September, 1986

Lindsay sat on the couch in the basement, flipping through channels on the TV, but it was difficult to pay attention knowing that her father was upstairs on the phone with her therapist. She'd fainted in school that day. Michael had been gone on a debate trip over the weekend and she only had therapy with its group dinners Monday through Thursday, so she'd used the opportunity to cut her food intake way down, lower than she'd ever done. The result was that she'd fainted in English class when she returned to school on Monday. Carolyn, her therapist, had asked her a lot of questions about it that evening. She'd tried her best to cover up how little she'd eaten, but she doubted she believed her, especially since she suspected Michael was telling her how uncooperative she'd been during her weekly meetings with the family.

The most frustrating part was that she really had tried to stop at first. She'd been determined to prove that she didn't need treatment and to have her evenings free again, but after about a week off her diet she realized it wouldn't be as easy as she'd thought. She missed the feeling of control her food and exercise regimen had given her, and she was terrified of gaining back the weight she'd worked so hard to lose. It started with occasionally skipping a meal when she could easily get away with it and quickly turned into going out of her way to avoid eating without getting caught and giving up entirely on recovery. It scared her a little that she didn't have as much control over this as she'd thought, but she tried not to think about it. She just wanted to stop feeling so miserable all the time and dieting was the only thing that helped.

She hadn't intended to skip her appointments since that was less easy to hide, as they always called her parents when she did. She just didn't have the energy sometimes. At first she'd kind of liked therapy, though she pretended she didn't. She liked telling her therapist all the horrible things her mother had said to her and seeing the genuine shock in her face. Even better was knowing that she was likely talking to her mother about it in her meetings with her. But once she started skipping meals it became exhausting to lie for four hours straight four days a week about how she was trying to recover and she didn't know why she'd stopped gaining weight. But now she was too traumatized by J. Walter Weatherman jumping in front of her car to try that again, so she was stuck. She wished they could see that the appointments were making her feel worse, not better.

She heard someone coming down the stairs and turned to see Michael.

"Hey, can I talk to you?" he asked. He looked nervous.

"Yeah," she said apprehensively. She turned off the TV. He sat down next to her.

"So, Dad wanted me to tell you, they're thinking about putting you in partial hospitalization," he said, not meeting her eyes.

"What? What does that mean?"

"It's, uh, it's every day for eleven hours. You'll still come home at night—"

"That's insane," she said frantically. "I can't—what about school?"

"They have classes there that you'll take instead. I know it sounds bad, but it's usually only two or three weeks."

"You can't make me do this."

"It's not my decision!"

"Well, then, talk to Mom and Dad, they'll listen to you," she said desperately.

"I don't know, Linds, maybe this is what you need! I mean, you're on your own for one weekend and this happens."

"It won't happen again, I promise," she pleaded, her eyes filling with tears. Good, that would convince him. She blinked so that they spilled over and ran down her face. "Just please, please talk to them."

"Okay," he said frantically. "Well, I don't know, I think you need this."

"I don't, really, I'll stop."

"You said that last time and you didn't even try!"

"I did try, okay?!" she said, her voice rising in frustration. "It's just, it's hard, you don't understand. Just please talk to them, I promise I'll stop."

She watched the emotions play across his face, desperately hoping she'd convinced him.

"Okay," he sighed. "But if this happens again—"

"It won't, really," she interrupted. He looked at her tear-streaked face, clearly not sure if he should believe her

"You were trying before?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said quietly.

"Why did you stop?" She looked at him disbelievingly. "You said I didn't understand, I want to understand!"

She shook her head and sighed. "I don't know," she said. "I just don't want to gain back the weight, I guess." She hated how ridiculous it sounded. That wasn't why, at least it wasn't the only reason, but she couldn't explain why she couldn't stop, it didn't even fully make sense to her. "They want me to go past what I weighed before, it's ridiculous," she said instead.

"That's only because you were underweight before. They just want you to get up to a healthy weight, that's all. Are you worried about Mom?" he said when her eyes filled with tears again. "'Cause she's not going to say stuff like that anymore, Carolyn talked to her about it. Hey, it's okay," he said as a sob escaped her throat. She wiped at her eyes, but it was no use, she couldn't keep from crying anymore. He hesitated, then awkwardly wrapped his arm around her. She leaned against him, not caring anymore, it just felt so good to be close to him. "Look, you're really pretty," he said, a little embarrassed. "I don't know why you can't see that."

"Do you really think that?" she choked. She knew how he would answer, but she couldn't help it, she wanted to hear him say it again.

"Yes," he laughed. "Everyone does, it's an objective fact."

"Thanks," she said quietly. He still didn't understand, it wasn't really about that, but it did make her feel better. It was ridiculous how much she needed this.

"I'm really fucked up, aren't I?" she said.

"No," he said. She looked up at him, eyebrows raised. He laughed. "Well, maybe a little, but we all are. We're just a fucked up family."

"Yeah," she agreed. "At least we have each other."

"Yeah, we do."

She smiled and closed her eyes. This was getting a little weird, she shouldn't say things like that when her head was on his chest and his arm was around her and he'd just finished telling her how pretty she was. But she didn't want to think about that right now, she was just so glad that he was here.

"I really will try to get better," she said. She didn't know if she would feel the same way in the morning, but at that moment she meant it. She wanted to show him that he wasn't wrong to trust her.

She jumped slightly when she heard someone coming down the stairs and pulled away from him. He quickly moved his arm and scooted away from her, and they sat in uncomfortable silence as their mother came into the room.