In group today, our therapist Alicia spread out art supplies on the conference table, this cornucopia of creativity. I hesitated, of course, because I'm not Claudia. I'm not...much of anything when it comes to art. I can knit, though, and I asked Alicia if I could knit something instead. She studied me for a while and then reached to the table and grabbed a digital Nikon camera and gently set it in my hands.

She told us that we talk so much about our bodies, how we feel about our skin and all that roils underneath it to make us see ourselves the way we do. A warped, sick way that...destroys us. So, we were going to use these art materials to represent how we see ourselves in more than words.

Here I was, still stinging from what Ashley said on the boards. I talked to Logan about it...I told him that a part of me wondered if she was right. Or if maybe that's how everyone sees me back at SHS: still meek and weak and a nice and quiet shadow of someone else. He said that I'm clearly not the same. I am stronger. It's partly why he thinks that the two of us feel so right together now, because I'm more sure of myself and what I want...and saying what I want as opposed to hoping that someone would magically know what was in my head, so that I wouldn't impose or be a bother. I have a spine.

I just...forget about it sometimes.

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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.