In Body I Trust Read online

  Miranda would be so disappointed in me right now.

  She never wanted to hurt anyone, especially the people who were only trying to help her. And why was she so concerned about disappointing someone who wasn’t actually her friend?

  “Every time you say no to food, you’re crossing a boundary,” Miranda would say. “Boundaries are difficult to set, especially because we tend to draw them in the sand. The line can be moved at any point.”

  “Shouldn’t I be cutting myself at least a little bit of slack?” Amelia asked with a hint of teenage angst in her words.

  “Giving yourself grace and compassion is absolutely part of the process. But you’re the one who says what your boundaries are, not me.” Miranda was blunt. Amelia liked that about her. She didn’t beat around the bush when Amelia was acting like a child. Miranda spoke the hard truths Amelia needed to hear. Miranda pulled out a sheet of paper and drew a line across it in blue ink.

  “This is the line. Imagine you’ve drawn it in wet cement. Eventually it will dry and become permanent. Boundaries are crucial for your recovery. They need to be acknowledged and set every day. Don’t just write down the boundaries you think you ‘should’ have.” Miranda threw her hands up in air quotes. “Write down the hard boundaries you actually want. The ones you deserve.”

  Every moment masked itself as an opportunity to cross the lines she’d set for herself, another test of how far she’d come. She’d conjure up one of her lingering excuses and denounce her boundaries in exchange for a brief moment of ease. She’d let this one slide, and the next, and the next. It was the domino effect, one excuse leading right into the next until she realized she was actually unhappy for not sticking to the original boundary she’d set in place.

  Today was still young; there was still an opportunity to make this one different. Just like she’d told herself the day before, and the day before that. She wanted to find the strength that once existed within herself and remember that her boundaries weren’t on a timer. There was no beginning or end. Amelia could reset herself and solidify her boundaries right then and there. She wanted to choose to flip the hourglass. She wanted to choose to eat.

  Her phone vibrated on the coffee table. Someone was calling at six in the morning. She looked down at her phone. It was her mom, which made more sense since she lived on the east coast two hours ahead.

  I don’t have the mental stamina for this right now.

  Gwen either wanted to check in and make sure Amelia was eating (followed by an hour-long conversation about painting the kitchen or returning her recent and unnecessary teapot purchase), or she needed to vent.

  Amelia and her mother had an incredibly close relationship. It had its ups and downs, but there wasn’t anything that one didn’t share with the other, even if it was a difficult conversation to have. Amelia was terrible with confrontation. She assumed the end result would be her fault, causing her to resent herself before the interaction even began.

  Gwen was the first person to be straightforward with Amelia about her blatant issues around conflict. She never let Amelia back down when things got tough. When they’d get into a fight or strike up a conversation that was too overwhelming, Amelia would shut down and hide in her room. Unable to sleep because of the constant worry in her head, she’d write a letter and tuck it neatly underneath the slip of Gwen’s doorway so she’d find it first thing in the morning. Amelia was always more articulate with her feelings when she wrote. Gwen would come out of her bedroom after reading the letter to find Amelia in bed, approaching the subject in a new way, but never backing down from her stance.

  Amelia picked up her phone to answer.

  “Hey, Mom, how’s it going?”

  “Oh, well it’s going.” Her mom always had a positive outlook on life and managed to find a silver lining through laughter. Her unenthusiastic response meant this was going to be a vent session rather than a debrief on her last trip to the department store.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Well…it’s not all bad news. And I don’t want you to freak out.” Amelia immediately panicked. Her fight or flight senses fired off their warning. Her body never lied.

  “You can’t start off a conversation like that knowing I’ll definitely freak out. What is it?”

  “Remember when I went for my mammogram?” Of course Amelia remembered. It was six months ago. The doctor had said the image showed some calcifications that would most likely go away on their own.

  “I had my follow up appointment. Turns out they found something that led to more tests. I don’t want you to be alarmed, I just want you to pray for me. They said I’ll have the results by the end of the week.”

  Amelia held her breath. Did she hear her right? If she held her breath long enough, the fear of being so far away from her mom would be overtaken by the panic from asphyxiation.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you went back to the doctors?”

  “Amelia, I know how you can get with things like this. You already have enough on your plate. I didn’t want you to worry.” That was typical Gwen, not wanting to burden someone she loved. Like mother, like daughter.

  “Okay, so what do we do now?”

  “Now we wait, and I will do some yard work.”

  Gwen seemed strangely calm considering that she just delivered potentially life changing news. Amelia couldn’t think about food at a time like this. She needed to give her mother every ounce of attention she deserved. She already had enough to deal with given that her husband, Peter, had onset dementia and was declining more with every passing day. Her mother would wake up at three in the morning to find that he’d disappeared, only to have the cops return him to their doorstep six hours later. It would’ve been selfish for Amelia to talk about her own issues, or only be half invested in a conversation with her mom. Cooking could wait. Food could wait. Amelia’s feelings could wait.

  “You know it’s going to be okay, right Amelia?”

  “I know. It has to be. You just seem so…calm.”

  “Nothing surprises me anymore, really. I’ve been alive on this planet for almost seventy years. Through four children, the divorce, and now with Peter. I’m not afraid. And you want to know why?” A brief silence filled the space between them as if she were waiting for Amelia to ask her why, even though Gwen would tell her anyways. “Because I have God on my side.”

  After thirty-three years together—a third of a century spent dating, in marriage, as partners and co-parents—Simon had left Gwen for a new woman, a woman with whom he’d had an affair, a woman who was now his wife. Only twelve when her dad left, Amelia hadn’t been able to comprehend her mother’s heartbreak.

  But as she grew up, Amelia went through her own series of heartbreaks which brought her closer to her parents. Their relationship became more than mother, father, and daughter. They were friends. Best friends. Amelia hated living so far from them both, but she’d spent the majority of her life splitting herself in two. Two parents in two states on two opposite ends of the country. Living in one and visiting the other, keeping the spread of Amelia and her siblings fair and equal between their parents.

  God, please don’t take my mom. Not yet. I’m not ready.

  Amelia rarely talked to God anymore, but she needed to plead with someone.

  “Just do me a favor.”

  “Anything, Mom.”

  “Try not to worry. There’s nothing we can do about it at this point.”

  Her eyes couldn’t focus, like she was staring through walls instead of at them. Gwen went on talking about how Peter put his metal coffee thermos in the microwave again. They lightly brushed on conversations about new countertops that needed to be installed in the bathroom and how the weather down in Florida had been unbearably hot. They talked for over an hour about the most mundane things when all the while cancer might be building up inside of her breasts.

  Amelia didn’t want to smoke. She didn’t want to eat. She just wanted to hug her mom.

  Eventually Gwen bid
her farewell so she could go on a walk with Peter. Amelia set her phone on the coffee table. Nauseous and now crying, she began mentally listing off her failures, making sure she didn’t skip anything worth mentioning.

  I’m a failure of a daughter for moving so far away. I’m a failure of a person for not immediately insisting I pack my bags and drive down to Florida. I’m a failure for not having the right words to say to my own mother when she tells me she might have cancer.

  She slid off the couch and curled into a ball on the floor. Her mom, her best friend. The one who gave her life. It was never supposed to happen like this. Gwen was supposed to live to be a thousand years old, drinking wine with her mentally-sound husband. They’d sit side by side on their lanai, overlooking the lake in the backyard for decades to come. The world was completely out of Amelia’s control and there was nothing she could do about it.

  She wiped the tears from her face and blew her nose into her shirt. She couldn’t go on like this. Standing up from the floor, she collected herself by rolling her shoulders back and taking a deep breath. She would change nothing by wallowing until her mom’s results came in.

  I didn’t sit around all day when Dad had his scare and I’m not going to sit around and dwell on this now.

  A few years ago, Simon had gone through similar tests, only his were to examine spots the doctors found in his lungs from his decades of habitual smoking. Amelia couldn’t think about it too much. Then she’d have to acknowledge her own deathly habit.

  It was only Tuesday. She needed to do something, anything.

  Amelia wrote down a list of the exact moves she was going to make next. She’d make breakfast, take Luna for a long walk, and get back to writing before it was time to meet Emmett. Four bullet points, an amount that usually choked her up but now seemed slightly less daunting in such a format.

  Emmett. How am I supposed to pretend everything’s okay and act normal in front of him?

  She couldn’t waste time working herself up over something like that. She needed to stick to her list. Amelia opened the refrigerator and stared into the empty, cold chamber of torment. Just like that, another boundary she’d made for her little monster was broken. The shelves and drawers would remain empty and she had no intention of doing anything about it. Amelia shut the refrigerator door.

  Food can wait.

  Chapter 4

  “There are three types of days for me,” Emmett said, sitting with his legs crossed and a stick tucked behind his ear.

  “Surviving, striving, and thriving. They all have their uses. Surviving days teach us what we’re made of. Striving days show us where we need to go. And thriving days let us know that all our struggles, our pain, and our hurt have been worth it.”

  Amelia took a mental note. She needed to write that down to refer back to later. She really should’ve carried around a tiny notebook with her at all times for moments like these. Another mental note.

  The two of them basked in the afternoon sunlight in Amelia’s front yard while Luna and Kerrin continued to sniff and investigate one another. Kerrin panting with her black and white bandana tied around her neck to match her dad’s, Luna stretching her white belly across the freshly cut grass.

  Amelia was juggling thoughts about Gwen, the empty shelves in her refrigerator, and the paranoia that Emmet somehow already knew tomorrow was her birthday. Each thought berating the other with the hope that none of them would leak through her fake smile. She certainly wasn’t going to tell him she was turning thirty. The embarrassment of how pathetic she’d be spending her birthday alone was icing on the metaphorical cake.

  About a week earlier, Amelia bought herself thirteen candles spelling out the words “happy birthday.” She wanted to make cupcakes and treat herself to their sugary goodness without fear of hitting herself. Maybe she’d have one day of self-compassion.

  Amelia loved birthdays as long as they weren’t her own. She treasured celebrating a day that brought someone she adored into existence. A person entered into this world and was now a part of her own universe. It was something worth turning into a national holiday.

  A comfortable silence filled the little bubble Amelia and Emmett created for themselves. This person she’d just met was burrowing into her heart at a rapid pace, like she met him for a reason.

  “I think today I’m just surviving,” Amelia responded, veering her eyes towards the blade of grass she twirled between her fingers.

  “I get it. I’m honestly terrified of my own self at times that I have to merely survive. I realize what I’m going through in the moment will let me know who I am and what I’m made of. And I tell myself that I’ve survived so much in my life, I must be made of so much good stuff by now.”

  Kerrin snuggled up into Emmett’s armpit looking for attention, not begging for it like Luna usually did. She was Emmett’s service dog and they’d been together for nine years now.

  Emmett was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder as a teenager. He went through six months of electroconvulsive therapy. Haunted by hallucinations of demons, he finally made a profound and brave decision. One day, en route to a corner coffee shop, he felt one of the demons following close behind. He came to a halt, whipped around, and asked the demon flat out what it wanted. Turns out, all it wanted was to dance. So, in the middle of the sidewalk in broad daylight, Emmett began to literally dance with the demon that was so very real to him and so very invisible to everyone passing by.

  “I turn towards my demons and dance because they’re the only ones with the answers I need.” Emmett spoke so earnestly to Amelia, his words seemed to ignite.

  “Resilience.” She meant to say it in her head, but the word slipped between her lips.

  “Precisely.” Emmett smiled, exposing his teeth that were covered with a slight film from years of heavy chain smoking much like her own.

  She was loving their conversation more than anything she’d done in a long time. He was easy to talk to. Their connection felt special, different. They’d already spent hours sitting in her front yard sharing their backstories—where they were from, how they got here, and about their deepest insecurities. She didn’t have to pretend to be someone she wasn’t. Emmett understood what it meant to suffer in the darkness of mental illness, and to come out the other side thriving.

  They could be as deep as they needed to and not have to fear overwhelming the other, or as silly and shallow as speaking in Russian accents while making up bizarre, funny scenarios. Emmett rolled his cigarettes by hand and tried to teach Amelia how to roll her own. After the second failed attempt, she passed the rolling papers and tobacco back to Emmett.

  “No sense in wasting anymore.”

  “I got you.” Emmett rolled a perfectly clean cigarette and handed it to her. “For the lady.”

  For once Amelia didn’t feel self-conscious about being bad at something. Being in the presence of someone who didn’t belittle her was such a new experience. It meant everything to her.

  There weren’t many people in Amelia’s inner circle. A few were still around from earlier chapters of her life, those who were able to withstand the storms she brought upon them. The minute she opened up about her writing as her only means of consistency and purpose, she knew Emmett was instantly becoming one of those people.

  “Writing and being a so-called artist are the two things that make up my entire life,” Emmett professed. “My last book was initially so long my publisher had to shorten it by at least a third. I never have the problem of not finding enough words, but rather of always having too many.”

  “You wrote a book?” Amelia was impressed.

  “I did.” Emmett was humbled.

  “I’d love to read it sometime.”

  He shot to his feet and pointed his index finger toward the sky.

  “Hold that thought.”

  Leaving Kerrin behind, Emmett ran back to his apartment, and returned a few minutes later, waving a copy of his book in the air.

  “I had a bunch of these in cas
e I needed to send any online orders. This one is now yours for the keeping.”

  Emmett handed her a four-hundred-page, soft cover copy of his life story. Amelia wanted to cry. A complete stranger giving her the best almost-birthday gift she could’ve asked for and he didn’t even know it. She wanted to learn about his life, and now she could learn about it from start to finish in the most vulnerable and intimate way possible.

  “Are you sure? I can pay you for it.” She couldn’t. She barely had enough money to pay for her hypothetical groceries. The whole unemployed thing.

  Emmett waved his hand in a nonchalant, no-big-deal kind of way.

  “It’s nothing. If anything, it’s kind of nerve wracking. People have ugly and embarrassing layers. And one of the reasons I’m nervous for you to read my book is because it shows so many of mine. But I also know I wouldn’t be who I am without those aspects of myself. And since I’m 100% human, I know that’s probably also the case with everyone else.

  “My book is a direct product of my biggest failure. But having written it doesn’t make me a success. I get to define success however I want or need to and being a quality human who treats others well is what makes me a success. I have a strong feeling you’re also a quality human being who treats others well. Which makes you a success. Doubly so since I get the impression that other people don’t treat you as well as you treat them.”

  Amelia was stunned. An eloquent monologue summarizing a kind of success she’d always wanted to believe. Emmett saw her for exactly who she was and didn’t run in the opposite direction.

  “Happy Birthday to me,” Amelia sang under her breath—another internalized thought escaping via her slippery tongue.

  “Wait, it’s your birthday?”

  Shit.

  “Tomorrow is.” Amelia fumbled her hand rolled cigarette and dropped it on the ground.

  “Well happy early birthday, Amelia! You’re going to have to see me tomorrow so I can give you a proper gift.”

  “No, really, you don’t have to. Your book is more than enough. It’s kind of a weird time for me so I’m not really celebrating it anyways.” She was too nervous to share that she’d bought sad and lonely candles for herself to put on top of a sad and lonely batch of cupcakes.