When we got there, Jack grabbed me a wheelchair, and we went to see Robin. I think he was having too much fun wheeling me around, going fast then suddenly jerking to a stop like I was a shopping cart. Dad had to scold him to stop messing around with me, when I almost fell face-first out of the chair.

When we got to Robin’s room, John was already with her, and he looked so upset. Tears were still stained on his face, and the stress of what happened made him look like he aged a full decade in a day.

“O-Oh, hey guys…” John said quietly with a weak wave. Robin was sleeping, so we talked in hushed whispers.

“How… How is she…?” I asked, trying hard not to cry. When I walked in, I immediately noticed her bandaged arm. It was hard to look at.

“She’ll be ok…” John sighed. “I’m just worried about her mental health right now. I should've seen this coming! I should’ve seen signs… I should’ve…”

“It’s not your fault, John,” Dad said, sitting down next to him and putting his hand on his shoulder. “Kids are… Kids are good at hiding these things… We can’t always see them, or catch them in time.”

“I knew she’d been unhappy, David. I saw it. I just didn’t think it was this bad. I thought she… I thought she was alright… And…”

“In times like this, it’s important not to blame yourself.”

Dad continued to console John as he tried hard not to start crying again. Bella took the handles of my wheelchair and leaned in close to my ear behind me.

“It’s not your fault either,” she said. “I know you’re blaming yourself right about now. Or maybe Diana is blaming you right now. But what Robin did wasn’t your fault.”

“I… I don’t know…” I mumbled.

“Just don’t let it chew you up,” Bella whispered. “Robin wouldn’t want it.”

“Diane,” John said, sniffling. “How are you, sweetie? You gave me a scare when you just showed up then passed out.”

“I’m ok…” I said with a weak smile. “It happens all the time.”

“Blimey… Please, watch yourself.”

“Oh she will be,” Bella said, raising an eyebrow. “Isn’t that right, Diane?”

I laughed nervously and nodded. I guess she was still a bit upset about the staircase incident. We only got to stay for like 15 minutes before Dad said we had to go while Jack and Bella stayed behind. She was pretty much a sister to them, so they wanted to be there for her. Dad said he’d come back to pick them up after the appointment. I gave Robin’s sleeping body a small hug before leaving. I was just sad I couldn’t be there to see her awake.

A downside to living in Toronto was that you got stuck in a crazy amount of traffic jams. We lived outside the city, so we normally didn’t have to deal with that, but the hospital was almost right in the center of it, so we’d have to deal with it. Dad was stressed because it meant we would be home late, and the dietician would probably get there first. We were almost out of the jam when Dad’s phone started ringing.

“Can you answer that?” he asked, not wanting to use it while driving.

“Sure.” I picked it up and answered it. “Hello?”

“Oh! Hello there,” said a lady’s voice. “Is David there?”

“He’s driving,” I explained. “Can I ask who this is?”

“This is Sheryl, the dietician,” she said. I had to hold myself back from groaning. “Could you tell him I’m at the house?”

“Sure. We’ll be there soon. Stuck in a traffic jam.”

“Don’t worry, I understand. I don’t mind waiting.”

“Ok. See you soon.” She said goodbye and I hung up. “Sheryl’s at the house and waiting for us.”

“Great,” Dad groaned. Yeah, he was upset about being late. 

We showed up at the house a few minutes later. Sure enough, there was a small red car parked out front with a woman inside. Dad parked next to it, and Sheryl stepped out to greet us.

“Stay here,” Dad said sternly, stepping out of the car. “We’re not having a repeat of the stairs incident.”

“Are you going to keep throwing that in my face?!” I complained as he shut the door. He looked back through the window and mouthed “Yes” to me before going to greet Sheryl.

I just sunk back in my seat and pouted while I waited for him to let me out. Eventually he opened the door and let me out. Even with being shaky from anxiety, I managed to step out and meet face-to-face with Sheryl. She was a fairly tall, dark-skinned woman who looked to be in her late 40s or so. Her hair was short, but was in some seriously tight curls. As I saw her eyes pick apart my appearance and mannerisms, my face burned up in embarrassment. I hated letting people see me like this.

“You must be Diane, right?” she asked, obviously covering up concern from just how I looked. “Oh, were you the young lady I was talking with earlier?”

“Y-Yeah,” I nodded shakily.

“Let’s head inside,” suggested Dad. “Diane can’t be up for too long.”

“Yes, I agree,” she nodded, and we all quickly headed inside.

I wanted to go straight to my room and into bed, but Dad made me stay on the couch downstairs. I sprawled out across it while Dad and Sheryl took chairs. I already knew stairs again would be a whole beast to tackle, and I was tired out, so we could deal with that later. Once everyone got settled, we did proper greetings and introductions, then we got down to business and started discussing why Sheryl was really here.

“Look at you, so big you take up the whole fucking couch. And they call this underweight? I think they’re the ones who have a warped perspective.”

“So Diane,” smiled Sheryl. “Mind if I ask a few questions to get a general idea of what’s happening here?”

I nodded silently. I hadn’t said much of anything around Sheryl. I was being relatively taciturn. Diana was spitting in my brain though.

“Don’t you dare agree to anything that woman says, you hear me?!? She wants to make you obese like everyone else!!! Remember, I keep you safe and healthy, not her!!”

“Are you normally so quiet?” Sheryl chuckled.

“I think she’s just scared,” Dad said. He was definitely right on the money. Between Sheryl and Diana, I was scared alright.

“I understand,” she said sweetly. “There’s no need for that, ok? We’ll take this all slowly, and I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do. That sound good?”

“Hm… ok…” I said skeptically.

“Alrighty then… Let’s start with eating habits! What’re those like?”

“Um, well… I usually skip a lot of meals…” I explained quietly. “I usually eat once a day or so… like soup or something. Recently Dad’s been trying to make me eat three meals a day though, but I can usually only do two at most.”

“And she only eats a fraction of what I give her,” he added. “I don’t think she’s finished a meal in weeks.”

“So you don’t really eat a lot, do you?” Sheryl asked sympathetically.

“It feels like a lot…” I muttered.

“That’s the anorexia talking, honey,” she explained. “It messes with how you see things. How you see yourself. And it’s totally normal too. I’ve seen a lot of people, and they all have the same issue.”

Sheryl kept going on, asking me different questions relating to my habits, rules, and anything else she could relating to my disordered eating. It was painful to admit some of the things I did, but Dad was sitting right there and wouldn’t let me lie. If he caught me in a lie, he either corrected me on the spot or shot me a death glare until I amended myself.

“Well, it sounds like things aren’t going as smoothly as your family had hoped in your recovery. You said you wanted to recover from home, right?” she asked. I nodded. “Hm, well that does make things a lot more difficult. Just how determined are you to get better?”

“Well I’ve been trying…” I saw Dad giving me that glare again. “I… I’m not…”

“Oh… Oh dear…” Sherly whispered. If she didn’t look worried before, she sure as hell did now. Dad wasn’t phased though. He knew I hadn’t been trying. That’s why Sheryl was even here. And if he was going to hold me to our deal, he was sending me into treatment. And that scared the hell out of me a lot more than just seeing the dietician.

“You remember our deal,” reminded Dad. “Right, Diane?” I nodded, feeling small beads of sweat form.

“Deal?” Sheryl asked with a questioning look.

“She made this deal that if she didn’t make an effort to recover from home, we’d send her into treatment,” explained Dad. “And it looks like you haven’t been holding up your end of the deal all too well honey… so I think it’s time I held up my end and finally sent you into treatment.”

“NO! DON’T LET THEM DO THAT!! THEY’LL STUFF YOUR FACE UNTIL YOUR FAT ROLLS HAVE FAT ROLLS!!!”

“I-I… I c-can’t-” I stuttered. 

“Why not?” Sheryl asked. She was obviously curious as to my reason, but I had none really. Well, not any non-Diana ones.

“I um, just… don’t want… to recover…” I mumbled. 

“I don’t think anyone ever does,” said Sharyl. “I won’t lie, it’s not fun. There’s struggle and tears, but it’ll save you. Surely it’s better than living like this though, right? Stuck in bed, barely eating, not having energy… I’d say that’s hardly living.”

“Well… I guess not…” I said quietly.

“What if we worked on harm reduction first?” Sheryl asked. “You and your dad can discuss treatment. For now, let’s work on getting you to a better place.”

“Alright…” I sighed.

Later, Sheryl and I worked on those harm reduction strategies. She pushed for me to use them, but said that in the end they were up to me to carry out. They were things like adding some fruit or sugar to my oatmeal, or sticking with three meals a day even if they were small.

After the appointment was over, I overheard Sheryl and Dad having a private chat about treatment options, which made me more anxious. She told him how she was in the eating disorder unit, and she could put a good word in and get me a bed fairly quickly. I tried to hear everything, but couldn’t get it all. 

“What a lying bitch. She’s definitely trying to force it on you. She talks all gently and says you don’t have to do anything you don’t want so she can force you into the hospital behind your back. Yeah, some choice she let you have!”

When Sheryl finally left, Dad wanted to have a serious talk with me. I knew exactly what this was about.

“So,” he started as he sat down. “What’s our plan here?”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “But I’m not going to the hospital, that’s for sure.”

“Oh really? What makes you think that?”

“I know I’m not,” I said, crossing my arms and standing my ground.

“Ok little miss, what if I said you were?”

“What?!”

“THE FUCK?!?”

“Sheryl and I talked, and we decided treatment was your best option,” he said, not looking happy about it himself. “She’s going to call tomorrow to give an admission date. I’m sorry Diane, but you need this. I already lost your mother. I don’t want to bury my daughter too.”

“NOOO!!!!” screamed Diana.

“B-but you-” I sputtered. I couldn’t put into words how upset I was. “No! I don’t want this!”

“Do you think I do?!” Dad snapped, taking me aback. “God Diane, I was hoping you’d see that you were killing yourself! I hoped you wanted to change, but you made me take this into my own hands now! So no, you don’t want this, and neither do I! Nobody wanted it to come to this!”

Dad’s chest was heaving and he looked at my slightly scared and anxious face. He sighed, held his head, and collapsed back into a chair.

“Think about how you felt seeing Robin in her hospital bed,” Dad said quietly. “That’s how I feel seeing you like this. I’m sure Jack, Bella, and Robin all feel the same too.”

“...Really?” Was I really hurting them all like that whenever they saw me? Dad nodded.

“Every day when I wake up, the first thing I do is check on you. And every time I have to make that walk from my room to yours, every time I turn the doorknob to your door, I’m scared you didn’t make it through the night. Do you know how hard that is? To think that every day with my daughter could be my last and I have to watch her slowly kill her body?”

“I… I had no idea…” I mumbled. I felt awful knowing what I was doing. I was toying with everyone’s mental and emotional stability on a daily basis and didn’t even know it. “I’m sorry… I don’t want you to worry…”

“I know you don’t, honey,” he sighed. “I don’t blame you for any of this. Just think about it, ok? Might make you realize why we’re trying so hard to do this for you. Maybe use it to think about your reason for recovering.”

I slowly nodded, not having much to say. I had no clue what to say, and I was just drop-dead tired and wanted to sleep. I didn’t want to think about it. It brought up too many painful thoughts. I quietly asked Dad if he could help me to bed, and he took me up in his arms to carry me to my bed. He laid me down, tucked me in, and kissed me on the forehead before turning off the lights and saying goodnight.

*   *   *   *   *

The night was hard, and I spent all of it restless. I tossed and turned in my bed as Dad’s words ran through my head. I didn’t want to be the cause of everyone’s hurt anymore. I was the reason Robin attempted suicide. Bella kept telling me otherwise, but she couldn’t fool me. If I wasn’t such a bitch to her, she would’ve been in a better place. 

I wanted to stop being like this. I was tired of all this. I wanted to stop. But what was stopping me from stopping? The answer was me. I always stopped myself from getting better at every turn. I stopped myself from taking care of myself, I stopped myself from truly caring about others, and I stopped caring about even being alive… There was only one way to start fixing myself now. One way to make everything better again. Stop denying myself the bare necessities to live.

Early that Saturday morning while Jack and Bella were still asleep, I heard Dad get up and walk down the hallway to my room. Quietly, he opened my door and looked in. I was sitting on the edge of my bed, facing the door. We looked at each other awkwardly with a pause.

“You’re… awake?” he whispered.

After he said that, something in me just broke. I couldn’t take it anymore and started sobbing. He really did check on me every morning. He really did care that much about me. He really was afraid of losing me. It all hit me at once in a wave of emotion, and I couldn’t hold it back anymore. Dad silently walked over and pulled me into a loving hug.

“It’s ok…” he comforted, petting my head. 

“N-No… i-it’s not…” I sobbed. “I-I never w-wanted… wanted a-any of this…” I clung to his shirt and buried my face in it. “M-make it s-stop! D-Dad, I w-want it t-to s-stop!”

“You can make it stop,” he said softly, pulling me away to look me in the eyes. “You just have to let people in again, let them help, and give a real try to recovery.”

“I w-want to rec-cover… N-not j-ust for you g-guys… For R-Robin and m-me t-too…”

I had finally said it. I wanted to recover, I truly did. I wanted to be happy, healthy, without Diana forever. I want my old life back when I didn’t pay attention to the numbers in my food. I want my old friends and family. I would give anything to get it all back.

“We’ll all be with you every step of the way then,” Dad whispered, pulling me into another hug where we sat in silence and rocked in the early hours of the morning.