Paperweight by Meg Haston Page B

Scared she’ll rat me out to Shrink, or pissed at her pudgy-lipped disappointment.
    â€œTell on me if you want.” I can’t even look at her.
    â€œWhat?” I can hear her pout getting deeper. “Stevie, what are you—”
    â€œAnna. Tell her if you want. I really don’t care.”
    â€œAre you being serious right now? I was just—I wanted to see if you were okay. I want to help!”
    â€œI’m okay. Okay?” I snap at my feet. “And I don’t need your help.”
    â€œYeah. Okay. ’Cause you’re doing such an awesome job on your own.” She stomps back into the house, letting the door slam behind her.

day seven
    Thursday, July 10, 9:45 p.m.
    I avoid Ashley for the rest of the day, but it doesn’t matter. I can feel her disappointment clinging to me, a sticky residue that won’t come clean, like dirty salt water baked into my skin. It’s not that I care what she thinks. It’s that she had the balls to act upset—sad, even—that I’d purged. Like she pities me. A Yellow Girl! Pitying me! I should pity her. All afternoon and through dinner and snack, I am a live wire, ready to blaze at the slightest spark. I need a drink. I need to get wasted with Eden, to forget the way only we know how, together.
    When the nurses release us to the cottages at the end of the night, I take my time gathering Josh’s sweatshirt and my journal and the handout on mindful eating Shrink brought me after group. I slip my meds into the pocket of my jeans and I waituntil the villa empties. The building feels strange like this, with no sick girls to give it purpose. The nurses talk and laugh a little louder without the patients here. Their life sounds make my skin squirm.
    â€œStevie, my friend! Anything I can do to help?” The nice male nurse (Jeff, right? Jeff.) looks up from his chart and smiles. Jeff the Nice Male Nurse is always smiling. “Need to talk to someone? I can call a therapist if you’d like.”
    â€œNah. Thanks, though, Jeff. Night.” I clutch my sweatshirt to my chest and get out of there fast, before he can say more nice things.
    I stand in the yard until Cottage Three goes dark. Then I make my way up the hill and lean against the cold stucco. Eden’s letter feels weighty in my pocket, keeping me grounded. After a few more minutes, I sneak inside. Ashley’s almost-snores seep beneath the bedroom door.
    I creep to my side of the room, peel off my jeans and leave them in a pile on the floor. I pull Josh’s sweatshirt over my head and slide between the sheets, then flick the switch on my clip lamp and run my fingertips over the bumpy pen strokes that make my name. They are warm.
    Eden’s drawn a crude lightning bolt on the back flap and colored it in with neon green ink. I smile. She would never draw a heart, or scrawl Miss you! like everyone else on the planet.
    I peel the flap so slowly. When I was little, my mother had our Christmas gifts wrapped professionally, with fat wired gold ribbon and glittery sprigs of silver holly that left fairy-dust trails in the living room until March. The unwrapping was always thesaddest part. The promise of what was inside was always better than the actual gift.
    Inside the envelope, the letter is folded around a picture. A real picture, printed with sharp corners and a glossy finish. My stomach gets twisty when I see it: Eden and me, arms slung around each other in her kitchen. Grinning and red-faced, like fucked-up idiots. I have no idea when we took this.
    Finally, the letter. Her handwriting is nothing like it should be; it’s boxy and small, contained.
    Hey, girl.
    Got your message the other day. Your cell’s going straight to voice mail, so I had to look up the place on my phone. Hope fat camp is everything you dreamed it would be. (Too soon?) This place sucks without you, so you’d better get your ass back here soon. It’s totally dead in