Wintergirls: Chapters 045.00–065.00

I am a gluttonous, gorging failure.

I am a gluttonous, gorging failure.

The laxatives I wolfed down when we got home are torching my guts.

He tries to pump his fist in the air like he’s a pro football player, but he looks more like a lame college professor trying to hail a cab.

Dad blathers on about a bunch of moldy letters in the London archives and how if we get a good deal on the tickets, we could all go to England, which will never happen.

I study the cracks in the grout between the floor tiles.

He picks up the milk jug and pours more into his glass. He takes a long drink of milk and very deliberately sets the glass back on the table.

Lia the Loathsome calls the front desk of the Gateway.

Typical Cassie crap, melodramatic and over the top.

The fingers drift over my chin, down my throat, past the butterfly wings of my thyroid, down to where my collarbones hook into my sternum like the wishbone of a bird.

My hands read a Braille map hewn from bone...

I count my ribs like rosary beads, muttering incantations, fingers curling under the bony cage.

Thin scars etch the inside of my wrist...

The first incision runs from my neck to just below my heart, deep enough so that I can finally feel something, not deep enough to flay me open.

The first incision runs from my neck to just below my heart, deep enough so that I can finally feel something, not deep enough to flay me open.

Black holes open in front of my eyes and the wild bird trapped in my heart beats her wings frantically.

When they open, she has lab results.
“Anemia,” she says.

“Plus low blood sugar, low phosphates, low calcium, low T3—don’t know what that means—high white blood cells, low platelets. They sewed you up with black thread, thirty-three stitches, isn’t that weird? Oh, and you have ketones in your pee. Keep this up and we’ll do New Year’s together. Stay strong, sweetie.”

“You won’t be seeing Emma until you’re better. Maybe that will give you some incentive. If you won’t try for yourself, try for her.”

After ten more minutes of dictation, she comes in and perches on the edge of the other couch, sitting as straight as if she were balancing a crown on her head.

She closes the heavy drapes. It cuts down on the draft and puts me in shadows.

“If you don’t eat, I won’t shove food down your throat, even though it’s tempting. But you must stay hydrated. If you restrict fluids, you’ll be placed in a psych ward. Instantly. I’ve already worked it out with Dr Parker and consulted the district attorney about the paperwork.”

They should burn me at the stake for what I did to her. Set me adrift on an ice floe.

My heart shifts out of idle into fourth gear, revving like a race car skidding around the track.

A car is stuck in the parking lot. The engine races as the driver spins her tires, pushing the accelerator but going nowhere fast. Plows lumber by, chains tinkling, blades sending up sparks as they scrape the ice from the road.

She assumes her position behind the desk. “You’ve had a rough time of it. I’m really happy you’re here. I imagine those stitches are hurting.”

Dr. Parker keeps her tiny spider eyes locked on mine, coaxing the words out by sitting motionless in the center of her web, hardly breathing.

The word ghost sounds like memory. The word therapy means exorcism.

He doesn’t want to drive out to the Gateway. Says there’s no way he’ll get a fare back into town and what happens if he gets stuck?

“I’m not bluffing,” he says, stone-eyed. “If you don’t call them right now, I’m on the phone with the cops and reporting you as an intruder.”

Hypothermia and blood loss is like going to sleep, like pricking my finger on a thorn or a spindle.

Hypothermia and blood loss is like going to sleep, like pricking my finger on a thorn or a spindle.

As I cross the threshold, she throws her cards in the air.

My heart lurches.

Dr Parker visits. She and the inpatient team are putting together a transition plan for me so I can shift from hospital Lia to real Lia.