Relearning Laura

I have my first appointment with my therapist later that day. Mom drives me to the red brick building and lets me out.

"I'll be back in half an hour. Cynthia says she wants to talk to you first," Mom tells me. I nod and get out of the car. Mom waves. I wave back and she drives away, leaving me in front of Ann Hall Associates. I walk inside and sit down in a scratchy chair to wait for my therapist.

The door to the therapy room opens and a tall woman with a long brown braid and glasses perched on the tip of her nose steps into the waiting room.

"Hi, Laura?" she says to me. I nod. "I'm Cynthia Rowe. Come on back." I stand and follow her into the hallway, then into a room with a couch, a scale, a desk, and a large window facing the river. Cynthia retrieves a notepad and a pen from the desk, then turns to me.

"Okay, Laura, hop on the scale please." I step backwards onto the scale and wait while Cynthia writes down the numbers. I want to look but I don't try. It would be detrimental to my health and happiness.

"Great, you can sit down now," Cynthia says. I sit on the blue couch and cross my legs, then fiddle with the sleeve of my hoodie.

"So, Laura, tell me about yourself," Cynthia requests. She pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose and crosses her miles-long legs.

"Well," I say. My voice is hoarse and quivery. I cough and take a deep breath.

"My name is Laura and I'm seventeen and I hate myself a lot of the time. I have very short hair and a boyfriend and lots of scars and a fat face. I am bad at everything but writing and singing I guess. I sometimes hide in my room reading Shakespeare for days and when that happens I usually forget to change my leggings. I steal books from my school’s library, but I always end up returning them. Sometimes I cry for no reason and sometimes I can’t breathe because I'm so sad and fat and scared. Sometimes I wish I was dead." I stop, realizing that I have said too much. Cynthia raises her thin eyebrows at me. I stare hard at my ragged fingernails.

"Let's talk about your eating disorder," Cynthia says. She consults her notepad, then looks back up at me. "Anorexia Nervosa, binge/purge subtype?" I nod. That was the hospital's Official Diagnosis. "Okay. Do you think you can identify what some of your triggers are?"

I think for a minute, then nod again. Cynthia clicks open her pen and looks at me expectantly. I take a deep breath.

"Being hungry. Being full. Wearing tank tops. Wearing shorts. Going shopping for clothes. Eating in restaurants. Eating, period. Drinking Ensures. The smell of the soap that my school uses. Exercise. Wintergirls. Wasted. Songs by Imogen Heap." I could keep going, probably for hours, listing every little thing that makes me think of my disorder, that makes me want to stop eating Cassie art class lunchtime the cafeteria camp bikinis dance pizza ravioli Vita è Bella being called skinny being called fat being called anything looking in mirrors existing stop stop STOP but Cynthia stops me.

"So you have a lot of triggers."

"Yeah."

"When you get home tonight, get rid of the ones that you can get rid of. Delete the Imogen Heap songs, throw away Wintergirls and Wasted, donate the clothes that make you feel self-conscious. Does that sound like a good idea?" Cynthia asks. I nod slowly. I don't know if I'm brave enough to delete my trigger songs or throw away my trigger books. What if I need them?

Don't be stupid Laura you won't need them.

For the next half an hour, we talk about school and Rick and my family and my friends. Mom talks to Cynthia for the last fifteen minutes. I sit in the waiting room and read an old copy of Reader's Digest while Mom and Cynthia discuss my issues. When Mom finally reemerges, I stand up quickly, expecting the familiar rush of fuzzy blackness to pour into my eyes. But it doesn't. It's confusing, but nice.

"See you next week, Laura," Cynthia says. I nod and lead the way out of the small brick building.

On the way home, Mom stops at 7-11 to buy a coffee.

"Want anything, Laurie?" she asks. I shrug and follow Mom into the convenience store. The slushie machine is making a slow shlump shlump shlump noise. It's a sound from my childhood, and I am shot back in time to hot summers with Cassie, pretending to be elves in the woods and staining our mouths red and blue with cherry and blue raspberry slushies.

"Um, can I get a slushie?" I ask.

Nonono yes yes yes I will have a slushie if I want to.

Mom looks at me in surprise. Then she smiles and nods.

I go over to the slushie machine and stare at my options. Coca Cola, Cherry, Blue Raspberry, Mountain Dew.

I think back to little eight-year-old me, running with Cassie to the 7-11 and buying cold sugary ice dyed unnatural colors. I always got red, she got blue. And we would swap every few sips and make faces and laugh until we cried.

I take the smallest cup, which is the kiddie size - I don't know if I'll be able to handle this much slushie, much less a small or a medium or a large or an extra large - and fill it up with Cherry slushie. The bright red half-frozen liquid pours into the cardboard cup. I feel like a little kid again.

Mom pays for her coffee and my slushie and we go back out to the car, walking through the bitingly cold January air. I am beginning to regret getting the slushie because the cold from the cup is seeping through my thin gloves and into my already-cold hands.

But then we get in the car and drive away and I take a sip of the cherry slushie and smile as the sugary sweetness of the drink slides down my esophagus and into my not-empty stomach and I am happy and comfortable and still smiling.

Mom glances at me and sees that I am enjoying the slushie and not crying and maybe maybe maybe becoming myself again, little by little, inch by inch, and she smiles too.