Sad Perfect Read online

  “I don’t feel like it.”

  You open your laptop. Like the discussion is over. Like you can control the situation.

  “Not even an apple?”

  “Mom.”

  “Fine. But I have some news for you. That place I’ve mentioned before, Healthy Foundations? They called me back, and you have an appointment this Thursday. Your dad and I want you to go.”

  You don’t look at her. Because you know. Deep in your heart, you know. You’ve been waiting for this and it’s almost a relief to hear that she’s going to take care of the problem: ever since you were a little girl, ever since you have had a memory, you haven’t liked food, except for the obvious good stuff—the safe foods.

  The healthy foods that have protein and vitamins—the vital nutritious food—you don’t eat. It’s pretty much impossible. You’ve never known why—and it’s not that you haven’t tried, because you have tried, many times—but you have no desire to eat those things. Ever. You wish so much that you could enjoy food the way others do. But you can’t because something is there, stuck in your throat—a monster, guarding its castle, your body, and it won’t let the stuff go down. The monster comes and goes sporadically, but when you’re feeling stressed or anxious about food you know it’s his doing. You know it seems silly, but that’s the only way to explain it, yet you’ve never been able to tell a doctor this. Because it sounds so stupid, that a monster lives inside you.

  And you know your problem is not anorexia or bulimia, because you’ve never wanted to lose weight, and you’ve never thrown up, hidden food, used laxatives, or binged. The only time you’ve purposely not eaten was when that thing with Alex happened last spring and that doesn’t count.

  When you do eat the foods you can eat—your safe foods—the monster is usually quiet. You don’t limit your portions, you don’t worry about how much you put into your mouth, you don’t think about gagging. You’ve always had a healthy-looking body, and that’s one of the reasons your parents could keep denying something was wrong. You’re neither too thin nor too heavy. Throughout your whole life, no matter where your parents have taken you to be evaluated—the pediatrician or a nutritionist—they always came to the same conclusion—that you’re a healthy, normal girl who is simply a “picky” eater.

  You’re perfect.

  But there’s more.

  Because the monster also makes it extremely hard for you to do things a normal girl is able to do. The monster was lingering at Jae’s party, making it hard to socialize, making it impossible to eat with friends. He causes anxiety and depression, and makes you sad because he’s holding you back from so many things you’d like to do, from so many things you know you want to do but are incapable of doing.

  So when your mom tells you she’s made an appointment, you feel that maybe the monster took a hit. At least maybe he got stabbed or something. Like the battle has begun.

  “You’re good with this?” your mom asks.

  You look up from your laptop and shrug. You have all sorts of feelings but aren’t sure how to react. You’re scared and anxious, and you don’t know what’s coming your way or what you’ll have to do to get the monster to die.

  You just know you want the monster out of you. He’s lived there far too long.

  4

  “Braden said Ben wants your phone number.”

  It is the next night and you and Jae are on FaceTime, and when she says this, you tilt your head down and pick at your blue toenail polish so she can’t see that your face lights up. Even though your room is dark because you’ve got candles lit and there are flickering shadows everywhere. The candles soothe you and they smell good, but your mom gets annoyed when you light them. (“You’re going to burn down the house one of these days,” she’s always saying.)

  “Did you give it to him? My number?” you ask.

  “No! I wasn’t going to give out your number to just anyone.”

  “Well, you can give it to him.”

  “Uh, well, what exactly is going on?” Jae moves her face closer to the screen, scrutinizing you through the Mac.

  Your smile goes big. You try to pull it back in but it’s no use.

  “What happened on the river?” she asks.

  Jae knows everything about you. She knows about the monster. She helps feed it when it’s hungry. She calms you when the monster makes you anxious and she cheers you up when the monster makes you depressed. Jae probably wants it dead just as much as you do. She’s been your best—really, only—friend since you met each other in first grade. She doesn’t judge you. She understands you. You tell her everything. She’s the closest person in your life, next to your mom, who sometimes drives you crazy.

  But Jae, Jae means the world to you. She’s nothing like the girls at school who live and breathe by how many likes they get on Instagram; Jae doesn’t care what others think about her. You wish you could be more like her. Jae has that balance between caring and not caring too much. You need to find that balance. You want to be like her but you’re not jealous of her. You just love her.

  So you tell her about Ben. How he made you smile, how he cooled you off when you got too hot, how he helped you when the rapids got rough, how his lips curled up at the edges when you said something funny. How he made you feel like you were funny. How he said he liked tall girls. How he held your hands and you felt it all the way to your toes, a tingling that you’ve never felt with any boy.

  “Not even when you first dated Alex?” Jae’s eyes go wide on the screen.

  “Ugh, I can’t believe I wasted my time with Alex. Oh my God, Jae. When Ben and I held hands, I can’t even…” When you think about it now, you still feel the warmth that flooded your body. You want to feel it again.

  “Text Braden my number right now!” you say.

  “I’m texting him!”

  You watch the computer screen as she texts your number. “Oh my God, I’m so excited for you!” Jae says. She’s the best best friend.

  “Okay, he texted me back. He’s going to text it to Ben!”

  You kneel on your bed and emit a little girlie squeal and then want to shove it back into your mouth, because you sound like one of those stupid girls. You don’t want to be a stupid girl.

  Suddenly, you’re starving. You grab your Mac and Jae and take them into the kitchen. Todd’s on the couch with his earbuds in and he’s furiously texting someone. Dad’s probably still at work. Your mom is doing dishes from dinner, which you skipped.

  “Hi, what’s up?” she asks.

  “Nothing,” you say.

  “Hi Mrs. Richards,” Jae says from your laptop screen.

  “Hi Jae,” your mom says, and moves in front of your Mac to give Jae a quick wave.

  You look in the fridge and you don’t know why because you never like anything in there. Maybe sometimes an apple. You open the pantry and grab the Ritz crackers.

  “Why don’t you put some peanut butter on those,” your mom suggests.

  “Mom.”

  Your mom holds her hands up in protest.

  You actually like peanut butter but you’re not in the mood for it.

  “It’s just, I think you should probably have some protein,” your mom says.

  “I’ll get a Carnation Instant milk.”

  You make your milk and take it and the crackers up to your room, along with Jae and your Mac.

  “No crumbs!” your mom yells from the kitchen.

  “Fine!”

  In your room you settle onto your bed, not caring if you get crumbs all over.

  “So,” you say to Jae, “guess where Mom’s taking me this week.”

  “I don’t know, where?”

  “One of those places.”

  “What places?”

  You roll your eyes at the screen and move your face close to where Jae can see you very clearly.

  “You know,” you say, “one of those eating-disorder places.”

  It’s the first time you’ve ever said the words aloud.

 
5

  Hey?

  Hey

  It’s Ben. From the river.

  I know. Hi.☺

  Hey. You still sunburned?

  LOL. Of course! It’s only been 3 days! I hurt!

  Me too, I got burned bad

  Yeah

  So, it’s OK I got your number?

  Of course

  Good

  So …

  Um …

  LOL …

  So did you have fun?

  It definitely got better

  That’s for sure

  …

  Do you wanna go see a movie tomorrow night?

  Sure

  6

  You haven’t been on a real date before, where the guy picks you up in his car. You and Alex were only sophomores, and dating consisted of going out in a small group of friends to the mall or movies, so this is for-real real. And you’re nervous. So nervous that you haven’t eaten all day long, when normally you might have had at least a couple of waffles for breakfast. Your mom makes you drink some milk and eat a few crackers at four o’clock. She asks if you remembered to take your pill that morning. You nod yes in between dry, pasty cracker bites. You never forget it. You know that’s the difference between having a crap day and a maybe non-crap day.

  Your mom watches as you take small bites of your crackers and drink your milk. She says, “I hope you have fun tonight,” but you can tell she doesn’t really mean what she says, and for some reason, you think she doesn’t want you going out. Your dad is watching a preseason football game. You have no idea where Todd is, and you actually care. You might miss the idea of your family. You feel like it’s maybe falling apart. Maybe it’s the monster’s fault. Could that monster that lingers in the crevices of your brain have that much power over so many people? He’s pretty powerful. But you push the feelings aside, because you want this to be a not-so-bad night, you want this to be a good night. No, scratch that. You want this to be a phenomenal night.

  Jae comes over and helps you pick out an outfit, one that’s not too datey looking, not too casual, one that says, I’m confident, and I look nice, and I’m not easy, and I like you. It’s difficult to come up with the right combination. You decide on white jeans with a black tank and a pair of strappy black sandals. Then you add a pink-and-black scarf in case it gets cold in the theater, also for a pop of color.

  Jae hugs you goodbye and tells you to text her later, then you go to the living room to peek out the front window and wait for Ben. At five minutes before six, a silver SUV pulls up and Ben gets out. He rakes his fingers through his hair like he’s nervous and that makes you like him even more and you relax for a split second.

  He wears belted khaki shorts and a white V-neck T-shirt and Vans and you think you might die a little bit inside at how handsome he is. You hadn’t seen him like this before—dressed. Although he had looked incredible wearing just his Hurley board shorts when you met at the river.

  He rings the bell and you wait a beat before answering the door. Your smile goes wide when you see him.

  “Hi,” you say, hanging back a bit behind the half-opened door.

  “Hi,” he says, grinning wildly at you.

  “Come on in.” You open the door the rest of the way to let him in as your parents come to the foyer.

  “Mom, Dad, this is Ben. He’s Jae’s cousin’s friend. We met Saturday at Jae’s party.”

  “Hi Ben, nice to meet you,” your mom says. You can tell she thinks he’s cute and then you think that maybe she’s okay with this after all.

  Your dad shakes his hand and immediately goes into sports talk, because that’s what dads do.

  “Hi Ben, you play basketball?” Your dad asks this because Ben’s like six-four.

  “No sir. I used to play football, but now I run track,” he replies.

  “Oh cool. I bet you’re great at the long jump.” Your dad sounds stupid and you roll your eyes at Ben.

  Todd walks past with his earbuds in and gives a wave and says, “What’s up.”

  Ben says, “Hey,” and nods. It seems to be a universal guy thing, and you don’t care to introduce Todd to Ben so it’s fine when your brother takes two steps at a time up the stairs and disappears into the black hole that is his room.

  “You two going to see a movie?” your mom asks.

  “Yes, and then maybe something to eat after, if that’s okay?” Ben asks.

  “Sure,” your dad says, then looks at you. “You know the rules, Pea.” And he actually winks at you, which pretty much mortifies you and you go into daughter mode and say, “Daddy!” and everyone laughs and you say, “We’re going now, bye!”

  Of course it’s then that your dad decides to take ownership over you and gives you a big hug and a kiss and says, “Be good.”

  You grab your purse and your phone, kiss your mom, and say, “I will,” and, “Bye.”

  Ben says, “It’s nice to meet you,” and your parents say it to him too. They sound sincere, and it makes you happy to think he’s made a good impression on them, because you don’t want your parents to not like him.

  When you’re finally out of your house, you say, “Oh God, I’m sorry about that.”

  “Hey, they were fine,” Ben says, laughing.

  “They’re probably spying from the front window right now.”

  “You think so? They seem nice,” Ben says.

  “I guess.”

  “Your dad calls you Pea?”

  “You caught that?” you ask.

  “Yeah. It’s a cute nickname. How’d you get it?”

  You smirk. “Long story.”

  “Hmm,” he says.

  He walks you to the passenger door and opens it for you and you squeal a little inside because this is the first time a guy has ever opened a car door for you and it’s just too much. You catch a whiff of Ben’s cologne and you think, Oh my God, because he smells like Abercrombie & Fitch, but not like how when you walk into the store and get a massive headache, just how if you walk by the store and get a quick whiff of it. A mix of that and soap. Yes, that’s what you think he smells like. Like a little bit of Abercrombie & Fitch, not too much, and good soap. Perfect.

  He waits for you to get into the car and then he leans in and you can smell him even more. He says, “Well, nickname or not, you look very pretty.”

  He shuts the door and you absolutely want to die.

  7

  On the way to the movies, Ben plays music from one of your favorite bands, and then some stuff you’ve never heard by some indie guy from Ireland who he said you might like and you do. His car is extremely neat and you’re pretty sure he vacuumed it out especially for you, and these little facts make you feel like you could really, really like Ben—more than you think you already do. You notice that he’s got his hands set on the steering wheel at ten and two, just like you learned in Drivers Ed, and you get a bit giddy thinking he’s a cautious driver, and also, you check out his arm veins again, and that makes you even more giddy. Then you remember how he held your hands as you floated down the Salt River and you get all warm and tingly inside thinking maybe he’ll hold your hand in the theater.

  You don’t know how you’re going to survive this date. You’re not even there yet and it already seems too fantastic.

  The movie you planned on seeing, a thriller about spies in Italy, is sold out, so you agree to see a different one, a better one, in your opinion, one that you would have chosen, about a quirky college kid trying to beat the system.

  Before you go find seats Ben asks if you want some popcorn or candy and you say no.

  “Maybe a drink though?” you suggest.

  “Wanna share one? They’re pretty big,” he says. You both agree on a Sprite. With two straws.

  In the theater, when he leads you to almost the back row, your palms start to sweat and you wonder if he’s that type of guy. Then he asks, “Is this okay? I hate sitting up close because it kills my neck since I’m so tall.”

  It makes sense to y
ou, so you say sure.

  When you sit, at first you don’t know what to do with your hands, so you keep them in your lap.

  You’re with this great guy, and this is pretty much officially your first real date, because even though you and Alex were “dating” for four months, you never really went out on dates, and in the end he was a total jerk. You make yourself stop thinking about Alex, try to focus on what’s happening now. You inhale deeply, and when you do, you smell Ben, and he smells like you already want to commit him to memory.

  You’re trying to make sense of the whole experience, and it hasn’t even happened yet. But you’re sure it’s happening.

  “You okay?” he asks.

  You decide to try honesty.

  “This is kind of a first for me,” you say.

  “First PG-13 movie?”

  This makes you laugh and you’re grateful. He’s got the best smile, and such beautiful straight white teeth, and you’re comfortable enough with him that you give his arm a quick nudge. Plus, you want to touch him.

  “I’m a little bit nervous.”

  “You don’t have to be. I like you. And it’s just a movie. Look, those guys don’t seem nervous at all.” Ben points to a couple a few rows ahead of you who are making out and you giggle.

  “Think it’s their first date?” you ask.

  “Doubt it.” He grins and takes a sip of the Sprite.

  The theater goes dark and the previews start. People silence their phones and turn their screen lights to Low. You turn your phone to Vibrate; you’re sure no one is going to call you, although Jae might text, and then you see Ben turn his phone completely off. He holds the Sprite out for you. “Want a sip?”

  “Sure.”

  Halfway through the movie you have to pee. Really bad. There’s no holding it.

  “I have to pee,” you whisper to Ben.

  He laughs. “Don’t do it here.”

  You stand and when you pass him, he touches your leg. “Hurry back,” he says.

  When you return, you’re fully aware that he’s moved the soda to his right and lifted the armrest that separated the two of you. You’re nervous and also a little bit excited.