Chapter Ten

          By my second week in the hospital, it was already hard to imagine how life would be when I finally left. I woke up Monday morning, my fourteenth day there, to Lucy’s voice yelling in for us to wake up. I put on a gown, went to the bathroom and got weighed. The woman smiled at me as she wrote down sixty-nine pounds next to my name.

            I joked with Tyler and Ali as they ate breakfast and I finished my Ensure.

            “Hailey? Dr. Philip wants you to go to her office, okay? Jennifer is going to bring you there in a few minutes.” she said, and she smiled at me as I threw out the cup from my Ensure.

            I walked out of the dining room and Jennifer was leaning on the wall waiting for me. She walked me to Dr. Philip’s office and wished me luck.

            “Hi, Hailey.” Dr. Philip said when I walked in. “How are you?”

            “I’m okay today.”

            “That’s good. I wanted to talk to you about raising your Ensure intake.”

            “Why?” I said, my heart already starting to beat faster.

            “Well, we want to up your intake a bit before we take out the feeding tubes. We’re thinking in a week would be alright to have you on just Ensure, or, if you’ll do it, a bit of real food.”

            “You’re thinking about taking these out? Oh thank God.”  I said letting out a sigh of relief.

            The entire day seemed better after that until Josh called me.

            “Hey.”

            “Hey.” I said. “What’s up?”

            “Look, please don’t be mad. We can’t come today.”

            “I’m not mad.” I said. “Why can’t you come though?”

            “Your mom’s car broke down yesterday when she went to work or something. I’m sorry.”

            “It’s okay. I’ve got to go though, time for lunch.

            “Okay. Bye, Hailey.”

            I didn’t finish my Ensure during lunch, I just swirled the straw around in the cup. Tyler looked at me and told me he was worried. I was the last to walk out of the dining room, and people were already coming in to visit. I walked over to a chair and sat down, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath.

            “I told you.” I heard someone say, and I opened my eyes to find the last person I expected.

            “Jason? What are you doing here? How did you know I was here?” I asked, sitting up.

            “Word gets around… How are you?”

            I looked at Jason. He looked exhausted. His eyes were blood shot and he looked even skinnier than he was the last time I saw him. When he sat down, I realized he didn’t smell like summer anymore. He smelled like beer, smoke, and pot.

            “I’m doing okay, I guess. How are you?”

            “How do you even ask me that when you’re here? How long ago did you get here?” he said, running his fingers over the ribbon Tyler and Ali had put all over the pole for my feeding tube.

            “Two weeks ago. How is everything going though?

            “Alright. I almost got arrested a week ago though.” he said, laughing. “The police caught us smoking pot They let us off with a warning.”

            “How is that funny, Jason?”

            He shrugged his shoulders. “Just is.”

            “It isn’t. Smoking is horrible for you. It screws up your life.”

            “No, what you did screws up your life. Smoking…Smoking just makes it easier.” he said with a huge, stupid grin on his face.

            “Great philosophy.” I rolled my eyes.

            “What’s your problem?”

            “What’s yours? You push me into getting better, threaten to tell the family, and you’re doing something just as bad? You told me it was once or twice a week and now you smoke every day, get in trouble with the cops? You’re a hypocrite.”

            He looked down at the floor, not saying anything. He got up slowly and walked away, looking back just once. I watched as he slammed the door closed, the smell of alcohol still lingering. I’m almost sure that I saw tears running down his face when he turned around.

            I didn’t eat my snack or dinner that night, and I honestly didn’t care. After everything that had happened with Jason, he turned his back on me and thought it would be okay. He tried to get me to rethink the way I thought, and then decided to something equally as destructive. I wasn’t sure what to do, or where to go from there, so I sat there, my Ensure in front of me untouched, as I drowned out the world around me. I ignored Tyler’s constant attempts to get me to at least try, I ignored the nurse as she told me to drink it or leave the dining room. Everyone started to clear out, so I went out into the common room and sat in a chair in the corner. People asked me if I was okay, and I ignored them. I didn’t care.

I didn’t have anything for days, and I pulled out the feeding tubes. People kept pushing me to eat, telling me that it wasn’t worth it to destroy myself and I just kept pushing them away as they tried to ease their way in. For the entire week, I just pushed away my Ensures, not talking to anyone, until the next Wednesday when I realized, finally, that I had hit rock bottom.

“Hailey, sweetie…” Jennifer said to me as I sat in the dining room, trying not to look as everyone else ate their lunch. “You need to have something, honey. You haven’t been drinking your Ensures at all. Please, just have a bit.”

            She pushed it toward me, looking hopeful. I pushed it away.

            “Please.” she said, looking a bit defeated. I looked over at Tyler nodding his head.

            “Hailey, you really need it. Just a bit.” he said.

            Jennifer pushed the Ensure closer to me on the table and I stared at it. Before I could reconsider anything, I picked the cup up and threw it at her, the lid coming off, Jennifer ducking her head and the Ensure splattering all over the wall behind her. I put my hand to my mouth, surprised at myself. I looked around at everyone, and they all looked as surprised at me as I was. Tyler’s eyes were wide, Ali’s hand over her mouth.

            A nurse opened my room for me a few minutes later, and told me to stay there until the therapist came. I felt like a five year old being told to stay in my room until they decided a punishment. While I waited for her, I thought about what had just happened. I hit rock bottom, and it hurt. After all of the “Ed” stuff in the groups, I started to think, was I really being controlled by my thoughts instead of the other way around? All this time I had felt in control, but how long had it been since I had really had control of my own life?

            “Hailey?” I heard Ellie say. “What’s going on?” All of a sudden, I started to cry. I was overwhelmed but I didn’t know by what. It was Jason, and Josh, and eating, and everything that had happened just a few minutes before. Before I knew it, I was having a full-blown panic attack, crying and shaking, Ellie’s arm around my shoulders telling me it would be okay.

            Ellie left after about an hour, telling me that when I was ready she would be in her office to talk. I stayed in my room for hours, crying about everything that had happened over the course of the summer. I realized that maybe you have to hit rock bottom to realize where you truly stand. All I knew was that I was at the bottom, and finally, I believed that if I didn’t start finding my way back to the surface, I wouldn’t survive.

The next day, I was determined to finish every Ensure that day. I didn’t talk about it during the groups after the meals, and I just listened during all of the groups throughout the day. I felt like everyone was judging me for what I had done the night before. Tyler glanced over at me every time I passed during the groups, as Jennifer asked me to talk about how I felt about the “meal.” Tyler pulled me aside when Jennifer told us we could have some free time after dinner.

            “What’s going on with you? I’m glad you’re trying, I really am. But you aren’t being yourself. What’s up?”

            “After what happened last night, Tyler…”

            “No one thinks anything of it. My first couple of weeks here, I was a wreck. I was sent to another room to calm down after screaming at the woman who gave me my food.” He lifted my head up, forcing me to look him straight in the eye. “It’s okay. No one is mad at you or anything. If anything, most of us are insanely proud of how well you’ve done today.”

            I smiled at him, nodding. I bit my lip, looking down then looked back up at him. “Thank you.” I whispered and he just smiled at me.

            Over the next couple of days, I really thought about everything. I swirled the straw in my Ensure around as Tyler looked at me. I took a sip, thinking about Jason. I hadn’t thought about him since three days before when I completely broke down. I thought about calling him before I realized that I didn’t have his number since we couldn’t have our phones. Why did I even want to call Jason? The way he stabbed me in the back was close to unforgivable, which was why I didn’t understand why I tried so hard to remember his number. I searched through the pockets of my sweatpants that I wore that day, hoping that he had slipped it in there somehow. No luck.

            I dialed number after number on the phones in the hall, putting in quarter after quarter, hoping that, when I dialed the next number, I would hear that familiar voice that made my heart jump. I knew that I loved Josh, but for some reason I felt like there were too many loose ends with Jason to truly commit. If I didn’t talk to Jason, I would always wonder if something could have been between us. I gave up after eight wrong numbers, hanging up the phone with a slam. I felt my eyes starting to fill with tears. I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned around to see Tyler, Ali standing behind him.

            “Come on, it’s time for lunch. Are you okay?”

            “I’m fine.” I wiped a tear away with the back of my hand, and Tyler took my hand, not saying a word. “Thank you.” He nodded, smiling.

            He only let go when we got in the dining room, sitting across from each other at our table. I played with the straw for a minute, and I looked up and saw Tyler looking at me. He looked sad.

            “Are you okay?” I asked.

            “I was about to ask you the same thing.”

            “Why?”

            “You haven’t seemed like yourself. I mean, I know it’s hard. I do. Are you doing this for you, or just bull shitting your way through to get out?”

            “I’m really doing this. Ever since a few days ago, I realized how horrible this is. It’s just hard.”

            “Are you sure nothing else is bothering you?”

            After the four weeks that I had been there, it was like Tyler knew me better than anyone else ever had. I hesitated for a minute. Then…

            “Do you remember the guy that came to visit me the other night?” I started. I told him everything, starting with Jason, I told him about Annie, and that I was in love with Josh, that Casey was mad at me…Everything.

            After I finished, he looked at me for a minute, taking the last bite of his sandwich. I took a long sip of my Ensure, rushing to finish in the ten minutes we had left.

            “You know, Casey shouldn’t be mad at you.”

            “But she is. I lied to her so many times, I wouldn’t surprised if she hated me.”

            “But it isn’t you. You’ll hear it a million times in group, but it’s true: It’s “Ed.” You aren’t a liar, and I know that. But when you’re seriously into your eating disorder, no one is themselves. I doubt you would have thrown an Ensure at someone. But you were desperate to get rid of it any way that you could. You get desperate, to the point where you’ll do absolutely anything.” I nodded.

            I finished my Ensure and walked over to the phone with a quarter in my hand. I dialed Casey’s number, and let out a sigh of relief when I heard her voice, so familiar.

            “Case, I’m so sorry.” Tears were already starting to form, my throat got tight. “I’m so, so sorry.” She didn’t say anything for a minute, but I heard her sniffle.

            “I-It’s okay.” I could tell she was holding back tears.

            “What’s the matter?”

            “I miss you. I’m so sorry I haven’t come to see you. I didn’t think that you would want to see me, I thought you would hate me. How are you? Are you okay?”

            “I’m doing better, Case. Don’t worry, okay?”

            “I’m coming to visit you as soon as I can.”

            And like that, Casey and I were best friends again. It was weird at first, as she told me what happened at the party after the ambulance left. People were understanding about it though, and told Casey to tell me that they were there for me. After that, it was all gossip. You’d be surprised what you miss in the first week of school. It wasn’t until then that I realized how long I had been in the hospital: it was already mid-September.

            “I miss you, Case.”

            “I miss you too.”

            I heard Jennifer call to us in the dining room, telling us it was time for dinner.

            “I have to go.”

            “I’ll see you really soon. I promise. I love you, stay strong, okay?”

            “I will.”

            I hung up the phone thinking about Casey. All this time I had thought I was so alone, but maybe everyone I needed was right there. I finished my Ensure before the time limit for the first time being in the hospital, and Jennifer told me that Dr. Philip wanted to speak to me.

            “You ready to get that thing out of ya?”

            “Definitely. When are you taking it out?”

            “Well, I want to weigh you first so we can make sure that after we take it out you aren’t losing weight. I’ll take it out tonight, but know that if you stop eating and drinking your Ensures, we’ll have to put it back in, okay?”

            “Okay.”

            “Put this gown on,” she said, holding out a hospital gown to me, “just like you do in the morning. Nothing under it at all, okay? Come out when you’re ready.” She opened a door behind her, and once I was in she shut the door behind me. I pulled my clothes off, and put the gown on. I walked out and told her that I was ready. She gestured to a digital scale in front of her and I stepped on, closing my eyes for a minute. When I opened them and looked down, I was surprised.

            “Sixty-seven? How is that possible?”

            “That bit of time you didn’t drink the Ensures for really did you some damage, especially since we brought down the feeding tube intake.” She wrote down sixty-seven on my charts. “Don’t let it happen again okay? You really can’t leave here until you’re at least 108 pounds.”

            “Forty pounds? Are you kidding me?”

            She wasn’t.