In Body I Trust Read online

  Sitting at the kitchen table, Amelia slowly massaged the ridges of the suede chair between her fingertips just like Miranda had shown her in therapy. Coarse in one direction, smooth in the other. Her breath slowed down turning seconds into minutes. She left the present and faded into the past, to a time when things were simple. Back two years ago when Amelia and Dominic were backpacking. Back to an era when she was blissfully ignorant of her eating disorder. Back to a time when accountability didn’t exist.

  She sat in a red leather chair with her feet comfortably propped up on a matching ottoman. The bellowing sound of a dog echoed from the bottom of the stairwell up through the cracks of the metal door, the only barrier between Amelia and the streets of Buenos Aires. The sun set gently in beautiful shades of pink and violet. A menacing falcon spread its prodigious wings to frighten its prey as the smaller birds scurried to another tree in the courtyard for safety. Through the sliding glass doors, she saw nothing but a sea of green, like a child attacking the paper with scribbles of an imaginary paradise she created in her head. This was no imaginary paradise.

  The image was of a giant overgrown palm tree taking over the view from the balcony. Amelia lit a cigarette, despite having quit two years ago, never telling a soul she’d started again. She put the filter to her lips; she inhaled the smoke and the secret of her addiction remained a soft whisper lingering around her mouth. The cloud faded away into the night, never to be spoken of again. She felt the high of nicotine coursing through her blood. Her skin tickled just enough to remind herself of exactly where she was.

  She was in South America.

  Peeling her banana, she realized how large it was. Her taste buds had been deprived of what the world had to offer until she tasted this delectable yellow fruit from a mercado de frutas. Her body begged for nutrition after the seven miles she’d walked throughout the blazing heat of the city. The beast of her inner eating disorder trying to make its way out.

  The vivid, challenging blend of emotions fell somewhere between fear and calm. She’d never been afraid to drink water or eat certain kinds of foods. She’d never been spooked by noises from outside, even when she lived in Tampa and knew the sounds were of gunshots too close to home.

  Despite her fears of the norm, she’d never felt this type of calm before. The sweet sensation of not knowing what tomorrow brought. The relief of knowing that the only item left on her to-do list was to simply not do anything. The breath of fresh air as she exhaled every stress she had of her previous life because she finally came to a place with no time frame or set destination. She could do or not do anything she desired. It was eerie, and even daunting at times, but calm nonetheless.

  She opened her eyes, bringing herself back to the present moment the meditation was supposed to cradle her in. Back to her flavorless and stagnant reality. Sitting with the memories could cause more harm than good. To think that she was only holding onto these moments because she wasn’t ready to give up Dominic. The idea sickened her.

  Sometimes she could look back on her days of traveling and find a sense of peace. She’d sit with the moments when she’d conquered the world beneath her callused feet, regardless of where she was in her disorders or the uncertainties life would inevitably bring. Through Miranda’s meditation, she opened the vault of nostalgia and tested the waters to see if she could handle the memories.

  The calm rushed out of her system. Time for another cigarette.

  Amelia went outside on her balcony and sat back down on the metal rocking chair, facing downtown. She faced this way for two specific reasons.

  First, it was the best view of the city from her apartment. She could see the top of the Capitol Building and the skyrise towers in downtown Denver. Second, she hoped her neighbor was looking up at her.

  Every day since she moved in, a man in his thirties around Amelia’s age, sat on his stoop two doors over and three levels down. She wasn’t romantically drawn to this stranger. She simply wanted to feel acknowledged in this world by someone other than herself and Luna. Someone to watch out for her and have her back even when she wasn’t looking. He was consistent, and Amelia needed consistency. This person was as close to a guardian angel as she’d ever get while meandering through a life of isolation.

  The smell of smoke lingered as she sipped her coffee, overly saturated with hazelnut creamer. Another habit she’d developed from Dominic. She liked it though. Like drinking caffeinated chocolate milk. Coffee was a stimulant to help provide temporary energy she wasn’t getting from food. It suppressed her appetite which was the perfect pair to her nicotine.

  Amelia picked up her phone to mindlessly scroll through Instagram. The first post she saw was a video of some B-list, British comedian sitting in a hospital bed. Tubes were going into the crevice of his elbow and down his throat. The caption read, “I’m an anorexic and have been in recovery for eight years. Everyone needs a hobby, right?”

  Real cute.

  She clicked the three little dots to keep reading. Despite her annoyance, she wanted to know how he managed eight years of living instead of suffering.

  “I ended up in hospital due to coffee loading. It’s when you substitute food for coffee. Coffee gives you all of the energy, but none of the calories of food. What you might not know is that coffee reduces your pulse rate when you don’t eat because there is no fuel in your body to sustain itself. I was rushed to the hospital and placed in a room next to someone with cancer. He asked me, ‘So why are you here?’ I said, ‘Oh… I had too much coffee.’”

  An irony she resented and ignored.

  That would never happen to me. I’ve got it under control.

  She put her phone in her pocket and extinguished the cigarette she swore would be her last, just as she did every morning. Until an hour or so later when she’d be back for another. That one would be her last. And then another. That one would definitely be her last.

  Amelia walked inside and hung her pink and navy sweater on the back of the leather chair to air out the smell of cigarettes. Even though she smoked, she didn’t want anyone to know. It was taboo and there was nothing she hated more than providing ammunition for anyone to judge her. For something that was supposed to calm her down, smoking brought on more anxiety than she thought it was worth.

  She grabbed her laptop from the kitchen bar and sat back down in the blue suede chair to try writing again. While writing by hand was therapeutic, it was also time consuming. Typing allowed every thought to find its proper flow, if her fingers could keep up with her brain. Time wasn’t meant to be wasted on days like this. She anxiously raced the clock before she lost all productivity.

  Thanks to the human condition and the influence of her father’s workaholic nature throughout her adolescent years, Amelia believed success was measured entirely on stability, security, and building a solid career. Mix those together with two cups of mental illness, a tablespoon of a broken family, and bake at 375 degrees for approximately thirty years to taste the bittersweet hints of anxiety.

  Miranda’s mantra homework had Amelia telling herself the same words over and over again. That didn’t mean she believed them.

  “Pick a phrase you can repeat back to yourself.” Miranda’s voice was soothing like warm caramel dripping down your throat. “How about, ‘Producing does not mean living’?”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” Amelia scoffed under her breath.

  “Care to elaborate?”

  “Look, I love my dad to death. But he doesn’t play the classic parental role in my story.” Amelia’s cheeks were flushed; tears blurred her vision. She hated crying in front of Miranda. She felt like she needed to be strong for this person she was paying to lean on. Amelia wiped the inside corners of her eyes with her index fingers.

  “Simon worked in his corner office in the living room and would only come out for dinner. I don’t have many other memories of him from when I was growing up, aside from him working all the time.”

  Amelia did have one memory with him. They w
ere speeding down the winding Avril Hill Road in his Jeep Wrangler. The top was down on an afternoon in July while “Crossroads” by Bone Thugs-N-Harmony blasted through the speakers. Amelia was terrified for her life at the rate he was driving, but she didn’t care. She was happy. For once, she had a dad.

  Simon wasn’t the kind of dad she brought boyfriends home to and he’d spew a speech about respect and to have his daughter home in one piece by ten. He wasn’t the kind who gave her life advice on her first day of high school to guide her towards the righteous path of making wise decisions. But in that moment, driving twenty miles over the speed limit, she had a dad and not a live-in Vice President of Operations for Lockheed Martin.

  “You go to college. You get a job. And you don’t stop,” Amelia continued. “Now I can’t even keep my shit together long enough to hold down a job. I can’t imagine what he’d think of me right now.”

  Miranda waited to make sure Amelia was done with her thought.

  “Have you told him about your eating disorder yet?”

  “No….”

  “Time isn’t the enemy. People do actually change. Maybe it’s worth telling him now.”

  Producing does not mean living.

  Amelia slammed her laptop shut. The quiet throughout the two-bedroom apartment became overpowering. Luna, a Labrador mixed-breed with giant dark eyes, whimpered softly for attention. Amelia, happy to oblige, got up from her chair and crouched down to Luna’s level. With her arms wide open, Luna nestled her head between her mother’s legs for a hug. A divine Swiss Roll moment. That’s what Amelia called it when Luna was wrapped up like a Little Debbie’s Swiss Roll or did something as sweet as chocolate.

  The pages weren’t going to miraculously write themselves if she just stared at them for hours. Besides, Luna’s happiness always took precedence. If Luna was happy, Amelia was happy. If Amelia was eating, Luna was eating. A perfectly weighted balance beam.

  She slipped on her dirty crochet UGGs, right foot then left, and clasped her fanny pack around her size zero waist. She grabbed biodegradable poop bags, keys, and her phone. Placing her Bluetooth headphones over her greasy, unwashed head of hair, she grabbed Luna’s leash and headed out the front door for another walk.

  Luna picked which direction they’d go. One less decision to debilitate herself with. If Luna went straight, Amelia would follow. If Luna ran into traffic, Amelia ran into traffic. Less thinking, less anxiety, less chance of making the wrong choice she’d have to take responsibility for.

  They had two options. Turning right out of the gate would take them towards Colfax and en route to the Capitol. Turning left would take them towards her guardian angel’s apartment building. Luna, as the decision maker, pulled on the leash to turn left. Amelia followed suit.

  Amelia hoped her mystery neighbor would be on his stoop, as grateful to see these two strangers as they would be to see him.

  Chapter 2

  They were only a few feet outside the front gate before Luna lunged into a sprint. She tugged on the leash in a panic, nearly yanking Amelia’s arm out of its socket and throwing her off balance. Luna ran towards the mystery neighbor’s stoop where he was perched on the steps smoking a cigarette, right on schedule. A small dog with pointy, crooked ears was daintily curled up in the dirt next to its owner’s black and dusty Converse.

  Luna stopped at the foot of the stoop, whining for Amelia to set her free. Amelia had no choice left but to introduce herself. If she didn’t say anything, she’d forever be known as the awkward lady with her spastic dog who passively strolled by every day. She wanted to be more than the casual neighbor who’d moved onto their shared block two weeks ago. He could be her friend, one without any preconceived notion of who she was in her previous life.

  Amelia cleared her throat to get his attention. Not that Luna leaping towards him like a lion ready to pounce on its prey hadn’t already done so.

  “Hey…” Amelia said with hesitation. “I see you almost every time I walk by this building and haven’t said hello yet.”

  She froze, unsure what to say next.

  Was that too creepy? Do I sound like a stalker?

  Her palms were getting progressively sweatier. She rubbed them against the light gray sweatpants she hadn’t changed out of in two days.

  “So…I guess this is me saying hello! I’m Amelia, and this is Luna.”

  A cartoon-like smile beamed beneath her neighbor’s squished nose. His voice was chipper, more so than she’d anticipated.

  “Hello! I’m Emmett, but everyone calls me Stoop Kid. And this is Kerrin.” He pointed to his sleeping dog in the dirt.

  Emmett. His real name. Not just a fictitious character she created in her head and dubbed as her guardian angel. He was a real human being with a real name she could put to the face. He had an identity. Emmett.

  He wore a grayish-green newsboy cap above his mullet, faded skinny jeans, and a red checkered flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up his forearms. Rectangular black frames rested on the bridge of his nose, the lenses clouded and filthy. Kerrin popped up from her slumber and frantically licked his face. Probably the reason for his smudged glasses.

  “Stoop Kid, huh? Like that kid in the show Hey Arnold!, right? But have you ever actually left the stoop?”

  “Only a few have ever witnessed it. To most, I simply manifested here. I am the stoop. Hence, Stoop Kid.”

  Amelia liked the way he talked. There was something poetic about it, like a true Renaissance man.

  “There are two rules of the stoop,” Emmett continued before Amelia had a chance to fumble over what to say next.

  “Rule number one. Treat everyone like a human being. Rule number two. Don’t die.”

  “Seems easy enough,” Amelia replied. “I think I can manage those.”

  “Would you and Luna like to sit with us on the stoop?”

  Amelia panicked. She hadn’t planned for this. She hadn’t prepared herself for the off chance she’d actually have to sit through the anxiety of a social situation. She needed to find an excuse, something she never fell short of.

  “I need to take Luna for a walk, but if you and Kerrin would like to join you’re both more than welcome.”

  What are you doing!? Why did you offer to let him come with you? Of course he’s going to say no because no one likes you. You don’t have anything to say so even if he says yes, you’ll wander the streets with him in silence and be reminded for the next twenty minutes of how little you have to offer anyone.

  Her interior voices began to settle into their usual place, chiming in at the most inconvenient times. But that’s what they did. They preyed upon her when she was vulnerable.

  “Kerrin gets a little finicky after her morning walk. She more than likely won’t be up for another one right now, but how about tomorrow afternoon?”

  “That sounds great,” replied Amelia, lying through her teeth. The social anxiety permeated through her neck and into her ears. She rubbed the left lobe with one hand to calm herself down while trying to wrangle her energetic pup with the other.

  “Luna and I live on the other side of the Molly Brown House. It’s gated with enough grass and shade for the dogs to play. Maybe we can hang out there?”

  The Molly Brown House was a highlight of the neighborhood. A Queen Anne architectural monument of bricks on top of bricks. Lion sculptures guarded the front steps with purple and green flags waving in the air. There were walking tours throughout the home of the infamous Margaret Brown—also known as “The Unsinkable Molly Brown”—who encouraged the crew of Lifeboat Number Six of the sinking Titanic to return to the wreckage and save other survivors. They never made it back to the ship, despite her best efforts.

  It seemed fitting for Amelia to live next door. A woman of perseverance who continued to be a philanthropist and advocate for social justice throughout the early 1900’s, even when people refused to listen to her. Amelia wanted to be as strong of a woman as Molly Brown. Having the house in plain sight through every wind
ow of her apartment was a constant reminder of the type of person, the type of woman, she wanted to become.

  Emmett took the last drag of his cigarette and tossed it into a tall ashtray standing next to the front door.

  “We’ll see you both tomorrow then!” He seemed enthusiastic about their puppy playdate.

  Maybe he actually wants to hang out with me instead of feeling obligated to.

  Amelia nodded at Emmett in agreement. She put her headphones back on and continued walking. By shielding him from the radiation of her socially stunted shame, Emmett could hold onto the untainted view of her for one more day.

  She counted their interaction as two small victories. One for actually starting a conversation with a complete stranger and one more for making plans. All she had to do was stick to them. But there was already an excuse lingering on the tip of her tongue just in case she needed to bail out at the last second.

  To aid in the reconstruction of her emotional and mental strength, she performed daily practices of gratitude. She kept track of her small, yet powerful accomplishments, forcing her to recognize moments that deserved an applause. A gratitude journal seemed petty at first, but Amelia was desperate. She was willing to try anything if it meant getting her life back.

  Each triumph held their own unique power over her disorders. A task as small as taking a shower or a feat as big as introducing herself to a potential new friend, these were her successes. They were achieved by Amelia and Amelia alone, even when the voices tried their hardest to claim their victory.

  The two girls walked up a few more blocks before Luna turned right onto 11th Street. She made another left back onto Pennsylvania Street, heading towards home. Amelia dangled a stick above Luna’s head. The dog jumped into the air like a kangaroo on her hind legs in order to snatch it from Amelia’s hand. Big Tuna’s jaw fell wide open with the dopiest of smiles. Her wet tongue drooped over the edge of her elated mouth.