“Good,” she whispered.
She was still clinging to his hand when she fell back to sleep.
Chapter Eight
The next time Annie woke up, there was a woman she didn’t recognize sitting beside her bed. The white lab coat over her street clothes probably meant she was a doctor. Though her smile was friendly, the somber expression in her eyes made Annie nervous. She had a feeling she didn’t want to hear whatever this woman had to say. And whenever she got scared, she used belligerence to cover her fear. Annie tried her best to stare the woman down, but she only stared back.
“Where’s my dad?” Annie finally demanded, her voice laced with suspicion, as if this woman were somehow responsible for his absence. “He was here a minute ago.” Annie had no idea if that was true. Given the way time was slipping by without her being aware of it, he could have left hours earlier.
“I don’t know where your dad is right now,” the woman claimed, her tone perfectly—and annoyingly—calm. “He wasn’t here when I arrived.”
Annie studied her with increased suspicion. “Who are you and why are you in my room?”
“I’m Dr. McDaniels. I’m going to be working with you for a while.”
Alarm bells went off in Annie’s head. “Working with me how? Like in physical therapy or something?”
This time the woman’s smile reached all the way to her eyes. “Afraid not. I’m a psychologist. We’re going to try to work on this eating disorder of yours.”
“You’re a shrink!” Annie said, horrified. The last thing she wanted was somebody poking around in her head, as if she was crazy. “I don’t think so.”
“I could show you my certification,” the woman said, as if proof was what Annie was after.
“Not interested,” she said stubbornly. “I don’t need a shrink. There’s nothing wrong with me. I certainly don’t have an eating disorder.”
“Really? Then why are you in the hospital?”
Annie realized she didn’t know all the details about why she’d ended up here. Probably her mom and her friends had just freaked over something silly. “I got sick. No big deal,” she claimed with sheer bravado. “I’ll probably be out of here today.”
“I doubt that,” Dr. McDaniels responded. “I’d say a week to ten days if you work really, really hard.”
Annie panicked at her certainty. “I’m telling you it’s no big deal,” she insisted. “I feel fine. I could probably run a marathon this afternoon if I wanted to.”
The doctor leaned forward and looked her in the eye. “Really? You think so?”
“Sure,” Annie said. “My mom probably overreacted the other night. She does that a lot.”
“Not this time,” Dr. McDaniels said gently. “You’ve met Dr. Lane, right?”
Annie nodded.
“And you know he’s a cardiologist?”
He’d probably said so, but it hadn’t registered. “That’s a heart doctor,” Annie said slowly. “Why would I need a heart doctor?”
“Because not eating can take a serious toll on your heart. That’s what happened to you. You developed an arrhythmia—that’s an erratic and too-fast heartbeat. Do you remember that?”
Annie swallowed hard. “I guess,” she admitted. “But I feel okay now.”
“Because the staff here has been working to get all of your electrolytes back into balance and to start boosting your nutrition levels. We can only do so much, though. The really hard work is up to you. Otherwise, next time, you might not be so lucky.”
Annie started to tremble at the unspoken implication. Before she could control it, tears were welling up in her eyes and rolling down her cheeks. “You’re just saying that to scare me,” she protested. “My mom put you up to it, ’cause she doesn’t like it that I’m losing weight and she’s not.”
“Annie, I’m not saying any of this to upset you. And your mom didn’t put me up to anything. I just want you to understand that this is very, very serious, but we can fix it. If you want, I can bring Dr. Lane in here to explain exactly what happened to your heart the other night and why,” Dr. McDaniels offered. “He can talk to you about how weak your heart is, what a disaster your potassium and other levels are. Or you can take my word for it that I would never lie about something this important.”
Annie let her head drop back on the pillow and closed her eyes. It all made an awful kind of sense. Nothing less than a heart attack would have gotten her mom to call her dad—that was more telling than anything else. Annie was pretty sure he wouldn’t have raced back home if she’d just fainted or something. But it was crazy. Kids didn’t have heart attacks.
She felt a cool touch on her hand and looked up into Dr. McDaniels’s sympathetic gaze. “Pretty scary, huh? I imagine you never thought that what you were doing could have this kind of consequence.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Annie protested again, but now there was less conviction in her voice.
“We’ll talk about that next time I come by,” Dr. McDaniels told her. “For now, I want you to be open-minded when Lacy Reynolds gets here. Work with her, okay? She has your best interests at heart.”
“Who’s she?”
“She’s the nutritionist who’s going to help make you well again. She’ll regulate your food intake and teach you about nutrition.”
“My mom owns a restaurant. She knows all about food.”
“I’m familiar with Sullivan’s,” Dr. McDaniels said. “It’s got a great menu. Too bad you haven’t been eating what your mom serves there.”
“Who says I haven’t?” Annie said belligerently.
“The scales don’t lie,” the doctor replied gently. “And the fact that you’re here is pretty telling, too.”
Annie studied Dr. McDaniels for a minute. She didn’t seem like the kind of person who’d be cruel or make too big a deal about something. In fact, she looked more sad than mean, as if she felt bad that Annie was here, and really wanted to help. Annie wasn’t ready to trust her yet,
