Authors: Hannah Harvey
‘Oliver you really need to get up, this isn’t healthy.’ Amanda comes in, making her routine daily visit into his sectioned off bedroom, to check on him. She comes
in several times a day and tries to tidy up, since his room is starting to get cluttered with take-out containers, and it’s starting to smell bad, but he always just waves her away.
‘I don’t care.’ He replies keeping his eyes on the ceiling.
‘You’re acting like a teenager.’
‘I don’t care.’ He repeats, and he really means it
, he can’t make himself care about anything, because without her he doesn’t make sense, not anymore. The person he was before her doesn’t exist anymore, and he’s not entirely certain what he is without her, all he knows for certain, is that he can’t seem to care about anything.
‘I don’t understand you Oliver, I know it’s hard to let her go, I know there was something between you – you were close and I get that, but she did the right thing letting you go, I have to give her credit for that, she did the mature thing stopping the sessions before you both got too attached, so explain to me why you can’t let this go, what is so special about this girl, that’s making you behave like this, shutting yourself off from everyone, what is so special about her?’ Amanda yells angrily, her brother is acting like a fool and she needs him to see that, nothing else has worked and so all she can think to do is yell.
‘She feels everything so deeply, happiness and sorrow and everything in between, with her halfhearted isn't an option, the books she reads become part of her existence, and she becomes engulfed in them, invested in the characters. The music she listens to reflects her mood, and I don’t know she just, she had a breathless quality to her, everything she says has such an impact on me, and yet at the same time she’s soft and breathlessly beautiful, she’s like a glorious summer day, intense like the sun, but effortlessly calm like the wind, just barely whispering, yet that small whisper is enough. When she reads, if it’s a part of the book she’s deeply connected to, she’ll block out everything around her, and she’ll bite her lower lip, her cheeks will become pinker, and her eyes will shine with excitement of see what happens next. She feels everything for everyone else, and she hates to see people hurt, and yet her own suffering comes second to her, always, because that’s the kind of person she is! That’s why I can’t stop thinking about her, that’s why all I want is to spend time with her, it’s not because I want to fix her, or change her, it’s because every time I’m with her I learn something new about her, I see a new part to her story, I see another little quirk or habit, like how she hugs her knees when she’s scared or upset. There isn’t a single moment I’m with her, that I imagine her as anyone else, or want to change her into someone else, because she’s intelligent and strong, and she knows me, she just completely gets me because she took the time to know me, that’s why she’s so special, that’s why I love her!’
‘What did you just say?’ Amanda’s eyes widen, shock forming on her face. In all of her imaginings, she had never imagined that things had gotten to this point; at most she expected a crush.
‘I can’t repeat all of that.’ He looks away, he knows exactly what his sister wants him to repeat, the words are spinning round his head, because until that moment, until the moment the words flew out of his mouth, he hadn’t admitted, not even to himself, that he was in love with River, and yet now, as he sits there yelling at his sister in his apartment, he knows it with such conviction, to him it didn’t matter how foolish it was, how impossible it was, all that matter was that it was there, it was so real he could almost reach out and touch it, as if his love for her had taken a physical form before him, and he could simply reach out his hand and hold it, treasure it until he could give it to her. The reality hit him hard with his sister’s next words.
‘You can’t love her, you know that don’t you?’ She looks at him, more concerne
d now and her previous anger slipping away, leaving only the slightest trace it had ever been there. ‘She’s eighteen and she was your patient, Oliver please just try and be sensible about this, you could lose your job, even now that she’s out of the picture, the rules at the hospital are so firm on this, that if they know you fell for a patient, you’d be fired and you know that.’
‘I’ve lost her and that’s a far higher price to pay!’
‘Oliver please this is ridiculous, what do you think could happen? Even though she feels the same way about you, do you think you could actually make it work? I know you’re young, and the age difference between the two of you really doesn’t matter, what does matter is that she has been seriously unwell; she’s been so fragile for so long. She might think she loves you, but it’s just attachment to the person who helped her. She isn’t capable of deciding if she truly loves you, and if you tell her that you love her, if you find her then it might set her back, all the progress you’ve made, because she might start hating herself for ruining your career, for getting too close to you. You said it yourself in that speech of yours; she thinks about others before she thinks about herself. So even if she does love you, do you think she’d want you to risk your career for her?’
‘No she wouldn’t.’ He resigns himself to saying it, because of that he is so incredibly certain, her letter had made that clear to him, she’d let him go for the exact pu
rpose of saving his job, and he couldn’t let that gesture go unnoticed, he couldn’t throw his career away now, because it’s not what she would have wanted.
‘You see, and I bet she wouldn’t want you wallowing for her either.’ Amanda points out.
‘Alright I’ll go back to work tomorrow.’
‘Thank you, that’s all I wanted, a little sense from you.’ Amanda smiles, turning to leave him to one more day of wallowing, as an afterthought she turns back to him, ‘Make sure you shower first.’
Chapter Nineteen
Letter 11
Hello Oliver, it’s been a while hasn’t it? It’s October now and I haven’t written anything down in a while. I’ve been getting stronger each day, which is something that I know you’ll be proud of, and I truly am starting to believe I can get back to a good place. I’m just sorry you won’t be able to see that, after all of your input into my recovery, I feel bad that you won’t get to see me when I’m truly healthy. I hope you won’t think of me as the anorexic girl, the ill girl or anything like that. I would have liked your memory of me to be of me happy and healthy. I think I’m almost at the healthy part, of course I’ll always have the weakened heart, but I think mostly I will be healthy again soon. As for happy, that’s a whole different goal to reach, and I’m afraid I think that one is further off than healthy. I’m not unhappy, but I’m not happy either. I’m miserable almost all the time, but then there are moments when I’m content, I suppose I’ll have to work on that.
I guess since you won’t ever be seeing this letter, I can say where I am. My family and I moved to Seattle, we’ve got a lovely house on the water and it’s quite stunning. I do miss New York sometimes, or rather not New York so much as you, still I dream of New York at times and wake up with tears in my eyes, wishing I could be walking through the park with you, or even just be sitting up on our roof and be talking about something, anything. Dwelling on these things won’t do me any good though, it certainly won’t help me with the whole happy thing, so let’s get to the story, because nowadays I think it’s easier to look back than forward, and that’s not something I would have said before leaving New York.
The story starts up when I was still in therapy, it must have been in the November of last year, I had been going to the therapist every week but little progress had been made, at least not with my
inability to talk to people about what was going on, I could just about get out a few short answers to direct questions, but if they were questions relating to how I got here, to this point of starving myself, and leaving school and everything else, I’d clam up and offer some unrelated babbling answer. I must have driven everyone mad. I know I drove myself mad.
I was being watched though, back then I mistakenly identified it as my parents and even my brother, who was checking in all the time, finding a way of telling me how disappointing my actions were, it made me feel like no matter what I did, it was going to be the wrong thing, and I wanted to make them all proud, so I started to eat.
It was the hardest thing I ever had to do, so much harder than when you offered me the food, I don’t know why, perhaps I just wasn’t ready when my parents tried, or maybe it was because I never felt any pressure when you gave me the food, with them it always felt like they would hate me if I didn’t eat.
I could hardly stand the sight of food, but I forced myself to eat something each day, not enough calories for a regular diet, but I didn’t go days at a time without eating anymore, and of course I wasn’t going to the gym anymore. I started to regain some weight, and my parents slowly stopped watching me at mealtimes. They stopped making sure there was always someone with me when it was time to eat, they started going back to work for the entire day, leaving me to get my own food, and eat it without their eyes trained on me.
I see now what I couldn’t see before, they weren’t being cruel, they just wanted to help me, and my family has never been the kind of family for long talks, they’ve never been ones for sharing emotions and all of that, so this was their way of helping me, they were trying to protect me, by making sure I was eating and so couldn’t harm myself anymore. I was so hard on them for doing it, I think I craved what they couldn’t give me, I needed to be able to talk to them about things, but I just never could, because they didn’t know how to handle me, they couldn’t find the words to make it right. All they could offer were their actions, and I couldn’t accept that then. I do now, because I know they were going through a lot, it can’t have been easy for them, watching their only daughter fall apart like that, maybe that’s why they ignored it for so long. It even worked for a while, the system they had for watching me eating, making sure I ate something at each meal, because I had started regaining weight, and I started eating much more regularly.
Then one day at the end of November I was allowed out alone, I hadn’t been allowed to do that in a while, and so I was thrilled, I had to promise I’d only be gone an hour, and that I would walk and not run. I was glad to listen to their rules, if it meant I could have just a little freedom. I decided to do some shopping, because my parents had given me some money to buy a dress, since their anniversary party was only a week away. The first few places I went into I tried on the size I’d been wearing recently, the size 0’s, which had at my lowest point become loose on me, but this time they didn’t fit, the dress wouldn’t zip up. I realized it had been a while since I’d bought a new dress, or worn a dress at all. I’d taken to lying in bed all day in my sweats, a situation not entirely unlike my current situation.
I picked out a size 2 and took it into the changing rooms, this time it fit me well, though perhaps a little snugger than I’d been expecting, I wasn’t expecting to regain weight so quickly, yet when I looked at myself in the mirror, expecting to hate what I saw, I actually looked – pretty. I looked so much healthier than I had done, and it felt nice. That was when I noticed her, standing there behind me was Emma, she was looking me up and down and I grew nervous, she hadn’t seen me once since I’d left school, when I was at my lowest weight.
‘Hello River,’ she smiles at me but after what she’d done at the dance, I knew not to trust her sweet smiles. I knew how good an actress she could be, ‘are you buying something for your parent’s party?’
‘I don’t see how that is any of your business.’ I snapped back, I’d so badly wanted to play things cool when I next saw her, act like she couldn’t affect me, but she was standing there looking stunning, and I felt so insecure.
‘No need to snap, I only wondered because that’s what I’m doing.’ She again smiled kindly, ‘my parents were invited and they’re making me come with them, they don’t’ understand why we aren’t friends anymore.’
‘I could enlighten them on that if you’d like, should I start with how you listened to gossip about me, then dropped me, or should I skip to the part where you left me passed out in the park?’ I was trying to be brave, but she wasn’t buying any of it.
‘Oh I don’t think mentioning any of that would work, not after what I said to them about you.’ She laughed, checked her lip gloss in the mirror, rubbing it in with her finger, and then starts to walk off. I should have let her go, but at the time I needed to know, I couldn’t see that it was a mistake to call her back.
‘What does that mean? What lies have you fed to them?’
‘Oh nothing to worry yourself about
,’ She says lightly, and then looking me over again she added with a cruel sneer, picking up the tag on the dress I was wearing ‘did you put on weight? Size 2 that’s interesting, you look bigger than that.’ Then she walks off, out of the changing rooms and into the bright store. I went back inside my cubicle; I remember feeling like I couldn’t breathe. I just crumpled onto the floor and cried.
That was the start of it again, I wasn’t as strong as I thought I was, and so her little remark was enough to send me spiraling back down. I stopped eating again because I felt I needed to drop back to a size 0, or smaller. I began lying to my parents, telling them I’d eaten when I hadn’t; they started having me write up a food diary, which was stuck onto the fridge with a magnet on each corner. I filled it in with small amounts each day, so it would be believable, and I started hiding food when they gave it to me, I would take a couple of bites when they were looking, then once they were distracted I would slip it into the napkin on my lap, and throw it out when I got a chance. By late December I’d dropped back to my lowest weight, and I began losing all my energy again, I’d gone back to staying in bed all day, the effort of lifting a book was tiring. My parents would ask me if I was eating, I’d tell them that I was, they’d whisper about me in the lounge, and then in January they announced I’d be going to the hospital. I guess I wasn’t fooling them that I was ok, and why should I? I wasn’t even fooling myself anymore.