What was Mel doing there? Why did she care? She had already left me when I was beginning to fall apart.

I need you to come out, the paper read as it came back to me.

I don’t want to, I wrote back.

I know. But we’re all scared, and we all care about you.

Then why did you leave? I wrote back. There was a long pause. I could feel pressure hit my side of the door. I could only assume that she sat against the door, too.

It’s complicated, The note came back.

I got time, I wrote back.

This isn’t why I’m here.

Before I could write anything, I realized that she didn’t send the pen back. But I heard another page rip followed by more scribbling. It took a few minutes before she sent it. I picked it up and read it.

Adrian, I’m sorry I hurt you. I really, really am. But I still care about you. I still want you in my life. I want you to be close. I know what happened. I know that you purge. I know that you feel awful that you have so much excess skin. But you have to know that you’re still you. You’re not everything on the surface. You’re what’s on the inside. I know, the inside is filled with pain, filled with so much sorrow, but you can rise above it. I believe in you. Donny believes in you. Scarlett believes in you. Ryan does, too. Sometimes you need to hit a low before you can aim high, and Adrian, I got you. We all have our faults, but that doesn’t mean you’re hopeless, it means you’re human.

I’m human. When I read that, my heartbeat brought me back to reality. She was right. I was allowed to love myself through the faults. It was something to work on. I got to my feet and looked at myself in the mirror. All I could see was skin, but beneath that skin was so much more. It’s not easy to find confidence — sometimes it’s something you need to build. As much as it took me to change myself on the outside, I knew in that moment I would have to use that same amount of energy to help fix what was on the inside. I grabbed the door handle and twisted it slowly. There she was. Mel stood in front of me. I still had tears rolling down my cheeks, and we stared at each other for a moment, then like a sudden rush, we embraced each other with open arms. I held on to her, and she held right back. I lacked so much energy that she was almost holding me upright.

“I’m so sorry,” I cried.

Behind her I could see three nurses all standing around the corner.

“He’s finally out,” one of them said, followed by a sigh of relief from all of them.

“You really know how to make a scene,” Mel told me as she let go and helped me gain my balance. She looked really concerned. “Dude, you can barely stand —”