Page 94 of Guy's Girl
PartV
When Adrian gets back to his studio in New York, he drops his bags onto the floor and stares out the window at the street below. There are no colorful houses. There are no cobblestoned streets. There is no girl in the bedroom below, waiting to go for their daily walk.
What do you do when the person you love cannot love you back?
The first thing Ginny does is cry. A lot. On the plane. On the cab ride home, after keeping fifty feet from Adrian at the baggage carousel. All the way back to Manhattan. All the way up the stairs to her apartment.
If nothing else, the journey home gave Ginny time to think. To reflect. When she first woke up in Szentendre, she was afraid to recover. She feared that she would gain mountains of weight, would explode, would become something that no man could ever desire. Not Finch, not Adrian. No one.
But she did it anyway. She did it because Adrian and Eszter and Imre wanted her to. She did it because they wouldn’t allow her to do anything else.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Ginny sees that now. She spent so long being afraid that men wouldn’t be interested in her because of the shape of her body; she didn’t realize, back then, that the size of her body would make no difference. Adrian did not want her at her skinniest, and he does not want her in whatever shape she is now.
So, why should he get to decide?
Why should she let someone else’s opinion of her decide whether or not she is allowed to recover? Why should she let anything external decide? Why not recover for herownsake? Why not recover because she is a human being, and all human beings deserve food?
Why not?
As she climbs the four flights of stairs up to their apartment, she makes a promise to herself: she would do it. She would feed herself. Not because Adrian or Eszter or anyone else wants her to, but because she deserves it. Because she deserves to be fed, to be nourished, to be cared for and watched after, all by virtue of being a human being.
All by virtue of being alive.
***
Clay and Tristan come home from work to find her sitting on the couch, arms wrapped around her legs, tears streaking her face. They hurry over and gather her into their arms.
“It’s okay,” Clay whispers, smoothing back her hair. “It’s okay. He’s not here.”
Finch. They think she’s upset about Finch.
Oh, how much three weeks can change.
She realizes, then, how little she has actually shared with her best friends. How fully she shut them out, all for the sake of maintaining a disease that was killing her and a relationship that was no better. That ends now, she decides. She will tell them everything.
So she does.
The following Monday, Adrian returns to the Disney office. He greets his coworkers, waving to their familiar faces seated behind their familiar open-concept desks. He chats with the members of his team about his time in Hungary.
“Was it amazing?” everyone asks. “Being home again?”
“It was,” he says. “It really was.”
The Disney office is one of his favorite places in the city. It’s here that he dragged himself out of the darkness that overtook him when he worked at Goldman. It’s here that he helped build a product that would bring TV and movies to his grandparents and friends for years to come. It’s here that, before his vacation, he always felt the most like himself.
Why, then, as he sits at his desk, does he feel like he’s missing something essential, like a piece of his body has been sawed clean away?
Ginny isn’t expecting her. When the knock comes, she looks at the boys, wondering if they invited someone over. “Guys?” she asks.
No one answers. No one even looks at her.
“Guys,” she says again. “Why are you—”
“Virginia Murphy,” comes a high-pitched female voice from out in the hallway. “Open this damn door before I kick it in myself.”
Ginny’s eyes narrow as she looks at the boys. “You didn’t.”
“It was Clay’s idea,” Tristan says.
