Elena Vanishing (5 page)

The tech stays behind on a chair by the door. “Anorexia protocol,” she tells Mom. “I'll be here all night. They want your daughter to have twenty-four hour supervision.”

She looks sweet and concerned while she tells this to Mom, but I bet she's been whispering about me, too.

Mom turns out the light and settles down on her foldout bed. The tech reads a nursing textbook by the light from the hall. I lie in my bed in torment as the feeding pump fattens me up. The pump grinds, grinds, grinds, like someone chewing. My stomach is going to burst!

They've got you right where they want you, flat on your back
, sneers the voice in my head.
You deserve it, too, you fat, stupid bitch!

Hour after hour, I lie awake, rigid, while calories force their way into my body. The grind of the pump is like a taunt, like a boast:
We've got you! You can't get away. We hate you! You can't fight us. We win!

The ward grows still. The tech by the door stops turning pages. I peek at her. She's slumped over her book.

She doesn't think you deserve to be here
, says the voice in my head.

Well, I don't think I should be here, either, and you can stick your damn strawberry Ensure up your ass!

Holding my breath, I hit the pause button on the feeding tube. The room drops into stark, sudden silence. I don't dare unhook my heart leads because that will ring an alarm, but the wires will stretch far enough to let me get to the sink and to the cabinets by the door.

I kneel down next to the cabinet and pull out the empty chip bag. I smooth its crinkles out one by one. Then I dump Ensure from the feeding pump into the chip bag and empty it out into the sink.

I'm tiptoeing right past the sleeping tech. She could get fired for sleeping on the job. But I'm willing to swear that she was wide awake all night and that she watched every single drop of Ensure go through the line.

A second trip, and then a third. My heart's pounding, and my breath hurts. I feel like a cat burglar, or a spy.

But by the third trip, the feeding pump is empty.

A syringe lies on the platform under my heart monitor. I saw the nurse use it earlier to clear the line on my nose tube. I disconnect the tube from the pump and, with infinite care, pull a vacuum on the tube with the syringe. The Ensure that has already been pumped into my stomach flows out through the nose tube again.

I hold the end of my nose tube so it can drain into the sink. Its contents join the pale puddle already there.

Hey, you big bad psychiatrists and bitchy nurses, I'm not your victim. I'm not some cute little girl who's going to get yelled at and cry. You want to lock me up? Go right ahead! But you better want what you want as much as I do.

Slowly, cautiously, I turn on the faucet. Its dripping stream sounds like a drumbeat on the metal sink. It's so loud, I almost jump
out of my skin. But the tech right beside me doesn't stir. She's worn out from school and working extra shifts.

Careful!
frets the voice in my head.
If she wakes up now—if she sees you—!

So what? What can she possibly do? There's nothing anybody could do to me that's worse than what's been done already. And if she does something worse, I'll deal with that, too.

I wash the pale, viscous puddle down the drain and refill the feeding pump with water. Then I rinse out my chip bag and hide it away. Finally, I hook my nose tube back to the feeding pump.

My heart is pounding as I crawl back into bed. I lie there and listen to the feeding pump grind as it fills my stomach with water. I should be able to relax now, but worries nag at me and keep me on edge. I need to talk to Mom in the morning about correspondence school. I need to figure out some way to take online classes.

Because if they're really going to keep me here until I've gained weight, then I'm never getting out of this place.

It's finally happening. After almost two weeks of enforced bed rest at
the children's hospital, they're sending me to an eating disorder treatment center.

Another hospital. A mental hospital! And nothing is wrong with me!

Two EMTs are hauling my stretcher down the halls. I'm strapped down around my middle again. I can't believe Mom is letting this happen. I can't believe they can do this to me.

You'll spend six months in a hospital
, says the voice in my head.
You'll spend six months in a hospital with a tube up your nose.

Without meaning to, I raise my hand to my face. That damn tube is still there, snaking down inside my throat. Its free end has been taped to my cheek, and the tape feels stiff and itchy. I have to force myself not to pull it loose.

I'm a prickly bundle of nerves, and my stomach feels like it's stuffed with razor blades, but I have myself under control. If I yell and scream, I might feel better, but I'll sound like I belong in a mental hospital. If I'm polite, I might shame my kidnappers a little, but the transport will be easier for them. So I've decided on silence. I stare up at the ceiling tiles and adjust the expression on my face: as stiff and blank as a stone statue.

With a jerk and a heave, the techs lift my stretcher into an ambulance. Mom climbs in the back with me, and we start off. The only view I have is out the tiny back window, where the street unrolls behind us. I hate riding backward. It's making me sick.

The young EMT is telling Mom his life story, but I know he's really telling it to me. Apparently, he's worked overtime for so long now that I'm the closest thing to a date he's had in weeks.

I pretend I've gone deaf and keep my eyes fixed on the cars nosing up to our back bumper. This guy isn't going to get the satisfaction of thinking I'm listening.

An eating disorder treatment center. Anorexics. Oh, God! What will they think of me? I did my best, but they weighed me right before the ambulance came. They wouldn't let me see my number, but I know it was more than it was when the transport plane brought me in.

What's my number? I don't know my number!

You're obese
, says the voice in my head.
You're huge!

The ambulance slows down, then stops. We're there. But we're not there. We're at Patient Intake. They won't even let us see the place, much less talk to anybody, till Mom's signed dozens of forms.

Minutes tick by while a big woman with big hair puts form after form on the desk in front of Mom. Mom skims each one before she signs it. It's like she's buying a new house. Or buying the whole center. Or selling me!

A tech comes with a wheelchair and rolls me outside. Mom walks beside us past big brick buildings and tall trees. Then the tech buzzes us through a door and takes the wheelchair away.

My first impression of Drew Center is doors: handsome, heavy, wood-paneled doors—New England doors, front doors—the kind you'd see in
The Amityville Horror
. But these doors aren't just on the outside. They're everywhere.

Mom and I walked through the first front door, the one that buzzed, and it left us in a small waiting room. Now another big front door opens on the other side of the room. It leads into a bare office. Mom isn't with me in the office. They made her stay behind.

A girl maybe four years older than me with straight brown hair and badly plucked eyebrows sits on the other side of a desk. “I'm going to be asking you some questions,” she tells me. “Your answers are confidential.”

Bullshit!
warns the voice in my head.

Still, I surprise myself by being more candid than I thought I would be. I tell her stuff nobody else knows. Maybe it's because I'm finally at a real anorexia treatment center. That's kind of cool. I feel like I'm talking the bouncer into letting me into a club.

“Do you restrict?”

“Yes.”

“What's the longest time you've gone without eating?”

“Twenty-one days.”

My friends and I were doing a three-week juice fast, but I was the only one who made it. I think about the willpower I exhibited then and feel a glow of pride.

The girl pauses before she writes this down. “No food at all?”

“It was a juice fast.”

“Ah.”

She makes a note, and I feel the glow slip away.

All those bottles of juice!
laments the voice in my head.
So many grams of simple sugars! You could have made it without them.

“Have you ever experienced sexual assault?” the girl is asking in the meantime.

This jars me out of my thoughts.

“Why don't people say ‘rape' anymore?” I snap. “What's wrong with calling it what it is?”

The girl looks serious. “Sexual assault covers more than rape,” she says. “It covers any kind of unwanted sexual contact.”

“Oh.”

“Well?” she prods.

“What?” I say.

“Have you ever experienced sexual assault?”

Her pen hovers over the paper, waiting to check a box. There are several lines below that so she can write down the juicy details.

I'm a big fan of writing things down. I keep boxes full of letters and notes, and I even save old text messages on my phone. I like to go back and reread them. They make things real for me.

Since I was eleven years old, I've kept a journal. I've written down every single important thing that's happened.

Except one.

You were so stupid!
mutters the voice in my head.

“Why would I tell you?” I say out loud.

The girl looks startled. “What do you mean?”

“Let's say I've been ‘sexually assaulted.' Why would I want to tell you?”

“It's important to work with a therapist if you're a victim of sexual trauma,” she says. “Remember, your answers here are confidential.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Just between you and me and about thirty other people who work here, so you can all whisper about me behind my back.”

“We wouldn't do that!”

“Oh, yeah? Well, how about I say you're going to ‘consult' about me instead? No thanks! And I'm not a
victim
of anything.”

Her pen still hovers over the paper.

“So that's a no?” she says. “Is that your answer?”

Since I was eleven years old, I've kept a journal. But I didn't write about one thing. And then I burned the notebook I didn't write it in, just to make sure.

“My answer,” I say, “is that it's none of your business.”

We finish up the interview, and the girl leads me further into the center through more big wooden doors. Two nurses in white uniforms sort my luggage into “allowed” and “forbidden” piles while I change into a set of green scrubs with DREW CENTER printed across the back.

This is just like prison. I know. I've watched the shows.

Then the nurses march me down to the cafeteria for my very first eating-disorder-center meal.

Skinny girls, skinny women, and one skinny man sit along both sides of long, bare, cafeteria-style tables. The skinny people look like political prisoners being tortured for their beliefs. They're staring down at huge plates of food like they're looking into the muzzle of a gun. More staff in white uniforms walk up and down behind them.

I am issued a plate. My stomach is churning, but for once, I'm not thinking about the food. So these are real anorexics! I sneak quick looks to my left and right as we all toil through the ordeal of eating.

They think you're fat
, whispers the voice in my head.
They think you don't deserve to be here.

Is that true? No one has even looked at me. Do they think I'm fat? I don't have my makeup bag. I didn't get to check my makeup. What do they see?

The girl across the table starts shaking and crying. She's eaten all she can, and her lunch is gone, but she can't choke down dessert, which is a piece of chocolate cake garnished with Oreos. If she can't eat the last few bites of Oreo cake, they'll force her to drink as much Boost as the calories of her whole meal.

That's not fair. It's not medicine, it's punishment, but that's the way they wrote the rules here.

They've got you both where they want you
, says the voice in my head.
You're helpless. You can't do a thing.

I can barely breathe. Is that true? Am I helpless? My chest hurts, and my heart pounds faster. But maybe I can do something after all—something to stop these evil white uniforms from winning.

I catch the girl's eye and make a tiny gesture:
I'll take your cake.
She gives me a grateful look. But as soon as she starts to slide the cake over to me, a staff member swoops down on us, yelling.

“That's it! Boost for both of you, the entire lunch's worth of Boost. You know it's against the rules to share food!”

The girl sobs out loud and shoves her tray off the table.

Two staff members take my arms and pull me up from my seat. They march me into a nearby room and sit me down on an examining table.

“Where do you think you are?” scolds the first one. “Do we look stupid to you? What do you think we are, blind?”

Stupid bitch!
adds the voice in my head.

“Is that what you got away with at your last center?” scolds the second. “Well, you're not going to get away with it here!”

Stupid bitch! Stupid bitch! Stupid, fat bitch!

It's too sudden. I didn't see it coming. I can barely breathe from shock. My heart gives a painful lurch—my damaged heart!

Then they're gone. Everything is gone.

I open my eyes. I'm in a small, dim room. White light shines in at the open doorway. I'm lying on a bed, but I can't remember where I am. Everything around me is blurry.

I reach beside the pillow for my glasses. No glasses. I sit up in a panic and fumble around for them.

My nose jerks like I'm a fish on a hook. I reach up to feel it and discover that my tube has been hooked up to a feeding pump again. I squint at the pump. A big bag dangles from it, the color of mud, but it's probably just chocolate Ensure.