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  “OK, well, maybe later we’ll have a birthday supper.” He gave me another kiss and went downstairs. I swear he looked like he was going to do the birthday crying thing too. What is it with parents?

  “So, sweetie, I thought and thought about just the right gift for you,” Mom started to say.

  “Oh, don’t worry about me. I don’t need anything,” I interrupted. I was being very grown up. Every other year, I would have submitted my list to my parents at least two months before the big day to give them time to shop.

  “Well, I came up with something. I am going to take you shopping right after school for some new clothes. It’ll be a special ‘girls only’ time. The men will make supper for us while we’re gone. We have it all worked out.” She looked at me with a big smile that looked like it was going to fall off her face.

  The last thing on earth I wanted to do was to go shopping for clothes. I wasn’t anywhere near the weight I needed to be to deserve new clothes! I opened my mouth to say it but the look on my mother’s face shut me up.

  “That sounds great,” I lied and was rewarded with a real smile. “I don’t need much, though, just a couple of things, all right?”

  “Whatever you want. It’s your day,” Mom said, hugging me again. She gave me another power squeeze and left me to get ready for school. That was more hugging than I usually got in a year.

  We headed to the mall right after school, as promised. Our suburb didn’t have anything resembling a real mall so we had to go downtown. I used to love shopping trips when I was little. It was always this big adventure, heading into the city where all of the real stores were – you know, the ones in the TV commercials. I loved it a little less over the last couple of years, but it was still interesting to look at all the new fashions. It seemed that loud colors were “in” this season, shouting at us from every rack.

  I really hated the way I looked in some changeroom mirrors. The lights made me look like I had the plague and the glass made me look all lumpy and bumpy, even lumpier and bumpier than I looked at home. I couldn’t figure out how the stores thought that this would help them sell stuff, but it didn’t seem to be a problem. Not for them anyway. The lineups at the cash were always long and filled with obnoxious people hoping their new jeans would look better at home than they did at the store.

  I tried on a couple of things to please Mom. The salesgirl was sniffing around, trying to smell a sale. I guess my mom looked rich or something. When I was there alone, no one paid any attention to me because they figured I had no cash.

  Anyway, every time I would come out of the changeroom, the salesgirl would swoop down and say, “Oh, lovely, so slimming.”

  “If she says that word one more time, I am going to bop her in the nose,” my mother said the fourth time we heard it. I looked at her in surprise. The thought of my proper mother “bopping” anyone was crazy. She looked mad enough to do it, too!

  “Mom!”

  “No, Madison, I am serious. There are other adjectives in the English language and she needs to learn one or two. I think we can find you something nice elsewhere!”

  And so we left, much to the salesgirl’s dismay. I found myself giggling a little as we walked down the mall.

  “Why are you laughing?” Mom asked. “Bop her in the nose?” I asked, laughing. Mom looked at me and grinned.

  “Definitely.”

  We did manage to find a couple of nice things and actually had something that felt like fun doing it. I was feeling pretty good by the time we got home.

  As promised, the guys had made dinner and it wasn’t too bad. Fish and rice and steamed veggies. It was almost like they knew what was moderately safe to eat or something. No one bothered me during the meal about how much food I put on my plate and we had a really nice birthday supper. I was really starting to think that there might be a camera hidden in the oven because this was all too pleasant to be true.

  “Just one more thing,” my dad said as we were clearing off the last of the dishes. My mom looked at him and kind of shook her head.

  “Alex?” she said.

  “It’s a birthday, Ellen. We always have a cake on birthdays, right, Steve?” Dad smiled forcefully and looked at my brother.

  “Definitely. I actually bought it for you!” Steve walked over to the fridge and took out a big, pink cake with a big Barbie doll face plastered across the middle of it. I would have laughed if I didn’t feel so much like crying. When we were little kids, I was always stealing Steve’s GI Joe to dance with my Barbie. It used to drive him crazy and he would steal my Barbie and put her in combat gear to help Joe win some war. It was an ongoing battle for a year or two. I was surprised he remembered and it was kind of touching. It would have been even more touching if he had bought me something that didn’t have to go into my mouth, like an actual Barbie. I mean, cake? They wanted me to eat cake? I couldn’t eat cake. If I did, I would have to throw it up again. I didn’t want to have to do that on my birthday.

  “That’s beautiful, Steve. I’ll have to go find my old Barbie dolls so we can play after supper. You have a piece now and I’ll have one later. I’m all full right now,” I said, not making eye contact with my dad.

  “But it’s your birthday. You have to have some.” Dad looked at me hopefully.

  Usually I couldn’t resist those eyes but today they were overshadowed by the enormous piece of cake that he had put in front of me. All of that sugar and fat. A huge pink icing rose. Just the rose alone would cause me to gain a pound. What if I ate it and couldn’t get rid of it later? What if it actually stayed inside me? I couldn’t let it be in me, melting into fat that I couldn’t fight. I didn’t want to disappoint anyone, but I just couldn’t do it. Why were they doing this to me? Why did they want to ruin the whole day? How could they be so incredibly selfish!

  “Later, Dad, OK?” I said again, trying not to sound grumpy.

  “Just a bite?” he said.

  “No! I can’t! Don’t you get it? I can’t!” I threw my fork down like a tantrumming baby and started to cry. Mom started crying too. My dad had tears in his eyes and even Steve looked like he was going to start leaking. I ran from the kitchen and slammed my way into my room. I threw myself down on my bed and let the tears just come.

  Why did they buy that stupid cake? What’s so important about a stupid cake? This was my birthday. Mine! I didn’t have to go and do something I didn’t want to do on my own stupid birthday. It wasn’t my job to make myself sick just to make everyone else happy. It was their job to make me happy. It was my birthday.

  Why did Mom have to go and cry? She made everyone else upset. We had this almost completely nice day and she goes and wrecks it with her big stupid tears.

  I rolled over and looked up at the ceiling. I didn’t see any hidden cameras there recording my misery. Apparently everyone else was miserable too. I bet they thought it was my fault for not eating the stupid cake. I bet they thought I could give in just once and it wouldn’t hurt me. They probably thought that my birthday was their day too or something like that. They just didn’t get it. They didn’t understand that I couldn’t let any of it into my body. I couldn’t risk having it stay there and grow inside me. I just couldn’t do it, no matter what anyone thought or did or felt.

  I stared up at the ceiling, my tears trickling down onto the comforter. I didn’t see any answers to my questions up there, which was too bad because I had one more question that I really needed an answer to.

  Was there any chance that my family being upset was partly, even a little bit, my fault?

  May 15

  “I can get you in,” Marina said. She had her eyes closed and was lying on the grass letting the sun beat down on her face. Marina had been basically making me come outside at least once a day. Sometimes Wolf came with us, but usually it was just the girls. It was good to get outside and breathe for a while. I was running out of things to write and I had started reading over some of what I had already written. Looking at my life in stark black and white had c
aused me to think shadowy thoughts. Thoughts that made me ask myself questions that I didn’t have the answers to anymore. So I was happy to have an escape out into the sunshine with someone who didn’t much care if I shared my thoughts with her or not.

  We didn’t do much, but it still felt good to be out.

  Sometimes we talked and other times we just kind of sat there. Marina sometimes did the meditation thing but I had absolutely no idea what that was all about so I did some drifting and dreaming and looking for Wolf while she communed with the universe or whatever it was she was doing.

  Today was a talking day, and I was the one doing all of the talking. Marina and I still didn’t really talk about the whole weight thing all that much. But we somehow managed to find other, more interesting things to talk about. She had told me about her parents and how her mom had been a teacher in a little village where her dad was a fisherman – which I thought was really cool because it sounded like something out of a book – and they got married and had her. She told me her dad used to take her out on the boat, but she didn’t really remember much of that life because her parents split when she was really little and her mom moved her to the city and away from her early lifestyle.

  “She always says it wasn’t because she was ashamed of his job or anything but I’m not so sure. She certainly didn’t talk much about being married to a fisherman. And we moved really far away so I didn’t get to see Dad much. I think Mom thought my dad should choose to leave that life and come and live close to us if he wanted to see me regularly. She just didn’t really understand anything about it. I mean, what did she expect him to do, find a job at an aquarium or something?” She said it with a shrug like it didn’t matter much to her one way or the other.

  “Did you miss him?” I asked, wondering how I would feel if I couldn’t ever see my dad. The thought of it made my chest tighten, which was surprising considering how much everything at home had fallen apart.

  “Not really. I didn’t remember much about him. You can’t miss what you never had, I guess.”

  “So you just didn’t see him?” I was kind of prying, but I was really curious.

  “He came to see me a few times, but it didn’t work very well for anyone. My mom wouldn’t take me there. After divorcing him she didn’t want to go anywhere near the village. She didn’t feel comfortable sending me on my own. I think she had some pretty narrow ideas about the kids there. She read somewhere that kids in small towns had nothing to do but get into trouble and do drugs. It’s kind of funny when you think of it. She was all worried that I’d turn into someone who needed rehab and look where I ended up. Little Marie needed to be rehabbed after all.” She laughed, but not really in the way people laugh at funny things.

  And that was the end of the conversation that day.

  Today it was my turn to share, and for some reason I felt the need to tell her all about the GWS. Well, actually I do know the reason. I was feeling down about some of the stuff I was reading back to myself from my journal and the only people I really thought would tell me that I hadn’t done anything wrong were the girls. But they weren’t here so I did the next best thing, which was to talk about them. I was kind of worried while I was babbling away to Marina because I couldn’t help flashing back to Annie’s reaction to my online girls’ group. Marina wasn’t Annie, but I still didn’t know how she would react. I wasn’t exactly overloaded with company in this place and now that I had some, I didn’t really want to lose it.

  Marina had listened to me quietly and didn’t really react at all except for her comment about getting me in.

  “Get me in where?” I asked.

  “To the computers. Sounds like you need to talk to your friends. Let them know where you are. Make sure they know you still care about them.” She sat up, shading her eyes to look at me. I should have known better than to think Marina would freak out. Nothing seemed to shake her.

  “How can you do that? I didn’t think anyone could get in there!” After all this time I find out I could have been connecting!

  “There are actually a few of us who work down there. That’s what I do for part of every day,” she explained.

  “You work? Why don’t I work?”

  “I’ve been here longer and I’ve been a relatively good girl. The work is part of the whole building self-esteem business and to help us develop skills or something. I don’t know. Anyway, I work in the office answering phones and filing and stuff and sometimes I enter data into the computer. I have the password for the one computer that doesn’t have all the confidential stuff on it. It does have the Internet, though.”

  “How could we do it, though? I can’t just come to work with you and sit there and do my thing. Besides the only time I’m sure I can do the live chat thing is at eleven at night.”

  “Perfect. No one will even be on the office floor at night.”

  “Eleven is a little after curfew. Don’t you think someone might wonder what we’re doing?”

  “Then I guess we’ll have to be sneaky. Haven’t you ever done anything sneaky before?”

  “Sure, but not here.”

  “It’s not like we’re in maximum security or anything. All there is at night is one night shift worker sitting at a desk. It’s not like they check on us with flashlights like in the movies.”

  “Oh.” Actually, I kind of thought that was exactly what they did.

  “We can easily sneak down, you can do your thing and we can be back in bed by midnight with no one the wiser.”

  “But what if we get caught? I mean, it’s probably no biggie for me ’cause I don’t have any privileges anyway. But you could lose your job or something.” And I could lose my only almost friend.

  “Big loss. A lame job that I don’t get paid for. Besides, I won’t get caught. I never get caught.”

  “Wow. I don’t know. I mean, I really, really want to but I don’t know if I want you to risk it.”

  “I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself. But thanks for caring.”

  “When would we do it?”

  “Whenever you’re ready. Sooner is better, I think. Once you give me the go-ahead, I’ll grab Wolf and we’ll get started.”

  “Oh. Why would you be grabbing Wolf?” I kind of wanted to grab him, too, but probably in a different way than Marina did.

  “We need a lookout. Planning – that’s why I never get caught.”

  “Do you think he’ll actually help us? He seems pretty serious about this place.”

  “I know. He’s pretty uptight, isn’t he? He’ll do it, though. He’s afraid of me and has a crush on you so it’s perfect.”

  “He doesn’t have a crush on me!” I protested too much and too loudly.

  “OK, so he doesn’t have a crush on you. He’s still afraid of me.”

  “Do you think he has a crush on me?” I was kind of stuck on that one point.

  “I don’t know what goes on in his mind but he seems to pay attention to you. Looks like a crush to me. What do you think?”

  “I try not to.”

  “You do a good job.”

  “You’re just a laugh a minute today. I mean, I try not to think too much about guys’ feelings because I have enough trouble figuring out my own. Every time I like a guy I mess everything up.”

  “Welcome to being a female. We all do that.”

  “You don’t seem like you could ever mess up anything. And I know lots of girls who just seem to know exactly what to say and do around guys all of the time.”

  “Yeah, well, there are lots of good actors out there is all I can say. Including me. Anyway, you let me know when you’re ready and I’ll get things going. I have to go. See ya.”

  “See ya.”

  I went back to my room, deep in thought even though I was supposed to be trying not to think. I couldn’t believe I was being handed the possibility to reconnect with the GWS. I really needed them and I knew I should be incredibly excited at the idea of talking to them again.

  But the weird thi
ng was, the thing I felt most excited about was that there was someone right here who was willing to risk her own skin to help me.

  chapter 20

  Things at home were kind of quiet for a while after my disastrous seventeenth birthday. No one made a huge deal of it. At least not in front of me. Everyone just went back to carefully avoiding me and working hard at not talking to me about anything I did. My parents didn’t even have a fit when I told them about my report card disappearing. My mom even wrote me a note saying that I had lost it but had told her my average so that I didn’t have to get a new copy. Which was kind of true except that I lied about my average. Well, what else could I do? I wasn’t going to admit to a seventy-three!

  It was as if we were in an uneasy truce. It was also kind of like my family thought I was some kind of bomb that would go off if anyone made a wrong move. I guess they weren’t all that far off base. I felt a little like I was going to explode. As it turned out, the explosion came sooner than anyone expected, and it wasn’t me who detonated the bomb.

  I really didn’t think things could get much worse than the day of my birthday, but I was wrong. Things could get much worse and they did about a week after the cake incident.

  I was sitting in my room at the computer with the girls in the chat room. We were talking about my birthday.

  divinethinspiration says:

  i feel like a jerk.

  bodaciousbod says:

  no way. not ur fault. cake is evil. yr dad should understand.

  nevertoothin says:

  my mom tried that last year. i ate it and then threw up all night.

  divinethinspiration says:

  everyone was upset

  bodaciousbod says:

  so not ur fault. u have a right to be who u want.

  divinethinspiration says:

  yeah. i do, dont i. i want to be thin and beautiful.

  bodaciousbod says:

  everyone wants to be thin and beautiful. just not everyone has willpower to do it. not brave enough to do what it takes.

  nevertoothin says: