Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

pee to the lobby.
    I put the blade back in the box, and the box back in the bag and press my hand against the wet cuts until the credits roll. Just before the lights come up, I stick my fingers in my mouth.
    I taste like dirty quarters.
    After a day lost in a nightmare, the car takes me away from the movie theater, the drugstore, and the motel that grinds up girls into bite-sized pieces. We roll back to the highway and into the hills, climbing up to the McSame houses of Castle Pines, back to the house of my father set in the clouds.
    The three of them are sitting around the dining room table, candles jumping to the harpsichord music drifting from the speakers. The air is damp with dinner—leftover turkey, stinky Brussels sprouts, salad, whole grain rolls, and cheesy potatoes, Emma’s favorite. A family meal to remind us that we are a family. We are not a reality show (yet), or strangers sharing a house and splitting the bills.
    We are not a motel.
    There is an empty place across the table from Emma—plate, paper napkin, stainless-steel fork, knife, spoon. Mom got the good silver when my parents split up.

    It came from Nanna Marrigan, who said that food served with cheap utensils tasted tinny. She was right.
    Daddy looks up, a piece of turkey dangling from his fork. “You’re late, kiddo. Have a seat.”
    “I stayed after to work on a project. Can I eat upstairs? I’m buried with homework.”
    Emma bounces in her chair. “I made the potatoes, Lia. Almost by myself.”
    Jennifer nods. “Please, Lia. It’s been a while since we had a nice dinner.”
    My stomach tightens. There is no room inside of me for this.
    “I used the peeler and a knife.” Emma grins so hard the glass drops hanging from the chandelier shake.
    “Mommy shredded.”
    “That’s awesome.” I pull out my chair and sit. “If you made them, they’ve got to taste good.”
    Dad swallows and winks at me.
    “Can I have the salad?” I ask.
    He passes me the casserole dish filled with gravy and leftover turkey. I have to use both hands to hold it because it weighs more than everything on the table plus the table itself, plus the chandelier and the custom-built cabinet that holds Jennifer’s collection of glass figurines.
    I set the dish next to my plate. The triangle DadEmma-Jennifer locks in on my hand reaching for the fork. I pull out a full-fat slice of baked flesh, gravy-blooded (250), and let it fall on to my plate. Splat.

    I hold out the dish to Jennifer. “Want another piece?”
    She sets it in the middle of the table and steers the conversation back to Emma’s problems with long division.
    Dad doesn’t even try to hide the fact that he’s staring at my plate.
    I take a whole wheat roll (96) out of the basket and two buttery Brussels sprouts (35), even though I hate them. In jenniferland I am An Example and must take at least two bites of everything. I set the roll on the edge of the plate, Brussels sprouts at two and four o’clock, equidistant. I stand up so I can reach the cheesy potatoes and plop a disgusting orange spoonful (70) next to the turkey.
    Just because I dish it out, doesn’t mean I have to swallow it. I am strong enough to do this the potatoes smell so good stay strong, empty empty the potatoes smell strong/
    empty/strong/breathe/pretend/hold on.
    I fill the rest of the space with salad, taking extra mushrooms and leaving the olives in the bowl. Five mushrooms = 20. Eat five magic mushrooms and drink a tall glass of water and they bloom in your belly like fog-colored sponges.
    Strong/empty/strong.
    Jennifer asks Emma what forty-eight divided by eight equals. Emma bites her roll. Dad nods at my full plate and says he’ll quiz Emma after dessert. “Even history profs have to know how to multiply and divide, Emmakins.”
    I spread my napkin in my lap, then cut my turkey into two pieces, then four, then eight, then sixteen white bites. The Brussels sprouts are quartered. I scrape the cheese off a sliver of potato—which