Late at night, I waited for my mother to fall asleep. This was usually around midnight but sometimes not until 1 or 2 AM. Then I snuck into the kitchen in the dark. I rummaged through the pantry and searched the refrigerator, uneasy when the white light hit my face. I ate as much as I could without it being obvious to my mother—small portions of many things—this was the trick—potato chips, chocolate chip cookies, brick cheese that I cut into cubes, crackers, pretzels, pieces of turkey with mustard. Even when I stopped being hungry, I still wanted more, wanted to feel like something had been enough, so I kept going. I got so full that I couldn’t inhale all the way, that when I went into the bathroom and looked at my reflection in the full-length mirror, my stomach stuck out like I was pregnant. I left the bathroom and climbed into my bed, feeling sluggish. I was disgusted with myself. It was the only way I could fall asleep—if I was thinking, Why can’t you eat like a normal person, what is wrong with you.

*

Since I didn’t eat breakfast, I was always so hungry by noon that all I could think about was what I would buy at the cafeteria. I had a copy of the cafeteria menu in my locker. I ate lunch alone. If I ate with the other girls in my class, they wanted to talk about classes or movies or boys or other girls, and I couldn’t concentrate on my lunch as much as I wanted. While the other girls ate like an afterthought, talking with their mouths full or chewing fast, I tried to eat as slowly and as carefully as possible. I rarely spoke.

I was in the middle of my meal—cheese fries and a Nutter Butter—when I looked up and saw you sitting across from me. You were reading a book. You were a few years ahead of me but I knew about you. Like me, you ate lunch alone all the time. The other girls didn’t like you because you never laughed at their jokes, also because you interrupted their conversations and corrected their grammar or pointed out the holes in their logic. You had light green eyes that seemed bored by everything. When I saw you reading your book across from me I realized that probably you were brilliant and that was why the other girls were so uncomfortable around you. But I had just started eating my fries and they were still warm and I didn’t want them to get cold and I had at least a dozen left to dip into my little plastic container of cheese sauce, so I stopped looking at you.

I was almost finished with the fries when you closed your book and said to me, “That is a terrible lunch.”

During all my wasted meals with those other girls, nobody had ever commented directly on what I was eating.

“So?” I asked.

You shrugged.

I said, “Do you think that’s weird, to eat like that?”

“Weird?” you asked. “No, it’s not weird. Sometimes I get cravings for junk food, and I like eating it every now and then. But I like how I feel when I eat healthy even more.” You gestured to your own lunch, which you had brought in a neat brown paper bag that was folded at the top. You took out each item and showed them to me—a thermos of chicken soup, a bag of grapes, and half a sandwich on whole-wheat bread with cucumbers and sprouts and a slice of Swiss cheese.

“Whatever,” I said. But your lunch actually looked delicious and I found myself wondering what it would taste like, and what I would feel like after I ate it—not nauseous or too full or disgusted, but still satisfied. Like a normal person.

“It’s your prerogative, obviously,” you said, and gave up. You opened your bag of grapes.

But what you said reminded me of my mom’s obsession with whether or not I ate any breakfast, and I wanted to see how you were different than that and how you were the same as that, and if we did the same thing but in a different way, if that would make everything better somehow. I tested you, saying, “I also don’t eat breakfast.”

You chewed your grapes thoughtfully. You said, “Does your stomach hurt when you wake up in the morning?” I nodded, and you asked me if I ate snacks late at night.

“Yes,” I said and I felt like I was falling forward.

*

I purposefully ran into you in the hallway by your locker or after you got out of a class. Sometimes I just wanted to see you, carrying your books pressed against your chest like a girl in an old movie would—you didn’t carry a backpack like everyone else did. I was afraid of talking to you, and seeing you was enough, so I hurried past you. But other times, when I was braver, I really wanted to talk to you about food again, even though you sat at other tables in the cafeteria and read your book and seemed like you didn’t want to be disturbed. So I waited for you to sit next to me again.

Finally, a few weeks later, you sat at my table. I had made the mistake of getting a relatively unremarkable lunch—grilled cheese, tomato soup, and a Coke. I opened the Coke and there was a fizzing sound. I doubted you would say my lunch was “terrible” today. You were dipping your carrots in a Tupperware container of hummus. At least you weren’t reading.

“I hear American cheese is, like, really processed,” I said.

“What?” you asked, looking up at me, startled.

I opened my grilled cheese and showed you the face with the cheese melted over it. “I shouldn’t be eating this, right?”

“No, you shouldn’t be,” you said, uncertain what I was doing.

“What do you think I should eat instead?” I tried again.

“What?”

“You could tell me.” I folded up the grilled cheese and pushed it away from me, like I did with my breakfast, but this time it wasn’t because it was because it made me sick. This time I was still hungry and really wanted to eat it; I thought about the way the bread was crunchy and the cheese was soft, and my mouth watered.

But I didn’t eat it. You stared at the paper plate with the sandwich. You looked like you were making up your mind about something. You nodded your head but it was like you were telling yourself something, not me. “Okay,” you said.

“Okay,” I said.

“Do you have any leftover lunch money?” you asked.

“Two dollars.”

You went with me to the food line in the cafeteria and we looked at our possibilities. You said I should get a blue carton of 2% milk, a peanut butter sandwich, and a banana. You said, “You should probably start bringing your lunch from home. That would be better.”

I said, “My mom doesn’t make me lunch.”

“I’ll teach you how to make lunch yourself.”

I paid for my lunch and we walked together back to our table. You walked faster than usual and you smiled at me. I could have been imagining it but you seemed happier. Maybe me listening to you meant something important. Maybe it proved all those other girls wrong. It was like that for me at least.

*

We started with breakfast—instead of eating breakfast right away in the morning, you said I should wait a few hours and bring a Ziploc bag of dry cereal to snack on throughout the morning, in between classes. That was easy.

Then we did lunch. You gave me tips on packing my own lunch—tomatoes on a sandwich would turn the bread soggy, so I should place them in between pieces of lettuce or cheese; clementines were an especially good fruit to bring, since they were light-weight and so easy to peel.

I started to have more energy during the day. My grades got better. When I got out of school, I took the bus home and looked out the window and closed my eyes in the sunlight, feeling generous and hopeful. It was the change in my diet and it was you.

Then we did dinner. This was trickier to figure out because I didn’t find out what my mom and I were having for dinner until the very last minute, so we had to plan for anything. You came up with a list for me, easy supplements that I could add to almost any original meal. When, later, I suggested them to my mom—“can we microwave some of the frozen green beans tonight?”—she became more passive, almost deferential, like I knew what I was doing. “Should we add some salt and pepper, do you think?” she asked.

Then we did the late night snacks. That was the hardest of all. When I got into bed, sometimes I tossed and turned for hours, trying to fall asleep without feeling full, without my usual guilt. On those nights, it felt like where the disgust used to be, there was just an empty space now. So to fill the empty space, I thought about you instead. I pictured us eating a big snack together, something bad, like Oreos or brownies or cheeseburgers. In my fantasy, we never got too full or felt sick and we were happy and right about everything.

Every once in a while, thinking this way wouldn’t be enough for me, and so I got of bed and went into the kitchen. I was like a criminal. I was silent in the dark. I felt ashamed, more than usual, and I could never eat as much as I used to because I got sad. I felt alone. Those nights, I cried myself to sleep. I lied to you the next day—meeting you by your locker, I said to you, “I was good again, and didn’t eat a snack last night.” I opened my little bag and offered you some of my dry cereal. You took some and smiled at me and touched my shoulder.

*

We started going on walks together during lunch, around the school track. You said the exercise was good. I liked it a lot and I liked how, when we walked, you listened to me, how you let me say whatever I wanted and you never treated me like I was strange. But one day, I talked so much that I accidentally slipped up and mentioned eating a bowl of oatmeal, with chocolate chips melted in, right before bed.

“I thought you stopped doing that,” you said.

“I did stop.” Even though we weren’t walking very fast, I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath. “I mean, I mostly did stop. Sometimes I mess up though.”

“And so you lied?” I had never seen you angry before. Your face was red and you were breathing fast too. I nodded, looking down at my shoes. You continued, “That doesn’t even make sense. Why would you try to get me to tell you what to eat if you were just going to ignore my advice?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Maybe you just liked the idea of this, and not the reality of it.”

“No!” I said. “I like the reality. I do.”

“You do? Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Usually we walked alone, but this afternoon, a group of girls came out to the track, to sit on the grass with their sunglasses and read their magazines. We watched them. They laughed with each other, pushing and poking each other. I liked you so much better than them. I said, “I was lying to you because I am really scared.”

“There’s no reason to be scared. Why are you scared?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “This could go horribly wrong somehow.”

“It won’t,” you said. “I know what I’m doing.”

“Okay,” I said.

*

I wanted to trust you. I wanted to do things for you to prove to you, and to myself, that I trusted you. After our conversation, my resolve was stronger and I didn’t wander into the kitchen any more at night, no matter how hungry I got. I told you that when I was hungry, I felt closer to you. We were eating frozen yogurt together after school. You asked, “So food has turned into something about me?”

“Yes,” I said, embarrassed. I used my plastic spoon to break my yogurt into pieces, searching for a piece of frozen strawberry.

“What else would you do?” You asked it casually, evenly, but your hand was on my knee and your fingers tensed a little.

“I would do a lot,” I said. I swallowed the piece of strawberry. It was hard and scratchy going down my throat.

“You like strawberries?” you asked, noticing.

“They’re one of my favorite fruits.”

“What’s your least favorite fruit?”

I thought about it. “Grapefruit, I guess.”

“Would you eat grapefruit every day with your lunch, for a week?”

“For you?”

“Yes, for me.”

Suddenly my arms and my legs felt cold and bare. I said, “Yes.”

This was the first time anything like that had happened. This was the first time you let me know that what you liked about what we did was about more than just what was good for me.

*

We did other things, more difficult things. We read about fasting on the Internet, about the ways to do it that were less dangerous. Even so, we only did it every great once in a while. I skipped breakfast and lunch, and picked cleverly at my dinner so my mom wouldn’t notice anything was going on. I drank a lot of juice and a lot of water. My record of fasting was four days—until I passed out in gym class during volleyball, and then you said I needed to start eating again.

But I didn’t like how spread out it had to be. When I was eating normally, I daydreamed about the few times we had done it, remembering what it had felt like. I had been light-headed and had seen little circles of black in front of my eyes. My mouth had tasted funny, almost sweet. I had gotten headaches at first but then it had been like a miracle when they stopped, when my stomach no longer growled, when I was just floating, nothing, for you. During those times, at night, I had slept like a baby. It was like you were holding me. I believed in you. I wondered if this was close to what a soldier might have felt, inspired by loyalty to his country to go off to war without hesitation, or what a saint must have felt, devoted to God, willing to suffer.

But since I couldn’t actually skip meals very often, and because we both wanted to do more things like that, secrets we had to keep, things no one else would do with each other, you brainstormed new things for us to do. One time, you had me run around the track until my leg muscles started shaking and then cramped and you had to help me walk to the locker room by putting my arm around your neck. Another time, you brought a big lunch for yourself—leftover pasta from a restaurant, and a salad, and two rolls—and I was only allowed to eat from your plate. For each bite, I had to ask first, reach over with my fork, chew and swallow while you watched.

*

Another time, while everyone else was in the assembly hall for a pep rally, you asked me to follow you into the restroom. You were carrying a small shopping bag with you. You said, “Let’s go in the handicapped stall.”

“Together?” I asked.

“Yes, but be quiet. We have to listen for anyone else coming in.”

It was like my heart stopped beating for a few seconds. Without knowing what was going to happen, I did know I had been waiting for this. We shut the stall door. You opened your bag and pulled out three pieces of chocolate cake wrapped in napkins. The frosting was smudged and it stuck to your fingers. You told me to eat all three pieces.

“Now?” I asked. “All of it?”

“Yes, all of it.”

“What? Why?” I had just eaten lunch and I was pretty full.

“You need to eat it quickly.”

“But—”

“This is the only time I will ever make you do this.” You suddenly looked unsure of yourself, like maybe you had crossed some line.

But I was glad you were crossing lines and I wanted to erase your uncertainty. I said, “Okay.” I took the cake in my hands and started with the first piece. I wished I had water or something to wash it down, and my jaw got tired of chewing, but otherwise, it was okay. But the second piece was gross—heavier, thicker, like brown goo that I just wanted to spit out. I didn’t.

The third piece was making me gag.

Your voice got softer. “I know this is hard,” you said. “But I want you to do this for me. You’re almost done.”

I gagged again, swallowed again. That was the last of it. I swallowed one more time. I exhaled. “I did it,” I said. I was proud of myself, but also confused. I was almost angry at you, but at the same time, I did not want anything more than for you to be with me, doing this to me.

“Wait,” you said. “We’re not done.” With your clean hand, without the frosting on it, you held my hair. You pulled so I was bending over, so my head was right over the toilet. “Open your mouth,” you said. With your other hand, you put your finger in my mouth. You pushed back, reaching the back of my throat. It was the closest you had ever been to me. The smell of chocolate frosting filled my nostrils. You pushed further back.

*

The last thing we ever did together was on a Friday. I invited you over to my house after school. I was fasting again. I had gone three days. The headaches were getting especially powerful. I knew they would go away eventually, but it made it hard to concentrate. I secretly hoped that when you came over, we would break my fast and eat pizza together, like in my earlier fantasies, but I wasn’t sure if you would do that. We took the bus together and once we got to my house, we watched TV in the living room.

My mom came home from work and asked you a lot of questions, obviously suspicious—where do you live, what do your parents do, do you play any sports, what are your hobbies. Underneath these questions I understood what she was really asking—Why do you like my daughter so much?

You answered her questions gracefully, unfazed. She didn’t intimidate you. I was relieved. She offered to cook us dinner, and I quickly said no, we were going to order delivery. My mom said okay and went upstairs to read.

“So we’re going to order delivery?” you asked, your eyebrows raised.

“Maybe we could?”

“I don’t think so,” you said. “You’re fasting. Will you show me what’s in your pantry?”

When you got up from the couch to go into the kitchen, I didn’t follow. You stopped. You looked at my face and asked, “What’s wrong?”

Another headache started, like a black wave, after wave, after wave. I put my head in my hands. “I’m tired,” I said. “I’m tired of being hungry all the time.”

You said, “I thought you liked what we did.”

“I do,” I said. “More than anything I’ve ever done.” I started crying. I didn’t like how much I liked what we did. I didn't like that I needed it. I didn’t like that even though it made me feel bad, or maybe because it made me feel bad, I still wanted to keep doing it—more of it, always more of it. It was like I was chasing after something, and I thought if I just ran faster I could finally catch hold of it. But that Friday I saw that I could never catch hold of it, no matter how fast I ran.

I asked you, “Isn’t there something more than this?”

You just stood there, in-between the living room and the kitchen. You didn’t move. You didn’t say anything. Then I realized, of course there isn’t.