“What?” His voice rose. “I’ll tell Mom and Dad. You—”
I cut him off. “You’ll tell Mom and Dad? And what, exactly, are they supposed to do?” His eyes widened. He hadn’t thought this far ahead.
“They’ll get you help,” he said quickly. “You can go into a program. Like last time.”
“Oh,” I nodded slowly. “Like last time? You mean before you bankrupted them with rehab stays you never committed to?”
He looked like I’d struck him. For half a second, I felt a flicker of guilt. But I didn’t stop—because if I did, they would make me stop. And I didn’t want to stop. It was the only control I had left.
“If they couldn’t afford to keep you in rehab,” I continued calmly, “how exactly do you expect them to pay for mine?”
“I…” His voice faltered, trailing off into nothing.
“So not only would you be telling them a lie,” I said, never breaking eye contact, “but you’d be worrying them for no reason. And putting them into even more debt.”
Silence. I watched his face as my words replayed behind his eyes, watched him search for a flaw he couldn’t find. That was thepoint. This time, when I turned away, he didn’t stop me. I walked out of his room and back into mine, Holden’s stunned, fractured expression burned into my mind.
When we were kids, Holden and I used to talk about becoming veterinarians together. We had a deal. He’d fix the dogs. I’d fix the cats. We’d find partners. Get married. Live in houses right next to each other. Be best friends, the way we’d been since the moment we were born. That was our dream. Before real life happened. Before the drugs. Before the food. Before the lies. Before the pain. I used to think Holden and I shared the same dreams. Maybe we just share the same nightmares.
Soon enough, my days stopped being measured by moments—by where I went, who I spoke to, or what those moments were meant to mean. They were measured by something else entirely. How much I ate. And how many of my lies were believed.
Holden was suspicious. He followed me through the house like a shadow, watched my plate while I ate, and redirected my parents’ attention toward me whenever we sat at the table together. But he didn’t tell. Cherry was suspicious too, but she was easier to fool. Of course she was. As well as she knew me, I knew her. I knew how to trick her. I knew how to misdirect her the way a magician distracts an audience. I was the magician. My lies were the smoke. And she was the audience.
I told her how hungry I was. How excited I was to eat a burger. She didn’t see me throw it away. I ate a salad in front of her, and she didn’t realize that was all I ate that day. And eventually, she stopped asking about Holden’s questions. Or maybe she didn’t stop thinking about them. Maybe they still drifted through her mind, occasionally surfacing before she pushed them back down. Maybe she didn’t want to see them. That was fine with me.
And so the days floated by. Not easily. Not gently. They floated the way something does when it’s been dropped into a rapid river—carried forward by force, with jagged rocks breaking the surface beneath. I went to work. I came home. I went to work. I stayed home. Each day was numbered. Each number a quiet confirmation of how much control I still had.
478 calories.
380 calories.
509 calories.
680 calories. That was a bad day. I needed more control.
“Blair, why doesn’t the boy from the porch come around anymore?” my mom asked one night at dinner.I didn’t answer. What could I say?
0 calories. That’s better.
0 calories. Great.
0 calories. Too much control.
“You look sick, Blair,” Greg said to me one night at work, his beady eyes lingering on my midriff. My usually skin-tight shirt was starting to part ways with my body.
145 calories.
231 calories.
111 calories.
“You know you can talk about him, right?” I said to Cherry one day, noticing the careful way she avoided saying Levi’s name. “You can talk about him. I’m not pathetic.”
327 calories.
405 calories.
908 calories. I lost control.
