I thought you could use some company.” Amy stood in the doorway of my hospital room, my teddy bear in the crook of one arm.
I mustered a smile. “You didn’t need to come all the way from New York.”
“Not me.” She tucked the plush toy into bed beside me. “Mr. Bear.”
A rush of affection closed my throat. “Oh, Amy.”
She kissed my forehead and took a seat by the bed. “You washed your hair,” she observed.
“The nurse helped.” I picked at the sheet. “They don’t want me to be by myself. In case of falls.”
“As long as you don’t slit your wrists in the shower.”
A shocked giggle escaped me. “Amy, that’s terrible!”
“I know.”
“Anyway, I couldn’t... I would never...”
“Throw up?” she asked. “Kill yourself?”
I gaped. Her words solidified in the air, taking on new weight and meaning.I know.
The instinct to hide, to deny, to lie, rose like panic inside me. “How?” I whispered.
She shrugged. “I see a lot of models. And... there’s this.”
She laid my notebook on the bed between us.
I couldn’t breathe. Shame squeezed my lungs. My throat. She must have seen. Everything I’d been hiding, my secret, written over and over in black and white.
I know.
“I brought you something else, too.”
She dug in one of the bags she carried and set another notebook on the bed, the spiral kind that children take to school. I touched the rainbow cover, tracing the glittery hearts and stars with one finger.
I opened it to the blank, lined pages. Looked up in question.
“I thought you might... I don’t know,” Amy said. “Want to make a fresh start?”
Tears blurred my eyes.
“Are you mad at me?” she asked.
I shook my head. I still couldn’t speak. But my chest unclenched a little, like a fist easing open.
“Sorry about the design,” she said. “It was all they had in the gift store.”
I swallowed thick tears. “It’s perfect.”
“And so sparkly.” Our eyes met. “I love you, you know.”
“I love you, too.”
When I reached across the bed, she took my hand. I gripped hers, hard.
The good news is, your electrocardiogram is normal. There seems to be no permanent damage to your heart muscle.” Dr. Patel (“Call me Eileen”) glanced at the clipboard on her lap. “Electrolytes... Well. I’m sure your primary care physician will want to monitor your kidney function, and they may refer you to a nephrologist—a kidney specialist—as well. The bone scan shows some density loss, especially in your wrists. But that can be reversed, if you adjust your diet. Physically, there’s no reason you can’t be discharged.”
