Habits

It was five o’clock in the afternoon when my phone went off, my mother’s name on the screen.

It was rare for my mother to call me unless it had something to do with family or the holiday season. Looking up from my dinner and paperwork, I narrowed my eyes at the calendar; it was still one month until Thanksgiving.

“It’s about Taya,” my mother said gravely. I put my head down. “She’s back in the hospital. Her roommate found her collapsed on the kitchen floor today.”

“I thought was she getting better,” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose. The last time I saw Taya was over the summer; we spent it together backpacking across Europe as I worked on my book of poetry. Everything seemed fine with her, but she was excellent at keeping secrets. Memories flooded back to a year before, when she was sitting on a rough hospital bed, covered with mounds of blankets even though the temperature was way above ninety degrees.

“She was! Taya insisted that she was well enough to live on campus again. I didn’t think she would … That she would just stop eating.”

“She’s a liar, mom. Just because she acts like she’s eating, doesn’t mean she is. She had us fooled for years.” I took a deep breath. “Has dad said anything?”

“He won’t let me bring up the subject without talking about sports. Taya has to go inpatient again but she won’t listen to me.”

“I’ll go see her tomorrow,” I replied. With that, she hung up.

The next day I hopped on a train into the city and made my way to the hospital. I wasn’t sure what to expect, honestly. Taya scared me; no, not Taya. Her disorder scared the living shit out of me. Every little action Taya felt compelled to do made me realize how big of a problem this was. My whole family was so blind to mental illnesses, thinking it was a result of Taya’s overall lazy nature. But when we found the bags full of vomit, diet pills, laxative wrappers, and unfinished food in her drawers, it sent us all into a downward spiral of not knowing; not knowing what to do, not knowing how to handle her, not knowing if she was going to live.

When the nurses at the desk saw me, they gave me weak smiles as they sipped slowly on stale coffee and asked me who I was here to see. I explained to them my little sister was here, gave them my name, and double-checked the room number.

“Your mom said you were coming by this morning,” one of the nurses remarked as she came around the desk and led me down the hallway. When she stopped in front of the door, the nurse turned and smiled again. “She’s in a good mood, but be careful.” I nodded and turned to the door.

When I opened the door, Taya was sitting on her bed, wearing a flimsy paper gown that fell off her shoulders. Her collarbones were sharp, her hair was pulled up in an attempt to cover up bald spots, and she held a deck of cards between her thin hands. She loved to play games; chess, card games, video games, anything that could keep her preoccupied for hours. Her desk in her old bedroom was piled high with books that she read over and over again. Now that I think about it, those distractions and habits she formed were designed to prevent her from eating. She looked up, and I could see veins like spider webs underneath her brown eyes. They were sunken in, black eyeliner and mascara smudged around them. Her cheekbones protruded unnaturally, shaping her face in a way that made it feel like this wasted, emaciated winter girl in front of me was not my sister.

“Well, look who it is.” She pushed the blankets off of her and went to stand up. I held my breath as I watched her grimace in pain, grabbing onto the railing to pull herself up and off the bed. She grabbed the IV drip strapped to her and pulled it with her.

“Hey, you.” I smiled at her hesitantly, opening my arms to carefully wrap them around her. I could feel her shoulder blades cutting into my skin and as my hands came around her waist, I could touch the tips of my index fingers. Her rib cage rested gently on my forearms and I had to bite back tears as she pulled away.

“Word travels fast, it seems. Come, play some cards with me.”

“Mom called,” I said as I grabbed the metal chair sitting in the corner of her hospital room. “You fainted while in the kitchen?” She sat down on her bed, crossing her legs. I could see bruises on the inside of her knees. She pulled the blanket up around her, and I noticed underneath her chipping nail polish that her fingernails were blue.

“Ironically enough, I was going to make a grilled cheese sandwich but when I went for the bread, everything went black.” She laughed under her breath. Grilled cheese sandwiches were her favorite, a “safe food” in her mind. “I woke up in the hospital and ripped the IV drips out. Mom flipped out and started yelling at me and the nurses.”

“Taya.” She looked up at me. “What happened?” She looked away and picked up the card deck, shuffling them around in her hands as she spoke.

“Well, while we were in Europe I didn’t hear that damn voice. We were walking everywhere and helping you write the poetry book was so much fun. How’s the book coming along, anyway?” I stared at her and sighed.

“It’s great.”

“Any publishing offers?”

“Taya, stop. This is about you, not me.” She narrowed her eyes at me.

“I didn’t gain weight in Europe, so my mind wasn’t bothering me at all. I felt recovered up until the moment we landed back home. I just knew that I was going to get fat again.”

“You were never fat.”

“So I made up my mind that day,” she continued, acting as if she didn’t hear me. She dealt me one card face down, and then one face up. “I thought that once I got back to uni, I would be able to lose weight again. I pulled on my old jeans and holy shit, I gained twenty pounds.” I looked at my cards and waited for her to look at hers.

“No, you didn’t.” She went to get another card, but her hand stopped short.

“Yes, I did,” she snapped. “It’s in my medical records, Jason.” She picked up a card and leaned back. “So, I lost those twenty pounds.”

“That fast?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. “You started classes barely a month ago.”

“It wasn’t hard,” she replied with a smile as she flipped her cards over. “Twenty-one.” I flipped mine over.

“Sixteen.” She pushed the cards from the side and dealt again.

“It’s easy falling back into old habits. You would know.” I bit my lip. “Addictions come from habits, and habits die hard. Anorexia, bulimia, binge-eating, drug use, alcohol abuse, they’re all habits.” She was quiet for a moment. “I don’t want to get better anymore.”

“What the fuck, what do you mean you don’t want to get better anymore?”

“I’m highly aware that I sound selfish. But don’t you guys realize that we’re all selfish? You? Mom? Dad? I mean, you guys are selfish because you don’t want to let me go, right? You want me around so you can have somebody to travel the world with, right? Mom is selfish because then she won’t have a daughter anymore. She’s covering up why I’m in the hospital just like last time; she said I was in a fucking mental institution for exhaustion. Dad just acts like I’m too perfect to have issues. It’s so tiring to act like I’m perfect for you assholes. So yeah, I’m selfish. But so are you guys.” She was crying now, her tears black with mascara, staining the bedsheets. She brought her hands up to her face and fell onto her side, her hair coming free from the bun. “When you were on amphetamines, I left you alone because it was your own damn decision. It wasn’t my place to tell you how to live your life.”

“Taya, I know, but - I’m sorry.” I placed my hand in between her shoulder blades, my fingers tracing down her spine, counting the vertebrae one by one until her sobbing slowed. “I don’t want to see you die like this. I want you to be happy, but I want you to have a full life. I refuse to enable you anymore.”

“You want me to go inpatient again, don’t you?” I nodded at her. “Fine.” Taya gave a defeated sigh and sat up, wiping away stray tears, and sniffled. “But I’m only doing this because I love you.”

“I love you too, but I want you to do this for you.” She laughed and nodded, reaching for the deck of cards but then-

Everything suddenly became a blur as I saw her eyes grow wide, a violent cough causing blood to drip from the sides of her mouth. The monitors began to beep uncontrollably and I ran to the nurses' station, my fingers dialing the numbers of my parents. Nurses flooded into her room, keeping me out as another called in her doctor. The words “EKG” and “cardiac arrest” were all I could hear as they were passed between nurses’ lips into my ears.

I don’t remember my mother arriving, but she was in a metal chair and sobbing into her hands. My father was sitting next to her, one hand on her back and the other held a cup of coffee that he sipped from mechanically. He avoided making eye contact with anyone but wasn’t afraid to pull aside each nurse that came and went.

“What happened?” I looked up to see my father standing over me, his arms crossed.

“We talked,” I said. “She agreed to go inpatient again and then -” The door to her room was pushed open and the doctor came out, his brows furrowed. My mother looked up and I stood up and held onto her trembling hand.

“She’s gone.”