Page 102 of Guy's Girl
Heather starts to laugh. “Nothing changes, does it?”
Ginny sticks out her tongue.
“You’re talented, Gin. I’m serious. I’m not just saying it because I’m your older sister. I’m saying it because it’s true.” Heather tilts her head and arches an eyebrow. “In fact, have youeverknown me to compliment someone when I don’t mean it?”
“No.” Ginny laughs, wiping her eyes. “You’re more of theso blunt you make them crytype. It’s what makes you a good businesswoman.”
Heather grins. “Those fabric vendors had it coming.”
“I don’t know, Heath.” Ginny sighs, sitting on the end of her bed. “I don’t have any formal training as a writer. I don’t have a giant Instagram following, the way you do. I don’t know how to go about getting an agent or an editor. I’m a nobody.”
“Everybody starts out as a nobody, Gin. You know how many bikinis I sold in my first month in business?” Heather pauses. “Three. Three bikinis.” She looks at Ginny gravely. “And they were all purchased by our mother.”
Ginny laughs.
“All I’m saying is that we all start from nothing. And you—you’re a Harvard graduate! And you already have half of a memoir written in that thing.” She gestures to the journal. “That’s hardly nothing.”
“I guess.”
Heather lays a hand on Ginny’s knee. “Just think about it. That’s all I’m asking.”
“I will. I promise.”
Heather smiles, then her eyes flick back to the notebook. She studies it for a long moment, her lips turning steadily downward.
“What is it?” Ginny asks.
Heather’s eyes flick up to Ginny’s face, then back down to the notebook. Then, without warning, she wraps her arms around Ginny again and pulls her in close.
“You don’t have to make yourself suffer anymore, little sister,” Heather whispers into her ear. “You’re safe, now. You’re safe.”
***
After Heather leaves, but before Ginny finishes packing, she reopens her journal. She flips backward several pages until she findsthe entry she’s looking for. It’s short, only a paragraph or so. She rereads the entry:
I read today that, when given proper treatment and medication, only 70 percent of women recover fully from bulimia. 70 percent. That might sound like a high number, but that means 30 percent of women who go through treatment—who take all the steps and try to do everything right—never make it to full recovery. That, ten years out, their disease still has a hold over them. The vise grip of temptation, of the release that they know will come from the purge.
Today, I made a vow. I will not be part of that 30 percent. I will not let my disease win. I will take back my own life. I will piece it back together as best I can, tape over the cracks, give it legs and wings. I will learn how to live with the hurt. To carry it within me, to not fear it, to make it my friend.
And I will write. Because on the day I can no longer put pen to paper, I will know the creature has won.
After work, Adrian walks home. It’s forty blocks, but he needs the air.
Disney has a casual dress code. Unlike at Goldman, it’s perfectly acceptable for Adrian to show up to work in Nikes and a nice T-shirt. He finds himself especially grateful for this policy as he picks up speed, his black joggers far looser and more forgiving than a pair of slacks would be.
He starts on 10th Avenue, flanked by the towering all-glass buildings of Hudson Square. The skyscrapers are so clean and reflective that they seem to blend in with the sky.
All morning and throughout the afternoon, thoughts of Ginny plagued Adrian. He tried to focus on work, on the excitement of his new position. He poured himself a cup of coffee, stuck on his headphones, and did a full sweep of his hard drive, reviewing the many files he’d created over the past year. He was looking for the most important data points, the ones that would help drive his strategy in the year to come.
Normally, that kind of work sucks him right in. Adrian has lost entire days to playing with numbers in Excel. He’ll look up from a pivot table and find that, somehow, it went from one o’clock to five o’clock in three minutes flat.
Not today. Today, Adrian’s mind couldn’t stay on his work. It kept picturing that screenshot, the plane ticket that would take Ginny away from New York for God only knows how long. Four or five times, Adrian returned to Instagram to stare at the screenshot as if checking and rechecking could somehow change the eventual outcome.
As he veers right, headed for the West Side Highway, Adrian wonders why he even cares if Ginny leaves. They live in a city of eight million; the absence of one should not affect him. Plus, it’s not like he was going to see her. If Adrian had to guess, he would bet that, of all eight million people in New York, he’s the last one that Ginny wants to see.
Up here, the Hudson River Greenway is a study in opposites: highway on one side, lush green parks on the other. Bikes and rollerbladers skirt around him. The rollerbladers remind him of Ginny, who showed up to their first date with a pair dangling from her right arm. Every goddamn thing reminds him of Ginny. Adrian wishes he could turn his head sideways and shake it until all the memories poured out.
But he can’t. He can only see her choppy blond hair under her stickered helmet, her bright smile as she walked up to Dante in nothing but a pair of socks. She seemed completely different back then. Like she had never known sadness or suffering. Like her entire life was air.
