“Happy Birthday Lena!” Everyone cheered. Lena leaned forward to blow out all nine candles flittering in a big purple cake. Smoke blew everywhere! Everyone gobbled their cake down as fast as they could. They wanted to play all the awesome games Lena had planned!
“Lena? Lena. Lena! Its time for music!” Lena heard a faint ding in her ear. Coming out of her daydream she realized it was Mr. Jones, her third grade teacher. Lena slouched in her chair and grabbed a pencil. She inched her way to music. She was relived her class had finished square dancing last week and Lena wouldn’t have to worry about her classmates treating her like she was the start of a horrible plague. She hated when she had assignments where she needed a partner. She was never picked. She always got left by herself ostracized from the rest of her class, the school, the world.
Since being diagnosed with HIV her life has changed dramatically. Within a month Lena went from being friends with every girl in her class to no friends at all. Teachers treated her like she was a former Juvenile Delinquent. At recess her only friends were a notebook/journal and a pencil. At night she cried herself to sleep and she never had long conversations with her mom.
Ring, Ring, Ring! As soon as the bell rang Lena leaped from her seat and ran onto the sidewalk. She had to beat Randall McHains. He bossed her around as if she was a punching bag and he was a heavy weight boxer. As soon as she was half way home someone yelled from not to far behind her, “Hey Rotten Blood!” It was Randall McHains. He was running behind her with a little medicine syringe with something green in it. “Wha-what?” Lena stuttered. “1 am the first person to find a cure for your Rotten Blood syndrome” Randall held the syringe up higher for Lena to see.
Lena began to run faster. “Rotten Blood, you know you can’t run from me!” Randall got closer behind her. Lena was starting to get tired and wanted to stop running but she knew if she stopped she was going to became one of Randall’s personal possessions. She pushed on. Once she had ran into her neighborhood Lena tried to stay on the main roads so If Randall got a hold of her everyone could see and call the cops.
Lena was now on the verge of passing out. She knew she was to close to home to give up. She hit her driveway and ran slower now and went In side. Lena huffed and puffed. She locked her doors so Randall couldn’t get in. Then she lay on the couch and fell asleep.
At supper Lena didn’t eat. She just picked at it. “Lena you seem sad. Sweetie is there something on your mind?” Lena’s mom, Mrs. Rooney asked. “Yes there is something on my mind I” Lena yelled. “What sweetie?” Mrs. Rooney asked, “1 HATE MY LIFE!” Lena got out or her seat and ran up to er room,
The next morning Lena didn’t want to get up. She cried and cried until Mrs. Rooney told her she didn’t have to go.
Click, Click, Click! Mrs. Rooney typed on her computer. She was looking for a fun opportunity for Lena where everybody fit in. “Aha!” Heart Shine Afterschool Camp! Mrs. Rooney’s computer brought up a picture of kids playing, It will make your child’s dream come true! Mrs. Rooney read. “This is just what Lena needs!” Mrs. Rooney said. “Lenal Come here!” Mrs. Rooney yelled up the stairs. Lena came to the end of the stairs. “What?” She said drowsily. “Come here I found something I think you’d like. Mrs. Rooney gestured Lena to come down the steps.
Lena looked at the screen. “This is a great opportunity for you to make new friends.” Mrs. Rooney smiled in Success of herself. “1 DON’T NEED ANY FRIENDS!” Lena screamed. “Lena! Don’t you raise your pretty little voice at me?” Mrs. Rooney snapped. “You’ll really enjoy it! Kids here have gone through just what you have gone through.” Mrs. Rooney’s voice was calmer now. “Going through? No one has gone through what I have gone through!” Lena stomped up her stairs crying the whole way.
Mrs. Rooney laid her head on the keyboard and began to cry. She cried because she couldn’t take Lena’s pain away, she cried because she couldn’t make her happy, she cried because she was a bad mom.
When she stopped crying she thought about ways to make Lena’s life easier then she went to the stairs and said, “Lena I’m going out for a while. There’s food in the fringe.” Then she left. With a map of her destination she began to drive.
She drove and drove. Then after an hour of driving she made It! Heart Shine Camp. In big bold letters a sign for heart shine shown I Mrs. Rooney pulled into a little gravel driveway. At the end of the driveway was a cream building with lots of preschoolers running around it. Mrs. Rooney saw a lady who looked like she could help her.
The lady saw Mrs. Rooney too. She started walking towards Mrs. Rooney. “Hello! I’m Mrs. Lisa. I am a director here at Heart Shine! Can I help you?” Mrs. Lisa asked. “Why yes you can! I was wanting to sign my nine year old daughter up. May I?” Mrs. Rooney asked. “Yes you may. Follow me.” Mrs. Lisa walked into the building. Children played everywhere. “Not to be rude or anything, does you daughter by any chance have HIV or have a relative who does?” Mrs. Lisa asked. “Yes, unfortunately she has a mild case.” Mrs. Rooney’s smile went into a small frown. Mrs. Rooney signed all the papers she had to and began to tour the building.
One wall had painting and letters drawn and written by children who formally went to Heart Shine or who still do. One letter was very sad, It was about a little girl whose mom died from HIV and she was getting very weak and might die soon. Mrs. Rooney could barely make it all the way through it.
The next day after school Lena wobbled home. She was as pail as a ghost. She felt sick in every way. “Hi) Lena how was your day?” Mrs. Rooney asked. “I feel sick!” Lena fell on the couch. Mrs. Rooney sat down beside her and started patting her back. “Sweetie yesterday when I was out I Went to Heart Shine.” Mrs. Rooney explained. “1 was thinking you could maybe go tonight when you feel better. Mrs. Rooney got up and went into the kitchen.
I already told that woman I’m not going. I guess it might be nice. No! Lena what are you thinking? Well I would get friends. I’ve made my decision, I’m going. But I didn’t say I’d like It. No, I won’t like it. Lena went into the kitchen to tell her mom her decision.
Lena got into the car. “Remember mom, I’ll go, but I won’t like it.” Lena slammed her door. Lena began to hum a little song they learned that week in music. She also thought about what it was like to have a friend. She’d not had friends for so long she’d forgotten how it felt.
She lifted her head just in time to see the sign for Heart Shine. The gravel road into Heart Shine made Lena's belly growl. Mrs. Rooney Showed Lena into the cream building. Lena sat down at a small leaf shaped table. “Hit” A ladles voice boomed from behind her. “What is your pretty little name? Mine’s Mrs. Hives.” A lady sat down in the seat in front of Lena. “Lena.” Lena said shyly. “I’ll bet you’ll have a marvelous time here at Heart Sine! Now, go have some fun!” Mrs. Hives left to go talk to some other unlucky kid like they were two years old.
Someone tapped Lena on the shoulder. She turned around to see a girl her age with Shirley Temple curls all over her blond head. “I’m Clair! I heard you were new here and wondered if you’d like to come sit with me and my friend Danielle?’ Clair had the kind of face that made you want to smile even if a huge crisis just happened. “Surel” Lena was excited. It was her first day and she already had a friend!
On Tuesdays and Thursdays Lena and Clair had therapy. Their teacher was Mrs. Judy. She was the nicest teacher Lena had ever had! Lena and Clair were best friends forever! And best of all, Lena changed schools to Clair’s school and Lena was happier than she could ever remember!
 

Change

by Brittney Yourgans

Crystal Creek Mental Rehabilitation Center. Doesn’t that name just sound horrid to you? It does to me. However, unfortunately, this was where I was going to be spending the next month of my life. Special thanks to Cameron for this one.
I’m just trying to help,” was what he said as they brought me here, “You’ll understand at the end of this month.
“I hate you,” was what I had said in reply to him.
“I love you too,” he said while kissing my forehead.
They brought me into this waiting room. I guessed it was to see how insane I was, I expressed this opinion, and by the look on her face, shocked my mother who was sitting on the other side of the room.
After what seemed like an eternity, this old looking lady led us into this small room. “Claustrophobia anyone?” I laughed in my head. Then she started asking me all these pointless questions about my eating habits and why I was depressed and stuff like that. Her answers were me staring at her with this bored expression on my face.
So she gave up, stuck a hospital bracelet on my wrist, and got a security guard to escort me to the teen wing. The security guard’s name is Carlos. He’s a big, fat guy. I wanted to ask him if he had ever hurt anyone or had gotten hurt on the job, but I didn’t feel like talking. He stopped at a door, got Out a chain of keys that looked as if you couldn’t fit another one on there, and unlocked the door.
We walked into the room, which was the teen wing judging by the sign and about fifteen heads shot up in curiosity at the new girl. I looked around the room. It was pitiful. The walls were a puke yellow color and the furniture looked as if they got it at a yard sale. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t that bad. A lady that looked like she was in her mid-20s stood up.
“Hood off, please,” was the first thing out of her mouth. I reluctantly pulled down the hood on my Paramore jacket. She then proceeded to take me into a small room, not as small as the first but still enough to give me slight claustrophobia, for me to fill out some forms and for them to do the normal processes for new people. I won’t get into it too much, it was unnecessary. By the time I was finished, everyone else had gone to bed. She gave me a slip of paper and said good night. I looked at the paper. Room seven.
I opened the door to my room to find out I had a roommate. The lights were already out so I just climbed into the so-called bed. It was all lumpy and smelled dreadful. I was tired, but knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep. I haven’t slept in so long that! can’t even remember the last night that I had a good night’s sleep. Although just taking a guess, it would be about four months.
I laid back and thought about Cameron. We had met about four months ago. My friends had completely stopped talking to me and he had always been the loner in our high school. We had started sitting at the same table at lunch this year and had immediately hit it off. At least one good thing had come of this, I thought. It went all right until about two weeks ago when Cam had started noticing that I didn’t eat and that when I did I had to “go the bathroom” afterwards. Then today he picks me up, tells me we’re taking a drive, and takes me here, Some boyfriend and friend he is. I really don’t see why I need to be here. I don’t have a problem. So I don’t eat sometimes. I just find it pointless to eat when I’m not hungry.
I finally drifted off the sleep sometime later but as normal, it was full of nightmares. They were always the same thing. That night four months ago. It wasn’t always in the same place, but he was always in it. In fact, he played the male lead in the movie, while I played the female lead.
I woke up this morning feeling the same as always. My roommate is nice though. She told me that her name is Jane and that she is in here for anorexia. She said she would help me around today because the first day is always the toughest she said. This was her second time here and her second day here this time.
The first thing we did was get dressed, which I didn’t have to do because I had no other clothes yet, and other morning stuff like brush your teeth and stuff like that. did get to brush my teeth thought, because they had these little things of toothpaste and a toothbrush too. Then we went into the same room I had first came into the night before. About half the girls I saw last night were sitting on furniture and on the floors and more were still coming in. A lady gave Jane and me both a paper. I looked at it with a quizzical expression on my face. Jane came over.
“It’s just some paper type thing. We do it every morning. It just has questions like how you’re feeling today, how you slept, stuff like that,” she explained.
I just nodded in response. I filled it out mindlessly, not even paying attention to what it was saying or anything. Then we headed down to breakfast. Jane kept pestering me with questions and finally I just started answering them.
“Okay, jeez. My name is Veronica, I’m going to be seventeen next month, and I don’t know what else to say about myself. I’ll answer just about anything though,” I replied back. Hey, not talking is hard.
“So, why are you here?” was the next question out of her mouth, Great, I thought, the one question I don’t really want to answer.
“My boyfriend brought me here along with my mom because he said that I’m anorexic and sometimes bulimic. His words not mine,” I reluctantly said. I think she got that I didn’t really want to talk about it so she left it along for the time.
I picked through my breakfast tray, drinking the juice but playing with the little sausages. I tasted the pancakes though, but they tasted like they were made in bulk quickly. When everyone started getting up, I noticed that everyone had to put their plastic silverware into this little bucket.
“Why does the silverware go into that bucket?” I asked Jane confused.
“It’s some sort of protection thing. So they know that we are carrying it back into the rooms to cut ourselves with them. It’s stupid, I know.”
Then we went back to the big room. I quickly learned the schedule for the days. It included things like group discussions (same sex only), art, games, and free time (to be spent in our rooms of course). At the end of the day after supper, we were allowed to watch TV but certain channels were not allowed and although the youngest person there was 14, we were not allowed to watch anything above a PG rating.
Things continued like this for two weeks. When we would have to meet with our own personal psychiatrist, I would clam up. They could tell something big was wrong, I knew, because I talked freely with all of the other girls and the nurses. But when I was in that room, I completely stopped talking. It went on like that for a while until that prominent day when one of the shrinks guessed exactly what was wrong.
We had just been talking, or rather her asking questions and me not answering them, when suddenly she asked, “Have you been raped or abused?”
My eyes opened wide and my eyebrows shot up. I tried to correct it, but it was too late, she had seen it.
“You have, haven’t you sweetie?” she asked.
This was when I started crying, and not just a few free tears either. I mean full on sobs. If only she knew, I thought, how long I had wanted to tell someone. How close I had come so many times, yet chickened out at the last minute. It had happened four and a half months ago, but it was finally out there. It’s not like I didn’t want to tell anybody, I just didn’t know how. Then it had been a while, and I thought that people would think I was making it up, that I had waited too long to tell.
Now was when I started talking. I knew what she was going to ask, so I answered every single one of her questions, even though they were still left unspoken in her head. I told her it had happened four and a half months ago. That I had been walking home from the movies because my car broke down and he just came out of nowhere. I knew him, of course, he was the most popular guy in the school and he had graduated last year. I told her that I had started controlling my weight like I had because it was something that I had that I could be in control of. No matter how screwed up life got, I could control what I ate, what stayed in my body, and what I ended up puking out several hours later. I talked like I was a mute child that had just suddenly been found able to talk. It felt good. To finally get everything out there, and not have it bottled up inside where it had sat for what felt like an eternity.
Now it was her turn to start talking. She said stuff about being tested for STDs, which they could do here in the center, and how I probably wasn’t pregnant because I would have noticed by now.
Then she asked, “Do you want to tell you mom, or should I?”
“I want to tell her. I need to tell her. But I want to do it in person. Can you do that? I want to tell Cameron too, if that’s okay,” I figured it would be better if I told her then some stranger. It would answer many of her questions, I knew.
“I can get your mother here. As for Cameron, I’m not sure. He’s the one who brought you here, correct?” I nodded, “Then I may be able to get him here too. We don’t normally do that but since he aided in you being brought here, then we may be able to pull a few strings.”
I nodded gratefully. She then said I could leave. I walked out there into the room feeling so much better, when it hit me. Cameron was right. I was glad that he brought me here. Now, I couldn’t wait to tell him that.
The next day around six o’clock, Carlos came in to escort me to the room where I was meeting my mom and Cameron. I was nervous. I wasn’t exactly sure how to tell them. I was so happy to be seeing my mom and Cameron again. We arrived at the door, Carlos unlocked it and I walked in. My mom, Cameron, and the psychiatrist that had been with me that day, whose name was Trisha, were all in there.
“Oh sweetie, I’ve missed you,” my mom said while hugging me closely.
“I’ve missed you too, Mom. You have no idea how much,” I said returning the hug with the same amount of emotion.
I sat down across from my mom and Cam. I took a breath. “You both know something is up and that I’m going to tell you what. Four and a half months ago, I was I hesitated for a minute, “I was raped two blocks away from the movie theatre.” I looked over at my mom and Cameron before continuing. They looked shocked to say the least. “I started controlling my weight the way I did for control. I couldn’t control being raped, and I couldn’t control all the stuff happening at school but I could control the way I fit into my clothes. I know it was the wrong way to go but I wasn’t thinking clearly. I’ve been spending the past months denying to myself everything that had happened, and telling myself that I didn’t have a problem and that nothing was wrong. I realize now that I was completely wrong.”
By now my mom was crying. “What’s wrong’?” I asked her, “If anyone should be crying it should be me.”
“I should have seen it. I should have realized it. I’m a horrible mother,” she sobbed.
“No, you’re not. No one expects you to have seen it. It’s not like it was obvious or anything,” I said while walking across the room to hug her.
We just sat there for a while until Carlos came back saying that it was time to bring me back because it was almost time for bed. I said my good-byes to my mom and Cameron and promised I would call them tomorrow.
The next two weeks went by quickly. I started eating and realized I missed it, as weird as that sounds. I started talking in group and to my psychiatrists. Yet, it wasn’t until the very last day I was there that I realized something. It was while I was packing up my stuff waiting for someone to tell me that my mom and Cameron were here to get me, that I realized that Cameron was right. I did understand now what he said a month ago, that he was only trying to help. I looked around the room that I had lived in for the past month and realized that this month wasn’t so bad at all. I was able to do so much that I didn’t think was possible a month ago. I stopped starving myself and I finally worked up the courage to tell my mom what I had wanted to tell her for five months now.
One of the nurses I had worked with closely walked into the room, “Your mom is here to get you. Now get out of here and I expect to never see you here again,” she said with a smile. I picked up my bags, took one last look around the room, and left the old Veronica for the better, new and improved Veronica. The one that I liked so much better.
 

Skinny as a Stick or Maybe Skinnier

by Victoria VanWinkle

She steps on the scale.. .85 pounds. It has been weeks since she has eaten. Hiding her problem is the least of her worries. She runs, runs, and runs some more, and on top of that not eating, this makes the pounds slide off like the rain off a rain coat. Her parents haven’t even suspected that she hasn’t been eating, but why would they since they aren’t ever around. Dad is always at the office, and when he isn’t there he has some sort of dinner or is out of town, across the world, for all she knows. Mom is also at the office, but when she isn’t there she’s at the gym or shopping. All her older brother, Shawn, cares about is hanging out with friends, his girlfriend, and partying so it’s not like he would have a clue about anything. After she steps off the scale she looks into the mirror and as always all that Amber sees is fat. Fat is the exact opposite of what she is. Amber Wendinger never sees anything good about the size of her body. She is the most popular sophomore not only from her school but from all around. Tons of friends and of course the honest guy in her class as her boyfriend is everything that she has. With her parents being at their above average paying jobs all the time, that doesn’t exactly make her middle class either. To a lot of people Amber had everything that anyone could ever want, but nobody is perfect. No one has everything, and everyone has some problem or another.
Of course, to not have anyone not know that you aren’t eating for weeks then you have to have various excuses. Some of Amber’s personal favorites for lunch were, I had a huge breakfast and I am definitely not hungry, or she would just walk around the cafeteria socializing the whole time acting like she was getting caught up in major conversations. Those were easy, and honestly they worked. No one ever suspected that the “perfect” girl actually had an eating disorder. She did though. With the parents never being home you don’t actually expect them to clean or anything like that so they had maids and chefs and butlers and all of the kind of people you could think of for any of the things that needed to be done around the house. Amber also a lot of things bottled up inside of her, and the way she got it all out and prevented herself from blowing up was writing in a dairy. One day Amber had a lot on her mind so she went to her room and began writing. When she was done writing she always locked her diary and tucked it away safely from everything, except this once. She was writing and had just finished when all of a sudden her cell phone started ringing so she left her diary lying on her bed wide open and ran off to answer it. Once she had answered the phone she didn’t go straight back to her room but the living room to sit on the couch and talk to her friend. It was around that time of the day when the maid always cleaned, and she had just made her way to Amber’s room. Right away the maid noticed the diary lying on her bed and just thought to pick it up and put it away when some of the words on the page caught her eye. The words were “I haven’t eaten in two weeks and yet I am still fat, and have only lost 18 pounds.” Knowing that she had to do something about this problem she went to Amber’s mother right away when she got home that day. She handed the diary to her and showed her what she had come upon. Mom was very worried and called her husband right away. They both knew that they must do something about his fast before Amber’s disorder took a larger impact on her than it already had. The only problem was that they didn’t know where to start. Finally, they decided to call a specialist on eating disorders and ask the opinion for what they should do. The doctor said to first confront her about how she was doing and if anything was going on in her life. This was to see if she would come out and say it on her own. If not, they would just have to say something directly to her about it. So they went into her room where she was on the computer and told her that they needed to talk.
As she knocks on the door anxiously her mother says, “Honey, your father and I need to talk to you. Can we come in?”
Amber is shocked to hear what just came out of her mother’s mouth, and she wonder, do they know? Even though she is scared what is going to be said to her she says, “Come on in.”
Amber’s mother and father walk into her room one after the other. Her mother sits down on her bed while her father stands next to her. She turns in her chair toward her concerned parents and just stares, blankly. It takes a while for the conversation to get started. At first her parents just use small talk, and they don’t really say anything of much importance. She was not going to say anything about her eating disorder unless they directly asked her and practically forced it out her esophagus. After a while, that’s what they did. Question after question came and all she could do was confess. Amber’s bedroom just about became an ocean with all of the tears that were shed between the three. Once the emotional get together was finished her father phoned the specialist and scheduled an appointment for the following day. All three of them would attend the meeting, and they weren’t really sure what to expect.The Wendingers walk one by one into the doctor’s office. Amber is frightened and worried and has so many different emotions and thoughts running through her head. It is almost impossible for her to think. She knows that if she keeps starving herself her body could become almost non-existent; to her that is a good thing, the smaller the better. The only reason she is even there is because she knows that this could potentially kill her, but she usually tries to block that idea out of her mind. She now realizes that she can’t though. Amber knows that she can get through this, beat this. She also knows it’s not going to be easy, but what is?