My mind skipped over the news about my bones to seize on her last sentence. “So I can go home.”
She folded her hands, making the multiple gold rings on her fingers sparkle. “Beth, do you know why you’re here in the hospital?”
My gaze dropped to the covers. Of course I knew. But the words stuck in my throat.
“Your BMI is dangerously low,” she said gently. “In your health history, you indicated your last period was five months ago.”
I didn’t have to say anything. My secret was... okay, not safe. Not even much of a secret anymore. But the not-telling was as much a part of me as the not-eating. Which meant telling must be important, too.
“A fresh start...” Amy had said.
I couldn’t force the secret past my throat. But the notebooks were still on my bed. I handed the used one to Dr. Patel.
Her hand hovered. “May I?”
Wordlessly, I nodded.
She opened it. I looked away, fidgeting with the covers.
“Ah,” she said after a minute had passed. She closed the book. Waiting.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked at last, kindly.
No, no, no, an inner voice howled. I’d already revealed too much.
“Thank you for sharing your notebook,” Dr. Patel said after another pause. “That was very brave. Mindful eating is important to recovery. I often suggest that people with eating disorders keep a food journal. Not just a record of what you eat, but how you’re thinking and feeling about food.”
And there it was. HereIwas. A person with an eating disorder.
I repeated the words, testing them. Practicing. “I have an eating disorder.”
And heard Dan’s voice in my head.“The first step is, you need to accept that you’ve got shit.”
“You smiled just then,” Dr. Patel said.
“Oh.” I flushed, embarrassed. “I was remembering something a friend of mine said. About how you have to accept that you have a problem before you can fix it.”
“And do you want to fix it?” asked Dr. Patel.
“And then you have to accept that you can’t fix your shit without help.”
Something stirred inside me. Not exactly hope bursting into bloom, but a cautious unfurling—a thin green tendril of possibility.
“You know,” I said slowly. “I think I do.”
I didn’t go home after all. Not that night. I ate my dietician-approved dinner under Mom’s watchful eye, chewing and swallowing my “medicine” while my parents shared a cafeteria tray. Family meals and support were a critical part of my treatment plan, Dr. Patel said when she came back to help me talk with my parents. To tell.
Part of me—the shadow part—resented the loss of control. And yet it was a relief to yield responsibility to my parents, to be a child again. Food had dominated my life and thoughts for almost a year. There was a strange freedom in having all choice removed except the basic decision—to eat or not to eat. Anyway, the meal tray was better than a feeding tube.
At the same time, I felt uncomfortably full. Stretched. Stuffed. I needed time alone to digest. Not just the food, but the consequences of telling.
Who was I without my secret? I’d known, once. I wanted to be that girl again. To get back to the way I used to be. Happy. Healthy. Whole.
“You should go home,” I told my parents after dinner. “Get some sleep.”
My mother’s jaw hardened in a way I knew well. “Your father can leave. I’m staying.”
I didn’t have the energy to fight her. But I had an unexpected ally. “Whatever you want,” my father said. “We have to trust her. She knows what she needs,” he told my mother.
