and the hair was the donut. In my failed attempts to fit in, I had flirted briefly with donut bangs, but I developed an intense aversion to waking up in the morning with my hair plastered to my face by a shellac of leftover Stiff Stuff.
In those days the hallways of my high school smelled like chicken sweat, Aqua Net, Forever Krystal (a Dynasty -themed perfume), and Hubba Bubba gum. On special days, these odors were commingled with the stench of formaldehyde wafting off the dissected fetal pigs in the biology lab. I sat in the back of the geometry classroom tapping out wild speed-fueled rhythms on my clavicles, grinding my teeth, and waiting to get the hell out.
I landed in Dr. Thornton’s office shortly after my mother walked in on me changing clothes in my bedroom. I’d forgotten to lock the door. When she saw me, she yelped, then started crying.
After I left for school the next day, she read my diary. When I came home, she waved it at me and said, “You’re going to see a doctor.”
“I cannot BELIEVE you snooped on me!” I shrieked. “You had no right to do that!”
“I had EVERY right,” my mother countered. “My child is starving herself. I don’t even know who you are anymore. You come in here with dark circles under your eyes and you look like you’re dying. You—”
“I do NOT look like I’m DYING,” I huffed. “I look perfectly fine. I’m perfectly healthy. I’m making good grades. Leave me alone.”
“You don’t even go out with any of your friends anymore. You don’t do any activities at school.”
“Except pass,” I said. “Except stay out of trouble and get A’s. Nobody at school likes me anyway. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s not like they’re exactly beating down the door.”
“Don’t you get smart,” said my dad, who had by then joined in the argument. The night ended, like so many others, with none of us speaking, Cameron hiding, and me falling asleep between the bed and the wall, undeserving of a mattress, holding back tears by clenching my teeth.
I moved further away from my family, and for that matter, from everyone I knew. I ran, I took Dexatrim, I drank pot after pot of black coffee, and I did my homework. I took Advanced Placement classes in history and English. I was on speed-fueled fire. I bought a membership to a gym in Fayetteville, went dutifully every day after school, and did my studying on the StairMaster. I had decided that my only hope of getting out of the hellhole that was my life and my hometown was to get into a foreign exchange student program as soon as possible.
The morning after my mother read my diary, she took me to the pediatrician, where I shivered in a blue paper gown before the man who, a decade and a half before, had laid his hands on my crowning head and pulled me out into the world. He asked me questions about various aspects of my so-called lifestyle. Did I exercise? Did I eat? Did I still menstruate?
He asked me if I threw up what I ate. I knew about bulimia, because I’d read everything the Prairie Grove, Farmington, and Fayetteville public libraries had to offer on the subject. So I used the word first: “I’m not bulimic.” He looked at me the way a thousand other doctors were no doubt looking at a thousand other shivering fibbing girls in pediatric clinics at that very moment. I held his eye.
He said, “I think you might be.”
I said nothing.
He went out into the hallway and my mother followed him in. He sat down at his desk and wrote Dr. Philip J. Thornton and a phone number on a prescription pad, and said, “I think you should call a friend of mine.” And he handed me the name of the next person my mother would come to loathe and I would come to regard as my savior.
I still do.
The day I met Dr. Thornton I stood in front of my bathroom mirror admiring the tunnel of light between my thighs. I felt horribly excited and horribly insecure, so I tried on seven outfits, pulling them tightly around my body
In those days the hallways of my high school smelled like chicken sweat, Aqua Net, Forever Krystal (a Dynasty -themed perfume), and Hubba Bubba gum. On special days, these odors were commingled with the stench of formaldehyde wafting off the dissected fetal pigs in the biology lab. I sat in the back of the geometry classroom tapping out wild speed-fueled rhythms on my clavicles, grinding my teeth, and waiting to get the hell out.
I landed in Dr. Thornton’s office shortly after my mother walked in on me changing clothes in my bedroom. I’d forgotten to lock the door. When she saw me, she yelped, then started crying.
After I left for school the next day, she read my diary. When I came home, she waved it at me and said, “You’re going to see a doctor.”
“I cannot BELIEVE you snooped on me!” I shrieked. “You had no right to do that!”
“I had EVERY right,” my mother countered. “My child is starving herself. I don’t even know who you are anymore. You come in here with dark circles under your eyes and you look like you’re dying. You—”
“I do NOT look like I’m DYING,” I huffed. “I look perfectly fine. I’m perfectly healthy. I’m making good grades. Leave me alone.”
“You don’t even go out with any of your friends anymore. You don’t do any activities at school.”
“Except pass,” I said. “Except stay out of trouble and get A’s. Nobody at school likes me anyway. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s not like they’re exactly beating down the door.”
“Don’t you get smart,” said my dad, who had by then joined in the argument. The night ended, like so many others, with none of us speaking, Cameron hiding, and me falling asleep between the bed and the wall, undeserving of a mattress, holding back tears by clenching my teeth.
I moved further away from my family, and for that matter, from everyone I knew. I ran, I took Dexatrim, I drank pot after pot of black coffee, and I did my homework. I took Advanced Placement classes in history and English. I was on speed-fueled fire. I bought a membership to a gym in Fayetteville, went dutifully every day after school, and did my studying on the StairMaster. I had decided that my only hope of getting out of the hellhole that was my life and my hometown was to get into a foreign exchange student program as soon as possible.
The morning after my mother read my diary, she took me to the pediatrician, where I shivered in a blue paper gown before the man who, a decade and a half before, had laid his hands on my crowning head and pulled me out into the world. He asked me questions about various aspects of my so-called lifestyle. Did I exercise? Did I eat? Did I still menstruate?
He asked me if I threw up what I ate. I knew about bulimia, because I’d read everything the Prairie Grove, Farmington, and Fayetteville public libraries had to offer on the subject. So I used the word first: “I’m not bulimic.” He looked at me the way a thousand other doctors were no doubt looking at a thousand other shivering fibbing girls in pediatric clinics at that very moment. I held his eye.
He said, “I think you might be.”
I said nothing.
He went out into the hallway and my mother followed him in. He sat down at his desk and wrote Dr. Philip J. Thornton and a phone number on a prescription pad, and said, “I think you should call a friend of mine.” And he handed me the name of the next person my mother would come to loathe and I would come to regard as my savior.
I still do.
The day I met Dr. Thornton I stood in front of my bathroom mirror admiring the tunnel of light between my thighs. I felt horribly excited and horribly insecure, so I tried on seven outfits, pulling them tightly around my body
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