Page 90 of Impossible

“Hollis? He sounded like he was about to give a campaign speech. Avictoryspeech. Humiliated?”

Leon just shakes his head, a wry smile wiping the tension from his features. I won’t pretend to understand, but I’m glad that he’s smiling. “Want me to get your chair?” he asks, noticing my good leg shaking underneath my weight.

“Yes please,” I sigh.

He’s gone and back in a flash, wheeling the chair right up behind me so all I need to do is sit. I slump down and awkwardly maneuver the crutches until they’re propped up against my side.

The class period is almost over, so Leon starts wheeling me straight to the cafeteria to pick up our lunch tray. I chew on my lip as we roll, mulling over the appointment.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Leon asks.

“I hate not knowing my weight,” I say. “It isn’t fair. It’s my body.”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Of course I do.” But I realize as I say it that I haven’t thought about my weight even once in the past week. I’ve worried over most meals, stressed about the sugar in the fruit and the cheese in my sandwiches and the butter in everything they feed me, but the actual number?

I weighed myself every morning up at Adams, but I haven’t even tried looking for a scale at the Complex. Partially because I’ve been constantly chaperoned because of the chair, partially because there’s just been too much going on. But now that thereisa number to know? I feel the unease.

“I’ll tell you, if you swear you can handle it.”

I turn to him sharply. “You’d tell me? Even though the doctor said not to?”

He shrugs. “I don’t believe in hiding the truth from my—from my friend. You deserve to know. But only if you promise that you’ll keep getting better.”

I blow out a slow breath. “I don’t have much choice, do I? With you and Cecilia watching every meal.”

“No. Butyouneed towantto get better. You can’t just be doing it for us.”

Ineedto know that number. But I need Leon to be proud of me too. I feel the two desires settling within me, facing off, each suspicious of the other.

“I threw up yesterday,” I whisper without thinking. “After lunch. Not on purpose. I was just anxious.”

“Oh Indie,” Leon’s voice drops. He stops the chair outside the cafeteria and comes around to kneel in front of me. His green eyes are stormy seawater, roiling with concern. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“No, it wasn’t—please don’t apologize, I just—since you said we should be honest. I wanted you to know.”

He nods. I can feel him evaluating me. Whatever he sees passes muster, because he says, “you weighed 111.1 pounds today.”

I do the mental math quickly. “I gained 2.9 pounds.”

I let myself feel that, roll the number around in my head. I wonder where on my body it is, the new fat. Is it in my arms? My thighs and stomach, stockpiling for later? My chin, ready to hang and jiggle when I speak? I wonder if any of it is muscle, from my pitiful attempts to wheel the chair around.

“How is that hitting you?” Leon asks.

“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “I keep waiting for the panic, but I just feel kind of numb.”

“Do you think that’s a good or a bad thing?”

“I don’t know.” I shrug. “I feel like I don’t know anything.”

“Well, I’m proud of you.”

I look down at my hands, not wanting him to see my reaction. “I guess it would be nice to be able to walk, huh?”

“Ehh, I don’t mind pushing you around.”

I whip up to glare at him, he’s already walking inside the cafeteria to grab our tray. I swear I see his shoulders ducking up and down, like he’s laughing at being able to drop that bomb and then disappear on me.

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