It was easy to figure out, when I was at the Lodge in Utah: I want to be a person that other people can confide in, I want to be a person that other people can turn to for sympathy and care and a shoulder to cry on, all because I didn't have that when I was growing up. Kristy was wonderful, but she never was the type to listen very well; the only person I had was Mimi, and I wanted to be Mimi to others. It's a very maternal thing, what I try to be for my friends, for strangers. But it makes me happy. My therapists, though, all of them from Dr. Reese to the doctors I have now, have told me that it's not my job to be the world's therapist. It's not my job to heal everyone.

Lately, I...first, I have to tell off Abby to get her to make a breakthrough, which is fine. But then I'm trying to reach out to Tree Daniels? I'm trying to convince Carly to trust people? The conversation with Carly left me confused...and tired. Not tired physically, exactly, but tired mentally because my first thought was, "Well, if she doesn't expect anything from relationships, then I'm going to be that friend who changes everything and fixes her of this!" But the idea of that made me so...tired. Wasn't I the one who told Logan that I have to fix myself? Isn't that the same for her? And more than that: when did I become the person who heals everyone? Dr. Axtell said that my problems are heavy and gigantic and exhausting, and when I put healing others over healing myself, I hurt myself, and that there's a difference between being a good friend and doing what I do sometimes...what I feel like I should do with Carly.

But I guess it's even more than that: it's that, ever since December, I thought Carly and I were building a friendship that started with our art bonding and was going deeper. But when she has this categorical rule that she'll only give so much...then do we have a real friendship at all? Is being more than just art friends...worth it with someone who isn't willing to have a relationship? I don't want to sit around and therapyspeak at each other when it's clear that under it all, she's not willing to invest in me like I'd be in her, and...that she doesn't trust me. I understand that her family has been hard, but...if she's that closed off, I'm not egotistical enough to think that I'll be the person to magically heal her after all of this time...I don't know. I just feel suddenly like she's fenced me away from her...and I don't know if I want to stand there with a pair of wirecutters and snap the electric wires that keep me away. At what point do I say that it's not worth it?

Ironic: Tree accused me of stealing Carly away from her. The truth is, Carly was never available to be stolen in the first place.

Dr. Reese says that I worry too much about my friends, that I am overly concerned with their well-being so that I can ignore my own problems. It's possible. It's probable, if I have to be honest. But...how can I stop? How can I not worry about Tess getting her heart broken by this boy from Day School; Barbara working herself into the ground with her grueling training schedule; Dawn, Stacey, Abby, Loes, Jo, even my new friends, Hannah and Angie...Susan Taylor's stepmother sounds like such a mean woman, I just have such an urge to run and hug Sharon.

Even Sunny. I worry about Sunny all the time.

But Claudia...Claudia is taking up so much space in my heart. I'm so concerned: there's something wrong with her, I can feel it like I can my own body. She's so self-critical, she's so unsure, and then...she gets so calm.

She reminds me of me when I was in the worst of my illness. Not entirely, I...don't think she's as bad as I was, but...something is wrong, and whatever she is using to make it "better" isn't working. I don't think she's on drugs...I just don't know. I'd give anything for Claudia to see how brilliant and amazing she is, the way we see her. Still, if there is anything I know, it's that when you have your mind made up that you are...lacking, somehow, how incredibly blind you can be. And how incredibly alone, too.

I just don't know how to help her. I hope she knows how much I want to. Anything she needs.

I don't want anyone, anyone, to end up like me.

Yesterday was Tess's birthday. Barbara had a surprise sleepover at her house, and all of our friends from SADD and their friends from the orchestra filled the living room. It's so nice, to see how much Tess has changed since eighth grade: not her body, it's the fact that she's so full of energy now, energy and confidence. Barbara jokes that Tess is our enforcer; I think there's truth in that. I think all three of us have changed a lot. I was a wimp back then, Barbara was so severely depressed for a very long time after Amelia, and Tess was the weird new girl that everyone picked on and then ignored. We've evolved from our old selves, but there is still threads that tie us back to who we were. Barbara misses Amelia horribly some days and she gets lost in that. Tess has a chip on her shoulder from when she an outcast, and she can weild it like a weapon at times. And I can still be a righteous baby when I want to be, not half as strong as I want to be.

The Hirsch mansion is four blocks away from Kristy. And as Katie drove me home, we passed by the Thomas-Brewer house, all Christmas bright and beautiful. Part of me wanted to jump out of the car and run to her front door. Apologize until my tongue went numb and make it all better again. Tell her about going to the hospital and how I'm scared to go but more scared that it won't fix me right away. Tell her I really miss my mom right now, so much I cried for her for no reason this morning when I woke up, so hard my stomach hurt? Tell her every single inch about my night with Logan and how this feels like a dream. That I'm scared that he's dated girls that are so beautiful since me...Dorianne, Corinne, Hannah Toce and Andi Gentile and so many other of the most popular and pretty girls in our class, and what will everyone think? That he's slumming with me?

Instead, I didn't say a word. Katie drove down the street, and I was silent. Yes. In a way, I'm still that girl.

I'll do the memo later. After Kristy...I need to write this all down, I need to see why she and I can't be friends until she understands. I have to understand that, too.

Last year, when we moved into the barn, I had those nightmares again. Plus, I missed the club, school was harder...it was all just so overwhelming. I felt like everything was spinning out of control. I obsessed on how I looked and then exactly what I ate...I got compliments on my weight loss at first, so I knew I was fixing something that was wrong with me, I was so ugly on the outside... It was Sharon who said I was anoretic first, in early December; I was so angry at her for that. But for as often as she is horrible with her hovering now...she was right. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have gotten treatment so quickly. It saved me. In a way...I owe Sharon my life.

I was everything to everyone back then, I was Supergirl. All I had to do was stop eating. I lost twenty-one pounds; I could count each one my ribs, my vertebrate, run my fingers over them like the keys of a piano. To this day, everyone believes the story that I was just stressed from doing too much. I gained weight over Christmas break, I kept gaining slowly the next semester...I kept up appearances perfectly. Nobody knew that my trip to "Iowa" was really to a treatment center in Hartford. The older BSC girls know what it was anorexia. That it is. Those girls, Logan, Barbara and Tess and Dawn. I relapsed in early summer, but I clawed back. This fall, I've been better. Much better; sometimes I feel "normal" again. Not lately. I know that I'm sliding and why. I just have to keep telling myself this, that I know how to fight back, and not let the mirror shout back at me the way it does some days. Not let the people who treat me like I'm made of glass or that I'm "Miss Waistline" bring me down.

What Kristy doesn't get is, I've been standing up to anorexia for a year now. I'm fighting it. I found my voice for the first time in seventh grade, with my father. I used it more and more in eighth. I'm quiet, but I'm not shy anymore: I am not silent anymore. In the end...I will be shouting. In my own Mary Anne way, I will shout. One day.