Nothing to Lose

Chapter Eight

"Can you have visitors?"

"Uhm, I don't know. Let me check." I held the phone away from my ear and turned my attention over to my mother, who sat cross legged on the plastic hospital couch, looking exhaustedly at her own phone. "Can I have visitors?"

"Not other than family." She pursed her lips. "But for him...we can sneak him in."

She was talking about my best friend, Alex, who was patiently waiting on the other end of the phone. We'd met in eighth grade when we'd both gotten lost in New York and ended up in the basement of the Rockafeller building. He was so unnervingly secretive, only occasionally dropping tiny hints of his life and personality to you like clues. Somehow, we managed to get along. We both had an affinity for Spiderman, art, and feeling like we were above the average teenage interests. Some people thought we dated, simply because we had what was akin to a two-person movie club where we saw movies and made fun of them. But mostly, we'd just happened to get along well enough to navigate our ways through the awkward and humiliating "middle school to highschool" transition period together.

My mother was a big fan of this kid. She'd often gush to me that she believed he was the greatest thing to walk into my life. This was mostly due to the fact that: a) I didn't really have any other friends. b) He was polite. c) He managed to coax me out of my self-imposed house arrest on occasion. and d) It was a novelty to her that a boy would spend so much time with a girl without trying to get in her pants. So it was not surprising to me in the least that she'd forge the paper that he was my "cousin" who really wanted to be in attendance for "Family Dinner". "Family Dinner" was a requirement that had to be fulfilled before you could leave. Basically, you had to eat a meal with all the family members that could make it out to the hospital, and maintain a normal dinner table conversation without freaking out. It was all very "Leave it to Beaver".

It was a Saturday when Alex drove the two hours out to the CCP ward. Well, he didn't drive. His father drove him, much to the delight of my mother. She looked up to him, and admired his artwork (she seriously internet stalked him until she found his blog, which she read religiously). I have to say, the man did have a calming prescense. The combination of his artistic attitude and always-present smile couldn't help but make you think, "He's got life figured out." So of course, my mother was happy to see him. He had a way of lighting up a room, keeping things calm and bright. He told my mother I was looking better, which put her at peace for awhile.

My mother went down to the cafeteria to get lunch for Alex and herself while I had my vitals taken. Alex probably could have stayed, but I was terrified of anyone seeing me without the oversized sweatshirt I wore like an invisibility cloak. Nothing is more unattractive than the "bloated skeleton" look. So he awkwardly followed my mom out of the wing to get a hamburger. This, in and of itself, was so puzzling to me. Here were these people who had absolute control per what they ate, and they chose junk. They had the opportunity to do what I longed so desperately for- carefully calculate every bite of food, scrutinizing and mistrusting nutrition labels. They could buy a food scale and measuring cups and use them all at their leisure. It was such a novel and beautiful idea to me- having that kind of power. It was all I wanted now, to know that the peanut butter on my toast was exactly two tablespoons. Even if they were going to put me in a caloric excess, I at least wanted to know that it was thought out, calculated, and carefully executed. That would put me at peace.

Once Alex and my mother returned, they wheeled me out onto the balcony. The sun and the air felt good compare to what felt like freezing hospital air. Alex complained about the early summer heat, but I relished it. A nurse carried out my covered tray, reminded my mother of the rules, and went back inside. As my dining companions dug into their hospital cafeteria food of choice, I carefully lifted the lid.

"Great. Potato Burrito." I dejectedly began my dissection of the already-lukewarm wrap. On the side of my oddly-spiced burrito were my cartons of soy milk (Very Fucking Vanilla) and apple juice (Generic Sugary Brand TM), along with Aztec Rice Blend and some apple sauce. It was a mountain of food, at least to me.

Alex was halfway through his burger before I'd gotten a third of the way through my tortilla. I always ate my burrito in the same ritual:

Step One: Remove tortilla from filling. Considering the fact that the filling is mass produced, it should be a solid lump lubricated by it's own juices, and will separate in one piece.

Step Two: Dissect the filling into it's various pieces. Potato chunks, lentils, carrots, celery, etc.

Step Three: Break the tortilla into tiny pieces. Consume slowly.

Step Four: Eat each type of filling in the slowest possible manner.

Step Five: Eat the sides in tiny bites, dissecting if possible.

Step Six: Reluctantly drink the disgusting drinks.

Step Seven: Complain.

Alex watched this happen with both curiosity and embarrassment, as though he were intruding on a very private ordeal. My mother looked sad. Immediately after I finished, long after the two of them, my mom tried to redirect my focus onto a game of Scrabble. She had been instructed to keep me occupied during the "Digestion Time".

"I hate Scrabble."

"You love Scrabble." They both said.

"I know."

We played an incredibly hard game of Scrabble, as someone had lost/stolen quite a few of the letters, but it was entertaining enough to keep my mind of what was happening inside of me. My stomach was utilizing its digestive acids to break down the Potato Burrito and its friends, and the macronutrients they were composed of we're making their way into the damaged cells of my body. And every calorie, every carb and fat and protein, was being clung into for dear life. I should have been thankful. I wasn't.

An hour before Family Dinner was set to begin, my dad and brother showed up, wielding trays of cafeteria food.

My dad laughed and called me an old person when he saw me curled up in a ball in my wheelchair, glasses perched on the tip of my nose, hands wringing each other nervously. He was not a particularly tactful person, nor was he one that thought it was ever an inappropriate time for a snide and sarcastic comment. Many people found it to be part of his charm. Admittedly, it took the tension off of many situations.

We all made awkward small talk until the nurse brought me my dinner. It was a veggie burger- just the patty, a bun, and my usual drinks. I remember this meal very clearly because it was so startlingly small compared to my other meals. I decided that this could be attributed to one of two scenarios: 1) They'd accidentally given me too much earlier in the day, or 2) They thought I was getting too fat.

It turns out that it was nether one of these scenarios. When I opened my snack later that evening, a few hours after the nurse awkwardly supervised our dinner table conversations and asked weirdly personal questions of Alex and my family, I realized they'd simply been making sure that I was hungry enough to eat apples, peanut butter, Graham crackers, soy milk, and a jello cup. It was better than having the doctors think I was getting too big, but it didn't feel like a victory.