Letting Ana Go (16 page)

Usually I’m not so emotional, but I’d just run five and a half miles, and all I could see in the mirror yesterday were all the places on my body that stretched against that beautiful red size-two dress.

I dug through my desk until I found a red marker and stood in front of my mirror just like I’d seen Jill do. I circled every part of my stomach and hips and arms and chest that needed to go away, but it just seemed like the red circles on my skin made those places grow and swell until they were like gross, sagging bags of fat swinging from my body. I started to cry harder, and right at that very second, I realized I hadn’t locked my door—just as Mom knocked softly and opened it to see if I was all right.

I saw from the look on her face that she knew
exactly
what I was doing. I screamed at her to get out of my room, and she
didn’t say anything or move at all. She just stood at the door, her mouth open, but no sound coming out.

I threw myself down on the bed and pulled my comforter over me and cried. I lay there for a long time, sobbing into my pillow, until I thought she was probably gone, but then I felt her hand on my back as she sat down next to me on the bed.

I thought she was going to lecture me.

I thought she was going to tell me all the things I already know about what she’s afraid will happen to me.

Instead she just helped me up and into the shower, and when I got out there was a note on my pillow that said:

Come find me when you want to talk
.

I love you
.

Mom

I don’t want to talk to her about this right now.

I don’t think I can avoid her forever.

Weight:
118

Mom was waiting for me in the kitchen just now when I woke up. She was standing there with a big smile on her face and had a bowl of oatmeal with yogurt and strawberries on top. There was one for each of us. She asked me if I wanted coffee,
and I told her I was going to make some tea. Thank God Jill gave me this stuff because Mom forced me to choke down the entire bowl of oatmeal. When I put it all into the CalorTrack app just now it was over four hundred calories with the berries and the yogurt.

I didn’t try to argue with her. I knew that would just make things worse. Every bite felt like it lodged in my stomach, and I can feel it hanging there inside of me, making all the spots I circled last night stick out, making it impossible for me to fit into that dress.

The food wasn’t the worst part of breakfast. No, it was Mom’s new rules. She went on and on about the dangers of teenage girls and calorie restriction and the girls she’s seen come into the ER who are so underweight that they can’t hold a spoon and have permanent heart damage. I hadn’t seen Mom this alive and fired up since Dad left. I have unwittingly given her a purpose in life now: keeping me as fat as she can.

So now, not only do I have to lose eight pounds in six weeks, I have to do it in spite of being forced to eat breakfast with Mom every morning before I go to school. This is her new requirement for letting me out the door.

Fine.

I’ll just get up earlier and run before school. I’ll put myself on two-a-day runs. I’ll go in the morning before I have to eat
breakfast and in the afternoon at practice. This is who I am now: the girl who doesn’t back down. I will fit into that dress in six weeks. Nothing and no one will stop me. Not Mom. Not oatmeal. Not my own lack of discipline.

The tea just kicked in. Gotta run.

Weight:
118

Part of me is seething inside. Part of me wants to run down the hall right now after my mom and scratch her eyes out. I’m going to write until that part of me is silenced.

That’s the part of me that is out of control, the part of me that must be contained. That’s the part of me that will cause me to lose it and go berserk, to stuff my face with anything it sees to make these feelings go away.

I just got home from practice and passed Mom in the hall.

Mom: Did you talk to Coach Perkins?

Me: Yeah.

Mom: Everything okay, sweetie?

Me (Parmesan’s smile): Yep! Everything’s cool.

Mom: Good. I love you so much. I left you a barbecue chicken breast and some mashed potatoes on the counter.

Me: Thanks! I’m going to take a shower. Have a good night at work.

The fact that she called Coach Perkins makes me want to throw things. I closed the door and listened for the garage to open and close behind her. Then I hit my bed with a pillow about twenty times. When Coach asked me to stay behind after practice, I saw Vanessa’s eyes shoot over at me, and I just
knew
she was hoping I was going to get into trouble. Coach was pretty calm about the whole thing, just said Mom was “concerned” and she wanted to make sure I was being truthful about my calories.

Coach: You’re running better than you ever have. I just want to make sure you can keep it up.

Me: Everything is fine. Mom is just worried because I’ve lost a few pounds.

Coach: I know you’ve had a hard summer, but I want to make sure you keep winning. You have to eat right to make that happen.

Me: I’m eating a ton.

Coach: Winning is not more important than your health.

My face was so red it must’ve looked like it was going to catch fire. Vanessa tried to follow me to my car, but I walked right past her. She and Geoff still eat with us every day at lunch,
but I can barely talk to her. She just doesn’t understand. She doesn’t get it.

Jill just texted me back. I’m going to meet her at the park to do our workout.

Right after I bury those mashed potatoes in the outside trash can.

Weight:
117

My mother is going to destroy me. She announced this morning over yet another bowl of carbohydrate-filled oatmeal sprinkled with fattening, sugary dried fruit pieces that she has decided to transfer to the day shift.

Why?

Well, me of course. She thinks I must be fed like a toddler. After talking with Coach Perkins on the phone about our little chat on Wednesday, she thinks it would be best if we “spent more time together. Especially
dinnertime
.”

I could barely contain my rage.

But I did it.

My lip quivered, and my Parmesan’s smile failed me, but I managed a nod and a quick “Great, Mom” and kept from shattering my bowl in the sink until she’d gone upstairs to get
in the shower. By the time she was done, I had cleaned up the porcelain shards and was on my way out the door to school.

As I pulled into the parking lot, I took a deep breath, knowing that surely the very worst part of my day was over. I’d been up since 6 a.m., after all. I’d run a fast-paced five-miler, then showered, pooped, and weighed myself to find the scale said I was exactly where I’d been yesterday. Then I’d had to suffer through yet another breakfast while dealing with the worst news ever from Mom. This means she’ll be hovering over me in the morning at breakfast, and again at night, when I usually don’t have to eat anything after school. Now I’ll have to contend with her at dinner at 8 p.m.

I cannot eat that late at night
.

But no matter. I was finally at school. Jill brought me more tea bags. They kicked in during second period. We planned and strategized. We would meet and work out every night after my cross-country practice. I’d do double the running and double the workouts. From here, everything would look up. Nothing could make the day any more terrible.

Then Vanessa sat down at lunch. She reached across the table in front of Geoff, Rob, Jack, and Jill and grabbed my hand.

Vanessa (concerned): How did it go with Coach Perkins?

My blood froze.

Rob: How did
what
go with Coach Perkins?

Me: Nothing. It’s fine.

Vanessa: Did she ask you about your food diary?

Me (firmly): Everything. Is. Fine.

I don’t think I could have shot a more fierce look at her across the table, but it was like Vanessa was operating under a force field.

Vanessa: I just worry about you. You and Jill never eat very much.

Jill (icily): We eat plenty. And it’s none of your business.

Vanessa (turning to me): It’s just that you’re so . . .

Jack: Beautiful?

It wasn’t like him to jump in or even really pay attention to Vanessa, but all of a sudden his arm was around me, and I felt the warmth of his body on my shoulders. His gaze silenced Vanessa, and Geoff made some sort of stupid joke. Then Rob jumped in and started talking about the limo the guys want to rent for homecoming.

Jack kept his arm around my shoulders during lunch and walked me down the hall to my locker after we left the cafeteria.

Jack: She’s just jealous.

Me: Really, I’m not worried about it.

Jack: She just wishes she was as fast as you, or as gorgeous.

He reached down and lifted my chin and kissed me lightly on the lips right there in the middle of the hall.

I went straight to the park after running and worked out with Jill. Mom still has a week and a half on the night shift, so when I came home, I did the whole workout again in my bedroom. Then I lay on the floor staring at the red dress in the clear plastic wrapper. All I could hear were Vanessa’s words in my head. She acts so
concerned
, like it’s her very own Lifetime movie and she’s the best friend trying to keep everyone from going off the rails.

How dare she bring up my weight or my looks or my eating habits in front of Jack?

I looked around my room at all the little-girl crap that is still everywhere, and I couldn’t stand the clutter anymore. I don’t want stuffed animals in my bedroom. I don’t want cute and cuddly. I don’t want anything that reminds me of my dad, or my mom’s knickknack crap all over everything. I want things to be clean and organized.

I raced down the stairs and grabbed garbage bags and started filling them up with all the lacy, frilly crap my mom puts everywhere. The flowers she dried for me from the Valentine’s bouquet she gave me last year. The silly spoons and bells she used to bring back from all over the country when we went on vacation for “my collection.”

This crap was never mine. It was hers.

I hauled most of it out to the trash. I kept a bag of stuffed
animals and put them on the shelves in the garage next to a plastic bin of Christmas decorations. Then I vacuumed and dusted and straightened and organized until my room looked like a place where I wanted to be—a place of clean, sharp edges and symmetry, well arranged, with nothing but the absolute essentials, and the red dress, hanging on the closet door, reminding me that I can do anything, that I
must
do anything required to stay on track.

I can feel the places that I circled with that marker pulsing on my skin as I write this. I can feel that all my hard work today has paid off. I hope the scale won’t tell a different story tmorrow.

Weight:
115.7

I am almost halfway to my goal. When I saw what the scale said this morning, I knew I was doing the right things. At school, Jill agreed, and hugged me when I told her how I was only five pounds away from 110. She texted me a link to a page of negative-calorie foods during second period. Negative calorie supposedly means that it actually burns more calories to digest the food than the food contains. The result is that your stomach is full, but your body burns up the calories from the food as you digest it.

Today at lunch, Vanessa and Geoff were right behind me in the lunch line at the salad bar in the cafeteria. My plate was
piled high with the foods on the list Jill sent me: apple slices, celery sticks, and raw spinach.

Vanessa: Um . . . how are you going to make your calorie requirement for Coach if you’re only eating apple slices and celery sticks? Don’t you want some protein?

I pulled a bag of gummy fruit snacks out of my purse and tossed them onto the tray. I hadn’t put one in my mouth for at least a couple of months, but she didn’t need to know that. I like having them in my purse because it reminds me that I’m the one in control. At any moment, I could reach in and pour pure corn syrup down my throat.

But I don’t.

Vanessa looked at the fruit snacks, then up at me. I could see the suspicion in her eyes.

Me: See? I eat. Lay off.

She opened her mouth again to speak. Geoff nudged her and shook his head.

Maybe Geoff is smarter than he lets on.

Weight:
114.5

I hate myself for begging. That was the worst part of it. I never want to be reduced to that again.

Vanessa was waiting for me at my locker today before we went to practice. I was grabbing the printout of my calories from the CalorTrack app when my ring slipped off my finger. It’s from Tiffany. Mom gave it to me for my fifteenth birthday last year, and I tossed my books into my locker and hit my hands and knees. Everybody around me in the hall kept walking and tripping over me, and I saw the ring get kicked twice before I finally nabbed it.

I didn’t understand why Vanessa wasn’t helping me direct traffic or find the ring, until I stood up and saw her face. Apparently, all of my books had tumbled back out of the locker and she had scooped them up. When she did, she saw this notebook—the original food diary.

Her face was pale. She looked like she was going to cry. She held it out to me as I walked back toward her at the locker, a sinking feeling in my stomach that turned to panic.

Me: Wait. Vanessa. Wait.

Vanessa: What is
this
? What are you
doing
?

Me: Vanessa, it’s not that big a deal. It’s not—

Vanessa: It
is
a big deal. It is a
very
big deal. You are going to tell Coach right now, or I will.

That’s when I started begging.

And bargaining.

And promising her anything.

She finally said she wouldn’t tell Coach on one condition: That I start eating again. Every meal. Every bite. Enough calories. The recommended amount of 2,200 per day for my height and activity level.