Color Me Pretty

it is that I'm supposed to be doing, I follow her lead and take a seat. “When you make a conscious decision to be with someone, there's always the risk that you're using your head and not your heart. Heads make logical choices; hearts make soulful ones.”
    Kylie sits down next to me and pulls out a pair of menus from the center, sandwiched between a small, silver bucket full of white flowers and a container of napkins. The plastic foldout Kylie hands me looks like something you could find at any restaurant, minus the prices. There are instructions to choose one entree, one vegetable, and one starch. Next to each item, are calorie counts.
    This is when I begin to freak out.
    356. 291. 782. 447.
    My breath starts to catch in my throat and my mind goes into overdrive. I'm so skinny right now, if I eat too much, my starving body will absorb every bit of fat and I'll balloon up overnight. I try to calm myself, try to insert logical thoughts. That doesn't make any sense, Claire. You're half-dead. Relax. You could eat 5,000 calories a day for months and not get fat. But even rebirth can't cure all your demons.
    If Kylie notices my panic attack, she doesn't let on.
    “This place might not look like much, but it's the,” Kylie makes little quotation marks with her fingers. “'premier center for those suffering from mental, physical, and emotional disorders.' We actually get to order and they bring us our food. Beats standing in a line and getting slop slapped onto a tray. Costs a pretty penny, too.” Kylie puts her menu back and rests her elbows on the table, watching me with wide, curious eyes. Nearby, one of the employees hovers and checks something on his clipboard. “Since you're a 'suspected',” Kylie makes another set of quotation marks. “Anorexic, they're going to make you choose at least 500 calories worth of food.” I startle a bit and give her a wide-eyed look. I want to deny her accusation, swear up and down that I'm not anorexic. Anorexic. Even the word makes me shudder. What a nightmare. Am I that obvious? Do people see me and just know? How long have I looked this way? I glance down at the menu and then back up at Kylie. “Want my opinion?” she asks.
    Kylie doesn't wait for me to respond. Maybe she can see that I can't right now, that I can't move. I'm frozen, stuck halfway between who I was and who I want to become. It's terrifying. I've been counting calories for months now. I can't just stop looking at those massive numbers like they're bad things. On the outside, I tell myself that I'm too thin, that I'm sick. Inside, I still believe that I'm weak, that I'm giving into my body's temper tantrum and submitting to debility. “Well, I'm going to give it to you anyway. My sister was anorexic. She was in and out of this place for years. Anyhow, once they started trusting her and took her off the feeding tube, she ordered the same thing for every meal.” Kylie grabs my menu and slides it out of my frozen fingers. “If you don't make quote – smart – end quote choices, then they'll start making them for you.” Kylie looks up at me and arches a single, golden brow. Impressive. “And you are damn lucky you're not actually in the ED program.” Kylie shakes her head, scans my menu and puts it back.
    She doesn't tell me what she's going to order.
    I put my hands on my thighs and curl my fingers, scraping my brittle nails against the fabric of my jeans. I don't want to know; things are better this way. If I don't know what Kylie's picked out, I can stop obsessing over the calorie counts and the fat until I get the dish, and even then, if it's something complex, I may not even know. Yeah right. Keep telling yourself that, Claire. I start to stress out anyway.
    Sweat begins to bead on my forehead.
    When the waiter or whatever the hell he is comes over, Kylie gives him our order. Two iced teas, unsweetened, two plates of the roasted chicken with the lemon pepper rub, a cup of raw green beans, and mashed potatoes with butter.
    I seriously almost gag on her words, managing just barely to keep the emotion held in check until the man walks away, taking his judgmental eyes and his clipboard along with him.
    “What did you do that for?” I ask her, absolutely terrified at the prospect of mashed fucking potatoes. Logically, somewhere inside of myself, I know how ridiculous I'm being. I realize that mashed potatoes are not the be-all, end-all of life as I know it. However, old habits are hard to break and