Color Me Pretty

home,” she says, reaching for the door to the hallway, like our discussion is over. Period. End of sentence.
    “Fine,” I say and I really, really don't like the cruelty that laces my voice. “I didn't plan on it anyway. After I get out of Crescent Springs, I'm moving back in with Emmett.”
    My mom turns around, mouth open to speak, but I slam the door in her face and turn on the faucet, so I can't hear what it is she has to say.
    She doesn't come in after me, and when I leave the bathroom, the nurse politely informs me that my family has already gone.

I don't want to go to this clinic. It's a waste of my time, and it's pointless – I'm going there for suicide, not anorexia. Thing is, I didn't try to kill myself. I didn't. I wouldn't have. I just tripped while chasing a dream.
    Nobody cares to hear the truth though, not my family or Dr. Banerjee or Donald. Since the minute I woke up, they've all been preaching honesty and yet, refuse to listen. So I let the nurse's assistant escort me out to a white van and strap me in the back seat like I'm a small child, leaving me with nothing to do. What a brilliant idea. If I really was suicidal, I'd have strangled myself to death with the seatbelt. Being left alone for three hours with your thoughts is not a pleasant experience.
    I beg the heavens for a magazine, something shiny and glossy and new. Something with beautiful pictures. I could use a little beautiful in my life right now. Instead, we drive the winding, country road with nineties music trickling out from the front speakers. The side of the van says this is hospital transport, but I'm the only passenger. Just me, the driver, and a male nurse. And not even an attractive one.
    I sigh and slump against the window, letting my eyes flicker closed, trying my best to cook up another scenario like I did in the bathroom. Unfortunately, my mind decides to take me down another path and forces me to relive the act of having my feeding tube removed. I start gagging just thinking about it. There was so much … goop that came out along with the tube … and then my nose and throat were clogged with mucous. Let's just say, I'm glad that Emmett wasn't around to see. Fuck, I'm disgusting. Skinny is supposed to be pretty and perfect, desirable. But none of this is.
    I sit up and adjust myself, drawing the male nurse's head around, so he can study me like I'm an animal at the zoo. I cannot even believe this shit. It's like a horrible fucking soap opera, and I'm the main character. If I get to the clinic and they try to shove pills down my throat and lock me in at night, I am going to flip out. That whole mental asylum thing is so overdone.
    I drop my face into my hands and try to just be. That's what Emmett would do. When his name comes to mind, I smile. He's something to look forward to, that's for sure. If he wasn't waiting at the other end of this tunnel for me, I'd be a wreck right now.
    I focus my gaze out the window and think about the tree house and the decorations we filled it with. I cannot even wait to get up there again, gaze out the window at the setting sun, lie in Emmett's strong arms, kiss his lips. My breath fogs against the glass, and as I reach up to wipe it away, a thought strikes me. It's small, hardly noticeable, just a little niggle of information that leaps up from the cosmic soup of my thoughts and teases me with its presence.
    I decide to take the bait.
    I press the tip of my finger against the glass, and I start to draw, using the edge of my nail like the sharp end of a pencil. A bodice goes up first, laced up in the front like a corset but not as tight. My design is organic, comfortable. It's something that sits on the body, that highlights and protects it, not defines it. I pause. I've always defined myself by my fashion and now I'm creating something that defies that very idea? I keep drawing, but I let that thought simmer in my mind. Should we shape our bodies to clothes or shape clothes to our bodies? I don't know what I believe, but in my drawing, I go with the latter giving window-girl a flowing skirt that dances above her knees and swirls around her like petals on a flower. I even draw her face in, make her smile. I give her breasts and hips, and when I'm finished, I actually like the way she looks.
    I can do this, I think as I admire my work, take it in with an artist's eye. That's when I notice that the nurse is staring at me, examining me critically. I don't like the look in his face, so I