When the plate couldn’t hold another bite, he pushed it back my way. “Dig in.”
I shook my head, fighting back tears.
“You’re telling me this isn’t what you wanted? I tried to help you, sport. Tried to teach you when enough was enough, but no. You wanted to sneak snacks into your room. You wanted to kill yourself with food. So do it.”
I watched him, not moving.
“Need some help?” He grabbed the burger off my plate. His eyes flicked over it appraisingly, as if he was considering taking a bite himself. Then he smashed it against my mouth. “Eat it!”
I had to stop myself from sinking my teeth into his hand, sensing that this time he would retaliate. Taking the sandwich from him, I bit into it, chewed obediently, tears running into the ketchup smeared on my cheeks. It went down like cement.
“Another.”
Acid fountained up my esophagus. The food, too, was inching back up.
“I’m gonna throw up.”
Hank thrust an empty bowl into my hands. I turned away from the table and heaved, splattering the bowl with meaty beige slop.
At some point Hank had gotten up; he was behind me. “Good boy,” he said, massaging my shoulders. “Get it all out.”
I hurled until I thought I had nothing left.
He took the bowl. “Come on. Let’s get you out of here.” He spoke so kindly I relaxed, thinking it was over. Maybe he felt guilty for pushing me that far. I rose from my seat and he guided me from the kitchen, steering me down the hall.
But upstairs was the other direction. Remembering the cupcake incident, I pulled back.
He grabbed me and shoved me against the wall. My head slammed with a crack of glass. Mom’s picture of a white-hatted chef fell and smashed against the floor.
I went lightheaded. The hallway spun. My knees wobbled and I dipped toward the floor, but Hank caught me.
Next I knew, he was half dragging, half carrying me past the office and the open door to the bathroom. Dimly I registered another door opening, lights flickering on. A big step, and the air around us turned thick, infernal. Hank’s workout equipment pitched and swayed as he lugged me through the room.
What were we doing in the garage?
He tossed me down onto one of the machines. It had a slanted, upright seat, two horizontal handgrips winking in and out of focus. The chest press.
Hank was coming toward me. Triggered by the length of rope in his hand, I lurched forward. He forced me back and looped the rope around my midsection, binding me to the seat.
“What are you doing? Let me go.” I fought, but was too sluggish and weak to break my restraints. He disappeared back into the house and reappeared a moment later holding the bowl.
“What are you doing with tha—?”
I gagged. His fingers probed my throat, scratching me as they dug around my uvula.
I bent forward, hurling into the bowl.
He pushed my head back against the seat and shoved his fingers in again. Vomit sprayed past them, and he thrust the bowlforward to catch it. Wet on wet, the bowl filling up. My eyes and nostrils streamed, bile bitter on my tongue.
“Why are you doing this?” I sobbed. He finished cleaning his hand with a sweat rag and shoved it into my mouth, stifling my cries for help.
Next, Hank was rooting through a storage unit. The steely grin of a circular saw caught my eye and supercharged my panic. But no: not that. Hank extracted an oil funnel from a drawer, plastic and wide-mouthed, with a long accordion-style spout. Before I understood what was happening, he was fishing the rag out of my mouth and shoving the end of the spout down my neck like a feeding tube.
Desperate, pleading noises escaped me as the bowl eclipsed the lights above. Hank hawked back and spat into it—then looked me dead in the eye.
“Got room for a little more, sport?”
He tipped the bowl over the funnel. I screamed, “Unh! Unh! Unh!”
