Oh, Dakota

30- Oh Well, Oh Well

“She’s concussed.”

“Well, the doctor said that the concussion isn’t bad at all. So that’s good, right?”

“The concussion is the least of her problems right now.”

“I’m confused.”

“She passed out because she was malnourished, dumbass.”

“What?”

“She wasn’t eating. She was starving herself. She relapsed. Does any of this make sense to you?”

“Getting angry at each other won’t solve anything,” That was a new voice- it wasn’t one of the two others that were arguing. “You both need to be there for Dakota when she wakes up.”

“No, I need to be there for her- he is the one who caused this whole mess.”

“Me? You’re the one that-“

“Shut up,” A fourth voice snapped. I knew that voice though, that was Owen. “You both caused this. I caused this and so did Marnie and Dad. We all did this so just shut up and listen to the doctors, okay? Idiots.”

“I’ve looked at her records and it seems like she doesn’t have a typical case of anorexia. Dakota starves herself, not because she thinks she’s overweight, but because she finds it as a way to punish herself. When do you think this behavior started up again?”

“When her boyfriend cheated on her with her best friend,” One of the arguing voices said. Now that I was regaining more consciousness, I recognized it as Braeden.

“That makes sense, she would have felt not good enough to keep her boyfriend and not eating would have been her form of punishing herself for not being good enough. She has this drive inside of her to please everyone around her. So when she couldn’t please him, she blamed herself.”

“You can just read her mind like that?”

“I’m just reading what’s on the paper.”

“Is she going back to rehab?” Owen asked.

“It depends on her guardian’s opinion,” The guy who I assumed was a doctor sighed.

“So yes,” Owen answered his own question. “He’ll send her back.”

“She’s been to rehab?” Braeden’s voice came back into the conversation.

“It’s none of your business,” Todd supplied harshly, who was the other fighting voice in the room. Since when did those two become so hostile?

“It’s none of your business either,” Owen snapped at his best friend. “And you know what? Neither one of you are allowed to talk to her. She’s getting bad again and it’s because of you two.”

“She’s getting bad?” Braeden echoed and I cringed because I didn’t want him to know about all of this crap. I mean, I remembered that Todd had told him the basics of the issue earlier, but I just didn’t want him to know any more than he already did because he’d think that I was a freak or he’d treat me like a baby that needed taken care of all of the time or he’d just treat me differently because everybody else did. Even Owen treated me differently after everything happened sophomore year and now the same thing was going to happen to Braeden. “What does that even mean?”

“It means that you need to back off.” Owen informed his friend. “Both of you.”

“How bad?” Todd wondered. “Did they say?”

“Bad enough to end up in the hospital,” Owen informed him. “And I want you both gone before she wakes up. I mean, I know that it was my fault too, but I’m going to be here when she wakes up, and you two aren’t.”