Wintergirls

Lia approaches the motel registration desk. The man behind the desk asks Lia if she wants a room. Lia notes that this is not the same voice as the man on the answering machine. Lia tells him no and the man asks, “‘Come to see where she died?’” (56). Lia nods. The man says she can see the room for 10 dollars, but agrees to five dollars. The man calls to someone named Elijah, and another man, this one a few years older than Lia, emerges from the bathroom. Lia recognizes Elijah’s voice from the answering machine. Elijah leads Lia to room 113. Elijah asks Lia for her name, and Lia lies and tells him her name is Emma. Lia asks Elijah if he was there on the night Cassie died. Elijah explains that he lives in room 115, but he was out that night. Elijah was at a bar down the road, and then at a friend’s place playing poker, giving him a clear alibi. Elijah explains that when he returned to the motel later that night, the door to room 113 was open and the lights were on. Elijah found Cassie’s dead body and called 911.

Lia decides she doesn’t want to see any more of the motel room or hear any more of Elijah’s story. Lia heads out to her car. Elijah chases her out, and asks if she knows a girl named Lia, suggesting that maybe they go to the same school. Lia insists she doesn’t know anyone by that name.

Lia goes to the movies and hides in a seat in the back of the theater. A children’s anime movie is showing. Lia takes out a bag from the drugstore and removes razor blades she purchased earlier. Lia reveals that before she moved in with her father and Jennifer, she self-harmed frequently, remembering, “my whole body was my canvas” (61). When Lia moved in with her father, he made a rule: “No cutting, Lia Marrigan Overbrook. Not under Daddy’s roof. Bottom line. Deal breaker” (61). Lia unzips her pants and cuts herself with the razor on her hip, underneath the elastic of her underpants, where the cuts will be hidden.

Lia leaves the movie theater and drives back home. When Lia gets home, her father, Jennifer, and Emma are sitting around the table eating Thanksgiving leftovers for dinner. Lia notices a fourth place setting at the table for her. Lia asks if she can eat dinner in her bedroom, claiming to have a lot of homework, but Lia’s father and Jennifer insist Lia sit down. Emma proudly exclaims that she helped make the potatoes. Lia can tell the others are watching her, so she fills her plate with food. Lia cuts the food into small pieces and moves it around her plate, thinking, “When I first moved in, this would have been called ‘disordered behavior’ […] Now it falls under the category of ‘battles not worth fighting, because at least she’s sitting at the table eating with us, and her weight hasn’t dropped into dangerland’” (65). Lia starts to take small bites. Lia copes with eating by feeling her cuts as she describes, “I drop my left hand to my lap, under the napkin, under my waistband, and find the three scabby lines, drawn straight and true. With every bite I press my fingers into the cuts” (65). Lia counts every bite while she chews, and Jennifer accidentally spills a glass of milk just as the phone starts to ring. Lia’s dad says to let the phone go to voicemail and offers to clean up the mess. Jennifer insists on answering the phone and leaves the room to answer it. When Jennifer returns, she says it is Lia’s mother, Chloe, on the phone. Lia reveals that her father was involved with many different women while her parents were together, one of the many factors that led to her parents’ divorce. Lia’s dad takes the phone. Lia overhears him tell Chloe that Lia is eating dinner and is doing fine after hearing about Cassie’s death.

Chloe, Lia’s mom, shows up at the house half an hour later. Lia hasn’t seen her mother since the day she moved out on August 31, Lia’s 18th birthday. Chloe sits at the table and says she just left a difficult surgery, and she is unsure if the patient will make it. Lia collects plates and takes them into the kitchen, but Lia’s father calls her back into the room. Lia’s dad says they need to talk, but Lia knows, “Talk = yell + scold + argue + demand” (70). Lia’s mother doesn’t believe Lia is fine after hearing the news of Cassie’s death.

Lia thinks back to her trip to the motel, and wonders if she should have asked Elijah more questions, then wonders if she can really trust Elijah to tell the truth. Finally, Lia wonders if Elijah was really even there or a product of a blackout dream in bed, though she admits it would be doubtful. Lia tells her parents she wants to go to Cassie’s wake, but her parents refuse, saying it would trigger her. Lia’s mom tells Lia she wants Lia to start seeing her therapist, Dr. Parker, more frequently. Lia responds, “It’s a waste of time and money […] Dr. Parker is dragging out my therapy so she can keep getting paid” (73). Lia’s mother accuses Lia’s father of not supporting Lia through her recovery. Lia’s mother says she wants Lia to move back in with her until Lia’s high school graduation. Lia’s parents begin to fight.

Lia goes upstairs. Hearing Lia come upstairs, Emma asks Lia to watch a movie with her. Lia changes into pajamas, and Lia and Emma snuggle under Emma’s blanket and watch the movie. Lia notices, “Dr. Marrigan leaves an hour later, without bothering to come up and say good night or notice that I haven’t unpacked most of my boxes or see what a good almost-sister I can be” (75). Lia and Emma both fall asleep in Lia’s bed.

The next morning, Emma wakes up Lia, who spent the night sleeping in Emma’s bed. It is Wednesday, the day of Cassie’s wake, which will take place in the evening, after school. Lia goes to school. Toward the end of the school day, Lia is called to go see the counselor, Ms. Rostoff, in the conference room. When Lia arrives, she also sees most of the girls’ soccer team and the cast and crew of the school musical, all friends of Cassie’s from her extracurriculars. While they wait for everyone to arrive, Lia compares herself to the others, noticing she’s the smallest in the room, weight-wise. Once everyone arrives, a student asks if they can have a moment of silence for Cassie. Ms. Rostoff agrees. After the moment of silence, Ms. Rostoff says they are there to discuss Cassie. Ms. Rostoff says they will “not talk about how Cassie died, or why, or where, or who in this room could have done something to stop her or at least slow her down. We’re here to celebrate her life” (79). There will be an obituary in the school newspaper and memorial page in the yearbook. The soccer team says they will dedicate the rest of the season to Cassie, and the theater students will take a moment before the musical begins to honor Cassie. One student, Mira, asks Lia what she thinks, since she and Cassie were best friends. Lia diverts the attention away from herself by suggesting Ms. Rostoff talk to Cassie’s parents. At the end of the discussion, the soccer club and the theater students all say they will be going to the wake that evening.

At home, Lia tells Jennifer she is going to study at the library. Lia knows she’ll probably get in trouble for the lie later but takes advantage of Jennifer’s preoccupation with Emma. Lia parks her car at the library and walks the two blocks to the church so she can attend the wake.

Lia remembers a time when she was staying at the hospital for her eating disorder. Lia remembers a therapist asking her to draw a life-size version of herself on a long roll of paper. Lia wanted to draw an oversized version of herself, but she knew it wasn’t what he wanted to see. Instead, Lia drew “a blobby version of me, a fraction of my real size, fingers and toes accounted for, stones in my belly, cute earrings, ponytail” (82). Afterward, the therapist traced Lia’s actual body and taped both drawings to the wall. The therapist asked Lia what differences she saw. Lia remembers that she knew what he wanted to hear, and says that no one really wants to deal with her mental illness—they just want to hear that she’s recovering. Lia told the therapist, “The picture I drew is bloated and unrealistic. I guess I have to work on my self-perception a little more” (83). The therapist smiled and Lia realized, “I started to worry that the people in charge couldn’t see, either” (83). Lia passes a flower shop and a dance studio she attended as a child and continues walking to the wake.