
THE WEEKS AFTEREmily died marked a shift in my stay at Better Horizons. The staff knew her death had deeply impacted me, and that I was in a place where I wanted to recover and recognized that I needed their help to fight ED.
They began focusing on increasing the variety of foods in my meals to help me become more flexible after I left the treatment center. As long as there are rules about food—“This serving is too big,” “This food is too fattening,” or “If I eat this food, I’ll gain weight”—relapsing is much more likely to happen.
Making myself eat pasta, cake, chips, and everything else under the sun was excruciating. But I persisted because I knew what awaited me if I didn’t—Emily’s fate.
I also knew I was gaining weight. The clothes I’d arrived in felt tighter. When I first got sick, I would only wear oversized clothing—sweatpants, hoodies, refusing to allow the world to see how horrible I thought I looked due to the body dysmorphia that had overwhelmed my starved brain. Now I had to learn to live with the discomfort of my growing body, and I hated it.
One morning, when I went for my daily weigh-in at the nurses’ station, Dr. Larsen was there.
“Good morning,” she said.
“Hi,” I said.
I stood on the scale, my back facing it.
“Today, we want you to turn around,” Dr. Larsen told me.
“And see the number?” I asked, terrified.
“Yes,” she said.
My heart started pounding. I was beyond petrified to see it.
Nowadays, weighing oneself and seeing one’s weight is mainly contraindicated for those in recovery, but back in the nineties, this wasn’t the norm. And the team wanted to prepare us for when doctors would inevitably weigh us without caring whether we saw the number on the scale.
“It’s just a number,” Dr. Larsen reminded me.
I took a deep breath in before slowly turning around. I was almost twenty pounds heavier than the last time I had weighed myself at home before Dad had confiscated our scale.
