Chapter Eight

           When you’re dreading something, time always just seems to fly by. The two days between the day we went to the Diner and Casey’s party flew by, and before I could prepare myself, I was waking up Friday morning to an alarm at eight o’clock. I stayed in bed for an hour, dreading having to go to the party. I finally got up at nine, pulled on shorts and a tank top and went into the bathroom to weigh myself. I tapped the scale and waited for the zeros. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes when I stepped on the scale. I looked down after a few seconds and my eyes welled up with tears. I was 68 pounds. I didn’t lose enough.

            I pulled on a sweatshirt and went for a run. I was practically praying for rain so I could avoid that pool party. I considered just running all day, avoiding the party all together. After an forty-five minutes, I turned back. It was ten thirty when I finally got back to the house, my mom and John had both left for work. I looked at myself in the mirror as I pulled off my clothes so I could take a shower and cried. My stomach stuck out, I pinched the fat in my thighs, my stomach. Gross.

            I woke up a few minutes later in the shower, my head throbbing, a bump already forming where I must have hit it, a bruise already showing on my arm. I got up and washed the rest of the conditioner out of my hair, and my legs shook the entire time. I got out of the shower and sat on my bed for a bit.

            The next thing I remember is looking at the clock, and it was already two in the afternoon. I dried my hair as fast as I could, pulled on a bathing suit and jeans, and threw on a baggy t-shirt and ran out of the door. When I pulled up to Casey’s house, there were cars pulling up, dropping off our friends. Everyone waved at me as I got out of the car, and I waved back. I saw people whisper to each other, I felt like they were talking about me. Maybe I was just paranoid.

            I walked through the gate and saw that they were already playing chicken in the pool, Josh waiting at the edge of the pool, his feet dangling. When he saw me walking toward him, he waved and jumped up grinning like an idiot.

            “Hey! You’re finally here! Where have you been? We have to get in the pool and beat their butts!”

            “I got distracted, and I don’t know, I don’t really feel like going in.” I said and his face fell.

            “Why not? We’re always the best in there. We have to!”

            “I’m just tired. I don’t really feel like doing anything.”

            He walked away, saying something about getting a drink. I knew he was angry but I refused to wear a bathing suit in front of everyone. I sat down in a lounge chair and started to fall asleep.

            “Hailey!” I heard Casey say. I opened my eyes and saw her, her expression angry and her hands on her hips.

            “Hey.”

            “Do you know how pissed Josh is right now?”

            “Oh come on, I’m just too tired!”

            “Ugh, alright. At least come in the pool!”

            “I don’t want to Case.” I said, folding my arms over my stomach.

            “Oh, come on!” she said, grabbing my arm and pulling me up out of the chair.

            “Casey, I really don’t want to.” I said, trying to sit back down but she just kept pulling.

            “Come on!” she said, pulling me away from the chair. She reached to pull up my shirt, “Josh, come help me throw Hailey in!” she called to Josh, and he came running over. She yanked up my shirt before I could stop her and she pulled it down just as fast as she pulled it up. I saw Josh’s eyes widen behind her, and Casey grabbed my arm and pulled me into the pool house near the pool. I looked back and saw Josh walking right behind me, everyone staring as Casey opened the door and pushed me through it.

            “You can’t deny that something is going on!” Casey said. “You’ve been trying to hide it for a while, but after that…We know Hailey. Just talk to us. Please?”

            “Please, Hailey.”

            “It’s…It’s nothing.” I said, quietly.

            Everything started to go dark again, I heard them talking, saying my name, as I felt myself falling. I woke up shaking, I heard Josh’s voice but it sounded so far away.

            “Hi, yeah. We’re on Pine Aire…Yes. House number 6. Thanks.” I heard him say, his voice shaking. I opened my eyes to Casey sitting right next to me holding my hand.

            “Who did you just call?” I asked him, trying to lift up my head.

            “Yeah relax, okay?” Casey said, tears running down her cheeks. “Please don’t hate us.”

            “Why am I going to hate you?” I asked, feeling dizzy as I sat up.

            “I called an ambulance, Hailey. I can’t watch you do this anymore.” he whispered. I felt my face start to get hot, tears starting to form in my eyes.           

            “Are you f*****g kidding me? Why the hell did you call an ambulance?” I screamed at him.

            “Hailey you’re destroying yourself. Don’t you see that?” he said, taking my hand. I pulled mine away and gave him a dirty look.

            “No. I don’t. How the f**k am I destroying myself?”

            “You’ve lost too much weight, Hailey. Everyone is noticing. People out there were talking about it…” Casey said quietly. She wouldn’t look at me.

            “Hailey…you look like you’re going to drop dead any minute.”

            “Gee. Thanks.”

            I saw Josh’s eyes start to well up with tears. I could tell he was trying to hold them back, but eventually they streaked down his face and he couldn’t stop. His shoulders were shaking as he held my hand gently, as if he was afraid I might just break. I started to cry and he pulled me in and I cried into his chest. I kept apologizing.

            “It’ll be okay.” he told me. “It’ll be okay.”

            “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry for ruining your party Casey.”

            “Don’t apologize. Just please…get better.” she said, grabbing my hand. “How long has this been going on, Hailey?” she asked me after a minute.

            I couldn’t say anything. I just shook my head.

            I begged them not to take me when the ambulance came, but the look on Casey’s face was enough to convince me to at least go to the hospital. I looked around as everyone watched as I was carried into the ambulance on a stretcher, Josh holding my hand and coming into the ambulance with me. He lied and said he was my brother.

            “You didn’t have to…” I said.

            “But I did.”

            It seemed like Josh was always there to hold my hand no matter what. I could tell it was hard for him to stand there watching my fall apart, break into tears every few minutes. It tore him apart to watch as they tried to take my blood pressure but it was too low to read. He cried right along with me when he saw that my heart rate was at thirty-five beats a minute. He bit his lip, trying not to say anything when they lifted my shirt to hook me up to an E.K.G machine. I saw his eyes travel over my protruding ribs, my hip bones that stuck out, my stomach that caved in. He tried to calm me down when I fought them as they attempted to give me an I.V. They never got me to keep it in for more than a few minutes.  He held my hand through the whole thing. It didn’t make it better, but having him there gave me a sense of safety. He walked out of the room to pull himself together when they weighed me. My scale had been four pounds heavier than what my weight really was.

            “You told me ten pounds. Ten pounds.” he said when he came back into the room. His eyes were red and puffy, and his breath was unsteady. It scared me to see him cry when he was always the one that stayed strong through everything. “You’re sixty-five pounds. Sixty-five.”

            “I’m sorry.” I said.

            It was another half hour before my mom showed up at the hospital. Josh left my mom and me alone, but we didn’t even need to be alone. She didn’t say anything. She nodded her head as the doctors told her everything. He showed her the charts. I’m sure he was a nice doctor, but at that moment, I hated him. I wanted to rip the charts out of his hands, tear them apart into bits and pieces.

            Maybe he saw that I was getting worked up, or maybe he really did just want to talk to my mom alone, but he asked her to step out the room to “discuss our options.” A few minutes later, Josh walked through the door with a sympathetic look on his face.

            “What’s going on?” I asked over the beeping of the heart monitor.

            “Are you sure you want to know?”

            “I have to, Josh. Please just tell me.”

            “They’re talking about hospitals for you to stay in…Eating disorder ones.” he said. I opened my mouth to yell, to tell him to get them into the room, but he said, “Hailey. You need it. They’re saying that you won’t exactly live too much longer if you don’t do this.”

            I still screamed at them when they told me that I was going to an eating disorder unit of a psychiatric hospital. I wished Josh wasn’t there to see me like that. He sat next to me, holding my hand. All I remember hearing was him whispering in my ear that it would be okay as my mom and Dr. Miller left the room again, making phone calls to different hospitals to find me a bed.

            “Hailey?” I heard Josh say. I was in and out. “Hailey?” I felt my breath getting more and more shallow. “Somebody, help!” I couldn’t talk. I tried to get up to go to the bathroom, but I didn’t make it this time. I heard people come in the door, yelling out to other people. I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I felt myself start to shiver on the cold tile floor and I felt Josh’s hand intertwine with mine. After that, I couldn’t remember anything. Every once in a while I would regain consciousness and see Josh next to me, holding my hand.

            The next thing I truly remember was being in yet another ambulance. Josh fought to come in with my mom and me, and eventually the woman let him. My mom was standing to my left, looking down at me, holding my hand.

            “Don’t scare me like that, Hailey.” Josh said, smiling a sad smile. My mom just nodded and squeezed my hand harder. I tried to move my arm, but when I turned my head I saw a bruise all down my arm from collapsing.

            “Where are we going?” I asked, and Josh looked at my mom, who just bit her lip.

            “They’re transferring you to the psychiatric hospital I told you about before… They wanted you there as soon as possible. I heard them saying something about your heart…and that you organs were starting to…well. They’re not working too well. Your liver is doing pretty badly. They took some blood and it’s not good, Hailey.” he said. He touch my face gently, his skin warm against mine. I realized I was freezing. “You did a lot of damage. You need this.”

            I looked at my other arm and saw the I.V. I was hooked up to. Josh saw what I was about to do and grabbed my hand. “Please, don’t.” he said. I squeezed his hand harder. “I’m not losing you.”

            I cried the rest of the way to the hospital. Nurses looked at me with stunned faces when they weighed me, when they saw my vitals. I shifted around trying to regain feeling in my legs, trying to find a position where it didn’t hurt to sit down. I was afraid. My mom was crying the entire time we were there. After an hour of nurses and doctors and questions, I was diagnosed with Anorexia with Bulimic Tendencies. I had no idea what that meant, and all of this seemed to surreal to care. After a few minutes, they took my cell phone, and took me up in a wheelchair to Room 12 of the Eating Disorder Unit.

            I didn’t talk to anyone for days. I sat there in a daze, refusing meals, fighting a feeding tube. We were allowed to go to the bathroom two hours after we ate, but we had to pee in this thing that they called a hat. They measured our pee. It was ridiculous.

            On my third night there, an hour before dinner, I was waiting on the line to go to the bathroom and a boy named Tyler turned around and smiled at me, running a hand through his curly hair. I forced a smile back at him then looked away.

            “Only place you’ll ever get to pee in a hat, huh?” he said, smiling at me. For some reason, I couldn’t stop laughing after he said that. It was the first time I had laughed in days.

            I talked to Tyler before and all through dinner, and then for hours until we had to go to sleep at 9:30. I found out that he was fifteen years old, from pretty far away. He was cute, smiled when he was nervous, and he was really jittery like I was. I never understood why he hated himself the way he did. He was adorable. Maybe it was that I was a sucker for green eyes. He told me about his friends and I told him about mine. He asked me what landed me here and I told him everything about Annie, about being teased when I was younger. I admitted I had a problem, I told him that I was anorexic. He told me that his father left him when he was really young, there were problems at home. It was weird to me, seeing him open up like this. He was one of those people that if you looked at him, you would never expect him to be anything but happy with his life.

            After Tyler and I talked that night, I opened up a little bit. The next morning, I decided that I was going to talk in the group we had in the morning. I walked in and saw a beautiful woman, I was instantly jealous of her. I felt like I was going to cry, as I looked around at everyone in the room. We went around the room and said our names. Her name was Elizabeth.

            “What’s your name?” she said, and I looked up and realized that she was speaking to me.

            “Oh, I’m Hailey.” I said quietly.

            “What would you like to talk about, Hailey?” Her voice was gentle, and she seemed patient as I froze up. I wasn’t sure what to say. All I wanted to talk about was how I felt horrible here, like I was that thing in those “which doesn’t belong” questions. I was the fat one in a sea of anorexics.

            “I’m not sure.”

            “What’s on your mind right now? You can talk about anything here. How have the past few days been here?”

            “It’s…” I froze again. I looked over at Tyler, he smiled and nodded at me, and I knew I would be okay. “It’s been really hard. I feel like I don’t belong here.” I saw a lot of the group nod their heads, like they all felt the same. “I just want to be out of here and lose weight.” My eyes started to fill with tears, and I pulled my knees back up to my chest. My bones dug into the chair, my bruises aching.

            “It’s hard. It’s going to be, I won’t lie…I’m Jessica.” A girl on my left said, smiling sympathetically at me. “I wouldn’t eat for days when I first got here, but it does get easier. You start to realize that this just isn’t worth it.”

            “How long have you been here?” I asked her. I couldn’t seem to speak up, my voice getting caught up in the tears.

            “I’ve been here two months.”

            “I feel like I won’t get better. I don’t want to.” I said to her. I felt ashamed to even say it.

            “I felt like that. I think we all did. But eventually something will click. You just need to know how to deal with the feelings when they come.” she said. She paused for a minute, looking down at the floor. She looked back up at me and said, “It is hard. It’s like giving up your lifestyle, changing the only things you’ve ever known. At first, it’s almost like going from eating meat to vegetarian, or Catholic to Buddhism; you’re entire life changes, everything you’ve ever known becoming unfamiliar. I felt so lost at first. But it’s worth it. The way we live isn’t living, but it feels like it until you realize that there’s so much more to life. It’s worth the pain along the way, it’s the end that matters.”

            A little egg timer next to Elizabeth rang. “Okay, guys. It’s time for breakfast. We’ll meet for another group after snack later.”

            I refused to get up to go to breakfast. Tyler sat down next to me and squeezed my hand.

            “You can do this.” he said.

            “You don’t know me.” I said. I couldn’t look at him.

            “You have it in you. You just need to try.”

            Despite all of Tyler’s efforts, I never went to breakfast that day. He walked away, looking defeated to eat his breakfast. Instead, I was sent to Dr. Philip’s office and I listened as he called my mother to discuss a feeding tube or an I.V. I heard her voice cracking as she spoke, Dr. Philip trying to calm her down as I prayed that she would say no. A few minutes later, Dr. Philip hung up the phone and took me to another room. I sat in the doctor’s office for a few minutes alone, the paper under me crinkled as I shifted around. I looked up as the door opened and a nurse walked in. I knew what my mom had decided before they even said a word to me. I got up to run, I screamed as the nurse held me back. I saw Dr. Philip come in the door and stare at me for a minute.

            “If you don’t do this, Hailey, you will not live. I can promise you that.” he said. He looked at me straight in the eye as he said it and it scared me.

I tried not to put up a fight as he told me that they would be placing an I.V. in my arm. He said something about different solutions to try to give me nutrients I was lacking. He told me that without it, I wouldn’t make it. The I.V. was uncomfortable, making a bruise right where they put it in.

“If you don’t start eating by tomorrow, we don’t have a choice but to give you the feeding tube.”

Somehow this didn’t scare me enough to convince me to eat, so after I got weighed that morning, the nurse recording sixty-three pounds in my file, I found Dr. Philip outside of the door waiting for me.

            He took me back to that same room. I saw that machine that a girl named Jane in the hospital had to use, tubes coming out of the side. It hurt as they fed them through my nose and down my throat, and I understood why Jane hadn’t looked happy since I had gotten to the hospital. I had to drag around the pole with a big plastic container of juice hanging from it.

            I went back to the unit just as everyone was finishing the first snack of the day, some of the patients gave me sympathetic looks, but Tyler looked taken back.  

            “You can do this without it. You just need to try.”

Reviews

[Kiynteyh]

I disagree with JuliePetunia. That is the story! Understanding what goes on in the mind of someone anorexic. Each chapter leaves me wanting to know what happens next. When does she get back with Jason? Will she live? Will she overcome the disorder?.. It's a good story.

As far as grammar goes, there is a typo in the second paragraph, 3rd line.
Other than that, great job.

[JuliePetunia]

An interesting... er, story, but I got bored of just hearing blah blah blah I'm fat this
blah blah blah throw up that. Give it more than a girl thinking she's fat and hurling everywhere
you know? Make it a story!