Page 10 of Bird on a Blade

Of course she knows. Charlotte’s the reason I even went into recovery. I confessed to her one night, drunk on vodka and water, how miserable I was, how much I hated myself, how every day I yearned for food I was too terrified to eat. How I wanted to be like her—confident in a fat body.

The next day, she dragged me to see Dr. Valunzuela. I was still hungover from the night before, but Dr. Valunzuela in her tidy beige office used the wordanorexiato describe everything I was going through, and it was like the whole world brightened.

It wasn’t normal, the hunger, the calorie counting, the obsession. It wasn’thealthy.

Of course, Scott didn’t agree.

“What’s going on?” Charlotte’s question jerks me out of my reverie. She chews on a boba tea straw. “It’s nearly three o’clock there. Why haven’t you eaten?”

I twist a loose lock of hair around my finger and stare at the blank TV across from where I sit on the couch. The curtains arepushed open, too, and I can see the thick woods that crowd around the camp.

“I forgot,” I say.

“Don’t fucking lie to me!” Charlotte clucks beneath her breath. “Do I need to fly out there? What’s the closest airport?”

“You don’t need to fly out here,” I say, even though part of me wants her to. “Youcan’t. You know Scott’s probably watching you.”

“Fuck him,” she growls, but she doesn’t push it. Scott has the kind of money that means he can hire the kind of people who will notice if Charlotte hops on a plane to Virginia. The two of us have been over this a dozen times already. “Forget Scott,” she says. “What do you have to eat? Tell me there’s something.”

I cart the phone over to the kitchen and show her the groceries on the counter. “There you go.” I spin the phone back around and slump down at the table. “Something happened at the store. I—” I look past the phone and out through the windows. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You don’t have to talk about it. But you need to eat something. I’m staying on the call with you ’til you do.”

I smile. I figured she would. We’ve been through this before.

“Edie? I’m about to order a pizza to your fucking cabin.”

“I don’t think anything’ll deliver out here.” I force myself off the chair and back into the kitchen. I worried, a little, that staying here would remind me of Camp Head Start, but everything looks so different, so polished, that it’s just not an issue. “But I’ll make some of this lentil soup I bought.”

“Then let’s hear that can opener.”

I prop Charlotte up on the coffee pot so she can watch me clanking around as I pull out a soup pan. The can opener’s manual, but I open the soup in front of the phone to satisfy her.

“Point me at the stove,” she says. “I want to see you cooking.”

“You’re the worst,” I tell her, but really I mean the opposite.She just laughs, her voice catching on the wind blowing through her apartment courtyard.

It takes about five minutes for the soup to heat up, for me to pour it into one of the pretty ceramic bowls and sit down at the little table next to the picture window. And honestly, with Charlotte on the phone? It’s not hard for me to eat. Not as hard as I expected, anyway. Once I smell the lentils and the cumin, the back of my throat waters, and I admit to myself just how hungry I am. I spent so long ignoring that sensation that I fall into the habit sometimes, even two years later.

I don’t think about the two assholes at the store. I don’t think about the store at all.

“So how’s the cabin?” Charlotte asks me when she’s satisfied I’m actually eating. “How’s that whole—” She waves her hands around. “Situation?”

I know she means being back at Camp Head Start. I answer honestly. “It’s fine. The dining hall’s gone. It looks—it just looks different.” I sip at my soup, trying to relish the flavor. “I even took the old hiking trail into town earlier.”

Charlotte knows about some of what I went through at Camp Head Start, pre-Sawyer Caldwell. The brutal runs where Blake would withhold water if I didn’t increase my time to his liking. The hour-long “death marches” through the forest—Gavin’s name for them, not mine. They were proud of it, how well they tortured me. All on 800 calories a day, per my mother’s instructions.

A kind of white spot appears behind my vision. I push out all thoughts of Camp Head Start. I don’t want to start thinking about Sawyer Caldwell.

“How was that?” Charlotte asks. “The walk?”

“Fine.” I don’t tell her how my skin prickled like someone was watching me. Then she probablywouldfly out here from California. And as much as I might like some company, I know that’s a dangerous idea. “I’m fine, really.”

I stir my soup around and take another bite. Now that I’vestarted eating, it really isn’t so bad. It’s just that initial hurdle. It’s just fighting that bitch of a voice that still lurks in the back of my head.

“That’s good. I haven’t heard from Scott. You know that makes me nervous.”

I don’t say anything.

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