They said he was therealartist. Sometimes I wonder if I would’ve married him at all if I’d known that I was going to be more famous for being his wife than I’d ever be for my voice.
Sometimes, I hated him. His star burned so much brighter than mine.
Maybe he knew I hated him.
Maybe that’s why he left, no matter how I begged him to stay.
39Lord Edward
Before therapy this afternoon, Dr. Rush said,You’re now welcome to explore the property.He smiled as if he were offering me a gift. Like I was a little kid being rewarded for good behavior. No, even less than that, a puppy allowed out of his crate once he’s been potty-trained. Did Dr. Rush think I couldn’t see the shadow of a smirk on his face? He knew there was no chance of my going very far, even if they unlocked every door and flung open each window.
Locking me in was never about keeping me safe, but reminding me who’s in control. Now, pleased with the “work” I did in therapy yesterday, freedom—if you can call it that—is my reward.
Just before midnight, I tap on Amelia’s glass door. Her room is softly illuminated by a light on her bedside table. There’s music in the air.
Last night, Amelia helped me to bed. She pulled the covers around me tight. I thought how much more pleasant it would be, from now on, to meet inside, in the warmth of one of our cottages instead of wandering around between them. It’s terribly American, I know, my pull toward comfort; I’m meant to stalk about in the muck, my wellies full of country mud, never complaining when there’s neither heat nor central air conditioning. Our estate in Scotland barely has electricity, and it certainly doesn’t have Wi-Fi. But comfort takes on a different meaning when your body no longer functions as it should.
I open the sliding door and gingerly step inside. The heat makes my hands tingle.
Amelia’s room is the mirror image of mine: king-size bed flanked by modern furniture, hardwood floors, a thick throw rug beside the bed. The enormous sliding door that leads to the hall is shut. There’s a light coming from the en suite bathroom, the door ajar, the sound of retching drifting from within.
I rush across the room and peer inside.
She’s crouched beside the toilet, her body coiled over the bowl. Her wavy hair is pulled into a messy bun on the crown of her head. The veins on her neck are bulging. She’s wearing sweatpants and a ribbed tank top, but she seems more exposed than she did showing me her scars last night.
It takes me a second to register that her fingers are in her mouth, her knuckles pressed against her top teeth so hard that I think she’ll break the skin. Her eyes are open wide; it looks like they could burst right out of their sockets. The room smells strange: an odd combination of comfort food and illness.
“Oh god, Amelia,” I murmur, folding myself as best I can into something resembling a crouch beside her. When I reach for her, to rub her back the way she rubbed mine, she scurries away as though my touch burned her.
“What are you doing here?” she hisses.
I close the toilet seat.
“What are you doing here?” I echo, softly, sadly.
It’s not like I didn’t know she was sick. She taught me to make myself vomit last night. But seeing it—seeingher—is wrenching in a way I didn’t expect.
“Please don’t do this to yourself.”
“You’re one to talk,” she snarls.
“What I’m doing is different,” I say. “The doctors don’t know fuck all about the pain I’m in.”
“And you don’t know fuck all about the pain I’m in.” Her words land like a punch.
“I know your body deserves the nourishment it needs to survive.” I hate how trite I sound, surely no different from all the doctors and therapists who failed her before.
“No,” Amelia counters firmly, “it doesn’t.”
40Amelia Blue
Last night was so familiar: getting someone else out of bed, forcing fingers down another person’s throat. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know what to do.
Forcing Georgia to purge didn’t only teach me how to make someone else throw up. It taught me how to make myself vomit as well. #Promia social media is well and good, but I didn’t need tips from strangers to master that particular trick.
I flush the toilet, then pull myself up to sit on top of it.
“I thought—” Edward begins, then pauses. He looks so sad and surprised that I want to slap him. Or hug him. I don’t know which, any more than I know whether I want to keep throwing up or force thousands more calories down my throat. If I start making a list of the things I don’t know instead of the things I do, I’ll never stop.
