A/N: Okay, you guys were hoping to see a sequel so here it is. I wasn't really planning on writing another one but writing is a release for me, and well, I needed some releasing. So, hope you enjoy!
Josh Schwartz should totally have a park built in his honor with a big statue of him and plaque declaring his name and all his mighty greatness…
It had five been weeks since they had released her. She was in the health center for three months and only made it up to ninety-seven pounds. It was a new high for her though, so we had been excited.
She was seeing a nutritionist and eating right on her own. It was a surprise considering her first two weeks at the center were hell. For everybody. Every time the nurse brought her food, she threw a fit, refusing to eat and screaming that they were "only trying to make her fucking fat again".
They only had to force-feed her twice before she started eating. It was slow, a piece of toast here, an apple there, but she got it down. They were giving her vitamins by means of an IV to make sure she got adequate nutrition and everything.
At first, she was confined to her room only. She wasn't allowed to go anywhere without an escort. Someone was even required to stand outside the bathroom. Once when I was there, she got up to go to the bathroom without telling anyone but was scolded by the nurse before she got halfway to the door. I remember her yelling "Jesus Christ, can't I pee by my fucking self yet?!" before she broke down sobbing. She crumpled into my lap and I knew to do nothing more than rub her back and hold her. I knew how much she hated me to whisper "hush" or "it's okay". And I wasn't really positive myself that it would be okay.
I remember that day specifically, every feeling included, because it was the first time she had let me touch her—I mean really touch her—in so long. The nurse had just clucked her tongue, told me to call if we needed anything, and left us to ourselves.
"I hate it here," she had mumbled without lifting her face from my neck. "I wanna come home."
"I know," I said, "but you have to do what they ask and eat and then you can come home." I was bribing her to eat with home and comfort while her father was doing so by promising a new car and more money. Typical.
"Can't you take me home?" She finally looked at me and her eyes were big and wet. Her body on top of mine seemed feather light and she was so fragile I was often afraid of breaking her. She looked so small, almost like a lost little girl. And so here I was, the girl I had loved since I was ten, asking me to take her home and I couldn't do so much as to sign her release forms let alone plan a big getaway.
"I'm sorry, baby." And her tears spilled over as her head landed in the fold between my neck and shoulder again. Her tears were like fingernails, ripping open a healing wound that wasn't really healing.
Eventually though, she was allowed out by herself. She would meet me in the waiting room now, and we would walk the hallways with her IV pole tagging along. She named her IV pole, calling it Ivy, like the name. She was with Ivy the entire time she was there, which, she said, was way too long. She claimed she was fine after two months, telling her doctors that eighty-eight was a perfectly reasonable weight. That comment alone caused them to keep her for another month.
She had to go to group therapy, which I know for a fact she hated. She said it was just a bunch of pathetic people crying about their issues. I neglected to tell her that she had issues too and was indeed crying about them. Again.
She was crying a lot lately. Not that I could blame her. She was tired, she was hungry, and, as stated before, she wanted to go home. She said she missed the beach and made me promise to take her as soon as they let her go.
She couldn't go home yet though, not until she started participating in group therapy. As soon as I passed that message on to her though, she started making stuff up while she was there so it looked like she was partaking in it. She was a good liar though, always had been, so I figured they bought it. Either that or they were just turning the other cheek.
It was a long recovery but she was making it. She cried out of happiness as she said goodbye to her room and Ivy when they released her.
And she was crying then, though I wasn't sure it was happiness, when she told me she reached one hundred that day. She was curled into my lap wearing my sweatshirt and a pair of jeans that were still too baggy but not so much.
Ever since this nightmare began, she had acted more like a six-year-old than a sixteen-year-old. She sat on my lap constantly and preferred to be held and cuddled as opposed to kissed. She was still crying though not as much. She still felt small though she was almost to her average weight. I wondered if after this, she would always feel small.
She was still looking thin but I figured this was normal. She wasn't just going to jump right back into that curvy body that I loved so much. Somehow though, she was looking too thin. Too thin for someone who said she weighed in at one hundred and two. Anorexic or not, something wasn't right.
It wasn't noticeable at first but it was. That was how it started, unnoticeable. And I silently prayed that I was being paranoid and imagining things. I begged my eyes to be deceiving me when they watched her put that steak in her napkin. "Summer," I said.
"What?" Dear lord, please don't tell me she's going to pretend she didn't do it.
"I saw that," I had said, my voice quiet but stern. I wasn't going to be silent this time.
She looked at me for a while, quite obviously debating the situation before she started crying. Again.
"I'm sorry, it's just hard," she had said through muffled sobs.
And I held her until she quieted then watched silently as she finished her steak. This was no picnic. Far from it. The doctor's said it would be hard though, so it wasn't a surprise. The hardest part tended to be when they broke one hundred he had told us. "Watch her then," he had said. "That's when it's easiest for them to slip back into the old ways."
So we did. And she was fine. She was eating again. Whole meals and with people in the room too. I even watched her eat some baby carrots that had been touching her salmon. She was going to be okay.
Except that this is Summer Roberts we're talking about. And she can't let anything be easy. With her, you can't have three steps and you're done. Oh no, there has to be a step number 2) b.
Apparently in her mind, step number 2) b. was "once everyone thinks you're fine, stop eating again". I would have noticed her diminishing weight, though not as quickly if I hadn't walked into my bathroom that day.
And there she was, standing on the scale just long enough for me to look over her shoulder and read the numbers there. Ninety-two pounds.
Of course she jumped off right away and tried to smile at me, hoping she could say it read one hundred three. Seeing the expression on my face, she knew I had seen the truth though. What the scale said was that she was still struggling, still trying to lose weight, and still not getting better.
I just looked at her with quiet eyes and simple feelings and she knew. We had to go back; back to the hellhole that was her home for three moths. I didn't know how long it would be this time. I didn't even know if she would be okay. Ever. But I did know that I was gonna be there.
Today marked the one-year anniversary of the day Summer was released from the Behavioral Health Center. The second time. It had only been one month then, but one month that was just as bad as the first three. There were just as many tears, if not more. And it was just as hard, if not harder.
She was okay now and I say that with confidence. She's been okay for a year. One hundred and seven pounds has been a steady weight for her. She still eats healthy and rarely snacks between meals but I've gotten her to go to McDonald's a few times.
I remember asking her why she started eating again. There were many reasons; a lot of stuff that factored into it but she told me that the main, overriding reason was exhaustion. Pure exhaustion. She was tired of reading the labels and tired of trying to hide it. She was tired of being tired. Mostly, she was tired of being hungry.
Anorexia isn't easy. It's a hard habit to pick up. Summer taught me that dropping it is even harder. And I'm damn thankful she did.