How to Love Claire Mason

Okay Again

Malnourished. Thin. Relapse. Rough time. Counselor. Transfer. Hospital.

These are the words I pick up on as I slowly come to. The room around me is not familiar in the least. The walls are seafoam green, and only a thin white curtain separates me from the bed next to mine. I'm attached to a heart monitor and an IV. A meal-replacement drink in a familiar red plastic bottle sits on the bedside table, waiting.

Neither my mother nor the nurse noticed me wake up, and I realize that if they do, the drink will be forced on me. Just like the first time I arrived in a hospital, years ago. Except, this isn't my hospital. It must be the ER of the one nearest our house. She wouldn't risk driving the extra half-hour.

I reach up and notice for the first time that my head is heavily bandaged. The cement. I remember now. I had just walked out the door to head to school. My mother was in the threshold saying goodbye. I turned to leave and then...I blacked out and ended up here. Did my head hit the step? Or just the porch?

Either way, it seems I'm not too hurt if I am thinking just fine. Well, as fine as my mind can ever think. Suddenly, the nurse's chatter stops.

"She's awake."

"Oh my god honey how do you feel?" My mother rushes over to me. "You were almost flat-lining when we brought you in and I was so worried-"

"Just like before?" I ask, cutting her off, though I know the answer. It's happening all over again, only a little differently.

She nods solemnly. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Just like before. Oh, honey, how could I have been so blind?" Tears well up in her eyes, surprising me. I would have expected anger from her, the mother who always blamed me for "putting her through" my illness.

She isn't done. "It's all his damn fault isn't it? That boy? You were so heartbroken and fragile-"

Now, for some reason, I'm angry. Angry at her, and myself, for believing it was his actions alone that caused it all. It wasn't. It was a build-up of everything, all the heartbreaks, all the embarrassment, feeling that my grades were never quite high enough, trying to please people who never deserved a minute of my time, losing friends, slowly losing innocence...it all amassed together like a mountain of snow. And he was the one to set off the avalanche.

He stirred up something within me, a developing epiphany of sorts, and brought it to the surface. The realization that, to every boy I had dated, I, Claire Mason, was just a girl. A body and a face and a heart to be toyed with. And I believed that. But not anymore.

"It wasn't him." My teeth are clenched at first, but I'm slowly losing my anger. "It was everything...building up...I just couldn't take it anymore."

She hurries over to hug me, maneuvering her arms around the tubes and wires to hold me tight. "I know, sweetie. Please drink this." She presses the red bottle into my hand.

This isn't the mother I knew. The tired, exasperated mother who cried at my bedside years ago about "how could you do this to me" is gone. This second time around, she feels she is to blame. She never saw it coming.

But I'm more I'm control this time. I know how to push the thoughts away. I just let them take over me, this time, knowingly. I take the drink from her, twist off the top with shaky hands, and sip it slowly.

The nurse stands nearby, hand on her hip. "Didn't even put up a fight. She'll be out of here in no time, I assume."

As I finish drinking, my mother says, "We'll be moving you to the hospital you first stayed at if you're well enough tonight."

"But, Mom? I don't think I need to relearn eating habits or any of that stuff like before. I just...I just got a little off-track these last few months."

She nods. "You just need to restore your weight. We aren't sure how much you've lost-"

"Thirteen pounds." I've been counting.

The nurse sighs. "You've been keeping track."

My mother bites her lip. "I didn't think I needed to hide my scale anymore."

I pat her arm. "It's not your fault, Mom," I say quietly. "Look, my heart rate's getting higher."

She and the nameless nurse smile. "In a little while, we'll leave, baby. Everything will be okay again, soon," she says softly.

And I know I can put truth in those words. Maybe not in one or two days, or even a week, but soon.