As fast as he’d lost the weight, it seemed to pile back on at twice the speed. Emmett should’ve been more concerned that the police were narrowing in on a murder charge—especially now that the gym bro’s remains had been identified by his dental records as those of missing Point Loma man Marco Jiménez—but it hardly registered against the horror taking place in Emmett’s weight-tracking app. Every morning he st epped onto the scale and anguished. Two, three, four pounds heavier than he’d been the previous day. A cancer-like growth: merciless, inexorable. He bristled, guilty and oversensitive. He felt like his weight gain was hyper- visible and everyone was judging him for it, even strangers who had never known him thin. Though he was still small compared to how he’d started, the number on the scale didn’t actually matter: seeing it move in the wrong direction, even by a pound, tortured his mind with shame and insecurity. Every bite of food he put into his mouth was ripe for judgment and scorn. Mirrors exaggerated his most despised bodily features and whispered that everyone noticed. He had to start losing again, but without Obexity he had only diet and exercise. Jumping back on the d eprivation hamster wheel barely reduced his gain. It defied mathematical logic. Each pound gained equated to 3,500 surplus calories—that’s what he’d always been taught. But if that was true, how could he have put on two and a half pounds overnight when he was only consuming a thousand calories per day and practically killed himself doing it? A few days of this and he burned out hard, tumbling headlong into an hours- long food binge that pushed him back up to 205 pounds, the upper end of the overweight category. A few weeks off the drug and he was nearly obese again. That’s what happens when you take the easy way out, sport. When you pave your ascent with grease and fat. One wrong st ep, and it’s a slippery slope back to rock bottom. He feared things were beginning to unravel, in and out of work. The education manager job that had seemed like a dream was quickly becoming a nightmare. From day one he’d had challenges with his team, namely a hotheaded coordinator named Ysella, bitter about having once again been passed over for the job, and a contingent of part-time educators and tour guides who supported her. After being burned by the previous manager, the team was mistrustful of Emmett’s sudden hiring and set to work digging up dirt. By the end of his first week, everyone seemed to know that Emmett and Aaron were an item. He soon learned from Ry, a butch front-desk associate he was friendly with, that printouts were circulating of Emmett’s Instagram posts, on which a private account named wolfeboy3 had left romantically suggestive comments. “I mean, I’m no expert in male anatomy,” Ry said, microwaving her lunch in the staff kitchen, “but five eggplant emojis seems abnormal.” Emmett was tempted to add that when it came to sex with Aaron, even one eggplant would’ve been generous.
Aaron had barely touched him since the bathroom incident. When Emmett finally got around to broaching the subject, Aaron accused him of making too big a deal of his reaction, which he claimed was both minor and totally justified. “If you found out I was lying to you for weeks—” “How was I lying?” Emmett shot back. “Oh, come on. You’re telling me you haven’t been hiding your skin under that man Spanx thing?” “What did you think it was for? Like, of course I’m going to have loose skin after that kind of weight loss.” “I thought you were just using it to tighten up, I don’t know.” “Didn’t really care, I guess. As long as you got off on your weird little—” “My little what?” Aaron spat. Emmett wouldn’t lower himself to insulting Aaron’s kink. It was Emmett who was the problem, his body. “Forget it.” He wasn’t sure how much longer the relationship, or realistically the job, would last. If Aaron didn’t fire him, the leadership might. They weren’t happy to learn that he and Aaron were dating but seemed far more disturbed by his sudden weight gain, judging by how they k ept expressing “concern” for his “health.” (“This is a big job,” Aaron’s boss had said, cornering Emmett at the vending machine. “Are you sure you’re up to it? If there’s anything you want to tell us, we’re here to talk.”) The hourly staff didn’t even feign compassion; every time Emmett left his desk, whispers and laughter followed in his wake. That, he could handle. Emmett was used to being judged and ridiculed. What was new was having someone else’s r eputation to think about. The pettiness seemed to get to Aaron. He said nothing was wrong, but he’d been distant for weeks, and the few times they’d met up outside work, things between them were stilted and affectionless, the sex transactional and cold. Emmett turned to his followers to fill the void, r eposting old photos and videos. Engagement dwindled, and people complained about the lack of new content. His coaching business had all but dried up. Reluctantly he returned to the gym, dragging Lizette back with him to film a reel of him running full-out on the treadmill, the worst of his returning flab smothered in an oversize hoodie. His caption read: You can’t run from your problems but you can run toward a better you. Even the kindest comments were brutal. ericfitla We all slip up. Good to see you haven’t GIVEN up. You got this! heatherette478 What happened you were doing so well jackattack7 Whoops, looks like you might’ve had one too many burritos there, burrito connoisseur Whatever. All big accounts had haters. It was the tax they paid on all that love. Still, Emmett rewrote his bio to remove all mention of burritos. He continued to post, garnering still fewer likes and more disappointment and anger than he’d thought possible. A feud broke out in the comments after a troll called him a “fat loser,” with one of his regulars jumping in to defend him. Don’t call him fat, that’s very rude you should say overweight or plus-size, with his strict diet and exercise regimen he’ll lose the weight again just give him a chance. This prompting additional followers to pile on her about perpetuating “fatphobic language.” One person referred to “plus-size” as a slur.
Emmett crawled into bed, exhausted and d epressed and just wanting to stream movies and binge pizza. But without Obexity he’d just make things worse. He needed to get back on the drug. But how? It was available only through the trial, and he wouldn’t receive doses from Halleck for weeks. By that point he might have gained another fifty pounds. They would know he’d fucked up, maybe even r eport him for suspected drug trafficking. The last thing he needed was to get himself onto the police d epartment’s radar. Even worse: another fifty pounds and he’d be not just obese, but severely obese. A few months after that, and it would be like Emmett had never been on Obexity at all. Trapped once again in the body he thought he’d left behind, like a man released from prison only to be thrown in jail. Another very real possibility, though that didn’t scare him half as much. Not for the first time, it struck Emmett how much more time and energy he spent agonizing over the fluctuations of his weight than the fact that he had killed someone—probably a few people. It wasn’t that he thought it was okay; he just kind of k ept forgetting he’d done it. The murders didn’t consume his thoughts the way his body did. Lizette suggested that because he’d committed those crimes while blacked out, they didn’t feel real in the same way, almost like they belonged to someone else. That made sense. But then, what did it say about him that he’d barely mourned the victims beyond we eping over interviews with their loved ones and the grief-stricken messages that flooded their social media accounts? What did it say about him that, over the course of a day, he despaired more for the loss of his thin body than these people’s actual lives? He went around saying fat people should be treated with humanity, but where was his when it counted? And who was to blame for its absence? After all, Emmett didn’t want to obsess about his body. He had never asked for this life. Bella cried at the foot of the bed, her eyes communicating an urgent need to pee. Emmett sighed. “Come on.” A few moments later he was down on the street, scrolling through Instagram as Bella and Tubbs drenched a lamppost, when he noticed a new comment on his recent post. gatorfckr321 He should try taking the dick out of his mouth for a minute and sticking his fingers down his throat instead He didn’t read the words so much as feel them, a sense memory torn from the recesses of his fear. Digits probing de ep in his mouth. His body spasming as he gagged. Hank’s hateful chirp. That’s what happens when you don’t listen, sport. Emmett couldn’t breathe. A car horn blared. His eyes snapped up. The dogs were sprinting across four lanes of traffic, connected by their double-headed leash. He had dropped it. “Bella! Tubbs!” The dogs cowered away from a braking truck. Bella screamed, rolled sideways, and landed on her feet. They ran on, yanking each other to and fro, and leapt over the opposite curb. Emmett took off after them, dodging traffic and honking vehicles. The handgrip of the leash whipped around a corner.
He pursued them into the parking lot of the single-story commercial building across from his apartment. Bella and Tubbs were going crazy, barking at something in the bushes. Emmett grabbed the leash, wrenching them back from what he assumed was a raccoon. Then he saw it. The gray-brown fur, the sneer of short, sharp teeth, the animal’s head turned down in a vicious growl. Its ears were flared and bat-like. The fur around its mouth was matted with blood, its eyes a barbarous ice blue. With a jolt of fear, Emmett jerked on the leash, but it only heightened the dogs’ instinct to attack. They pulled taut, barking savagely at the coyote even though it was more than twice their size, the biggest one he’d ever seen. It tensed, threatening to strike. Emmett grabbed a broken crumble of parking bumper and hurled it, spooking the animal. It bolted, sending Tubbs and Bella attempting to chase after it. Emmett ripped them back, shouting, “Let’s go!” He finally managed to wrangle them back across the street, inside the building, and up to the apartment. The moment they were off leash they ran to their water dish, drinking like they’d just returned from a days-long voyage. Emmett felt faint. He crossed the room and opened the slider, only partly to let in some air. The breeze was sultry, a caress of warm salt. Nevertheless a chill ran up his spine, as cold as the ice-blue eyes of the coyote watching him from across the street. Appendix U—Blog Post The One with the De ep Dark Secret By: Emmett Truesdale Published: Jan. 12, 2019 I feel like a liar. Over the last year of writing this blog, I’ve let you in on my lifelong weight struggles, my relationship with food, even my h CG blunder in college, but there’s one subject I’ve been circling for months. Years, really. I don’t like to talk or even think about it, but what happened over the course of those few days—what my st epdad did—isn’t just an event from my past. It’s a part of who I am. I’m not saying every fat person has a story like this, or needs one to warrant compassion and understanding. I know some people reading this will be disappointed, even angry, with me for talking about it now. They’ll say I’m perpetuating a narrative of “fat trauma.” Those advocates, the ones who campaign for fat acc eptance, will want me to say it’s not who I am but something that happened to me. They’ll want me to make that part of me smaller. Everyone always wants me to be smaller. I guess that’s a pretty good place to start. In October 2006, I was eleven years old, a sixth-grader at Meadowbrook Middle School. I didn’t have many friends. I played baritone in the school band and had an unhealthy obsession with Pokémon. I was fat. Kids bullied me and adults said they were sorry about it.
Mom and I still lived with my st epdad, Hank. My older sister Abby was in her second year at UC Santa Barbara and rarely visited. I understood. Life at home was turbulent. Mom and Hank were always fighting. Mostly I approved, hoping that meant they would soon get divorced. Hank was spending a lot of time around the house. He was looking for work after losing his job. Mom told me there’d been a big scandal at his work, something about unauthorized testing, and he had taken the fall. This meant he had all the time in the world to fixate on my eating. Ever since the cupcake incident, he’d been picking on me even more than usual, threatening to put locks on the pantry door, on my jaw. Mom announced one night that she was going away to visit Abby for Parents & Family Weekend, leaving Hank and me at home. “Good,” Hank said. “Some quality time for me and the boy.” Mom avoided my eyes as they screamed their silent entreaty, but I was pretty sure she heard me loud and clear. She d eparted after work a couple of weeks later. Four nights away, back Sunday. I watched her Volvo back out of the driveway, my stomach already itching for reassurance. She’d left money for pizza, but Hank had other plans. “Forget the pizza, sport. While your mom’s outta town, you and me are gonna go on a little diet. How does that sound?” I swallowed my resentment, refusing to give him the satisfaction. “Fine.” “It’s time you developed some healthier habits. Finished your homework yet?” “Yes.” “Then go take a jog around the block. Ten laps. I’ll have dinner ready when you’re done.” I wished Mom were still there. She would’ve set Hank straight. Are you crazy, it’s almost dark, she would’ve said, although the neighborhood was perfectly safe. He got plenty of exercise in PE, even if I hadn’t. She would have said something, and that would have been enough. Without her, I had no choice. I grabbed my cross-trainers and my i Pod Shuffle and jogged. It was so embarrassing. Half a lap in I was sweating, wheezing, my face hot with the blood rushing to it. The neighbors’ heads turned to stare as they drove past in their cars. I finished four laps, took a ten-minute break, and did one more at full effort before returning to the house. Hank was cooking at the stove. A pan sizzled, the air greasy with the aroma of Spam. I announced myself with a “Done.” If he knew I was lying, he didn’t show it. “Great job, sport. Get changed and wash up. Dinner will be ready in a minute.” A dark gleam of excitement shone in his eyes. By the time I returned to the kitchen, he was already seated at the table, a plate of Spam and rice steaming before him. “Sit down. Your dinner’s getting warm.” In front of my chair was a glass of water. “Don’t worry,” he said, spotting my expression. “I’m not gonna starve you. Drink that and then you can have your dinner.” Hank’s oldest weight loss hack. How could I forget? I picked up the glass and chugged. The water went down easy, refreshing after my run. Still I was vigilant, ke eping my eyes on Hank. I lowered the glass. “Your dinner’s on the counter.”
I rounded the kitchen island to find a small bowl of salad sitting there: garden mix out of a bag, plus a few chunks of tomato, tossed in apple cider vinegar. I looked back at him as he shook Tabasco over a steaming mound of white rice. “Problem, sport?” It was so unfair I could’ve cried. I wanted to call Mom, or better yet, dump the salad into the trash and go to bed without dinner. Show him I didn’t need it, that I was as strong as he was. But I wasn’t. Not after all those hours since lunch. Not after all that running. Maybe not ever. And he knew it. I took the salad to the table, wolfed it down in moments. “Still hungry?” he said as I chased the last shred of red cabbage around the bowl. I shrugged, refusing to admit it. “Then go to bed. Let your body eat away at you.” “You’re just gonna starve me?” Hank’s smile twitched into an angry sneer. “There’s a difference between hunger and starvation, something your mom never taught you. But you’ll learn quick enough.” Furious and on the edge of tears, I pushed back and tore out of my chair — “Put your bowl in the dishwasher, you lazy pig,” Hank spat. I froze, shocked, as if he’d grabbed me by the collar and shaken me. “Then you can go straight to your room. And stay there.” He wasn’t asking. He didn’t need to. When I awoke the next morning, hunger burned a hole in my stomach. I wanted to race downstairs, but I forced myself to shower, dress, brush my teeth. Do everything as normal. I was still determined to prove I was stronger than Hank thought. He was reading the Union-Tribune at the kitchen table when I came in. My eyes devoured the meal set before him: half a dozen pancakes drenched in buckets of maple syrup, fluffy scrambled eggs, bacon and sausage, crispy hash browns, buttered toast. Glancing around, I found no second place setting, no leftovers, the dirty pans and bowls already piled in the sink. My heart throbbed with pain and anger. Effing dickhead, I thought. I snatched open the pantry to grab some Frosted Flakes. “Nope,” he said, eyes still trained on the sports section. “That should do you till lunch.” Turning, I saw the glass of water across the table. Fury coursed through me. I refused to sit, to dignify this “diet” with my cooperation. This was straight-up abuse. I grabbed the water off the table, took a couple of sips, and thunked it back down, splashing the table. “If you’re done, put it in the sink,” he said as I turned to leave. I pretended not to hear him, snatching my backpack and heading for the door. It slammed shut behind me, and my feet carried me quickly toward the bus. He couldn’t stop me from eating at school. He was all the way at home, and I had the money Mom had given me for pizza.
Come lunchtime, I ordered well. A meatball sub, fries, Grandma’s chocolate chip cookies, and a Coke. It felt like a victory. It tasted even better —the most delicious meal I’d ever had. Hank once said missing a meal makes your taste buds more sensitive to flavor. I bristled, resenting that he might have been right about something. Dinner was another salad. I wanted to scream. But still I sat across from him and ate. The cordless phone on the wall bleated. Hank rose, lowering his bacon cheeseburger to his plate. Closer, I got there first. “Hello?” “Hi, honey.” It was Mom. Relief flooded through me. “Hold on.” I ran out of the kitchen and upstairs with the phone before Hank could wrest it from me. He watched me from the bottom of the stairs, his features flushed and spasmodic. “Mom, you have to come back,” I said, locking myself in my bedroom. “Hank, he’s put me on this diet. He’s making me eat salad and drink water —” “Are you crying, honey?” “Mom, listen!” But I was out of breath. I couldn’t convey the gravity of the situation in a few broken words. “He’s being—so mean—” “Put him on the phone.” “Can you just come home?” “I can’t, I’m with your sister. She says hi and that she misses you very much. Abby, say hi, it’s your brother.” “Mom, are you listening?” A sigh, more guilty than impatient. “If you’re hungry after dinner, just wait till he falls asle ep and grab something from the pantry.” Next to I’m leaving now, it was the best thing she could’ve said. I’d already been thinking it, and now I had permission. “I’ll call again tomorrow, okay?” “Please don’t leave again, okay? I need you here. I love you.” “Love you too, honey,” she said, sounding surprised. “With all my heart.” It filled me up, honeyed and rich. But that’s the thing about love like Mom’s: an hour later and you’re hungry again. My stomach yowled as I lay in bed that night. I hadn’t even gotten to eat the salad. By the time I returned to the kitchen, Hank had thrown it out, my punishment for running off with the phone. I eyed the clock on my bedside table, bemoaning the hour. Still four hours until three o’clock, the time I’d arbitrarily decided would be safe, Hank surely asle ep by then. I barely made it to midnight before deciding it was late enough. I cr ept down the hall as quietly as possible. The high-pile carpet muffled my footst eps, allowing me to pass Hank and Mom’s bedroom in total silence. I couldn’t hear him inside, but that didn’t surprise me; Mom was usually the one who snored. I padded downstairs, getting sloppy as I neared the bottom. My bare feet met the cold tile with a slap. Avoiding the path to the kitchen that required me to open a door, I walked around to the side that faced the family room and paused in front of the pantry. My imagination was already carbo-loading with visions of bagels and breakfast cereal and honey mustard pretzels. My hand twisted the handle and inched open the door, pausing as it creak-eak-eaked.
A voice spoke from the darkness of the family room. “Whatcha doin’, sport?” A cold knife of fear stabbed through me. “Nothing,” I blurted out, stumbling back from the pantry. Hank sat in the recliner facing in the opposite direction, the crown of his blond head just visible above the headrest. “I don’t think you wanna do that.” My gaze fell on the hand slung over the armrest, the loose fist dangling a clutch of rope. Why did he have that? What was he planning to do with it? My feet were already moving beneath me, carrying me back out of the kitchen. Without a word, I raced upstairs to my room, locked the door, and pulled the covers up over my head. Shaking, but no longer thinking of food. During lunch period the following day, I went into the front office and asked if I could use the phone to call my mom. “Everything okay?” the school secretary said. “I just need to talk to her.” “If you know her number.” She lifted the handset onto the counter. Mom answered after the first ring, her voice tense. “Hello?” She was a worrier by nature, always on guard for tragic news. “It’s Emmett.” “Honey, what’s wrong? What happened?” I paused, noticing the secretary listening in. I turned and st epped away from the counter. “It’s Hank again.” “Fuck. What is it, what’d he do?” “He didn’t give me any dinner last night.” She gasped. “I went down for a snack like you said and he was there. Waiting.” I didn’t mention the rope. It was so strange, part of me wondered if I hadn’t imagined it. “I’ll call Mrs. Dasko right now, ask her to get a few things. Stop by her house after school. Make sure you have space in your backpack.” “You mean hide them in my room?” “Don’t let him see. I’ll try to be home tomorrow night.” “Tomorrow? Why not tonight?” “I just need some time away, honey. You’ll be okay. I gotta go, but I love you.” Her love was getting harder to stomach. I hung up. Hank was in the backyard when I got home, crouched over the planter with pesticide and pruning shears. Along with my weight, the garden had become his obsession. Even in the cooler months, his tropical hibiscus, birds-of-paradise, and banana palms flourished. I headed upstairs, intending just to stash the snacks under my bed, but even though I’d had a good lunch, the urge to eat was strong. I opened a family-size bag of Ruffles and dug in. The bag was all but empty before I rolled it up and stuffed it back under the bed along with the other snacks I’d gotten from Mrs. Dasko on the way home from school. An hour later, I was glad I’d eaten. Although I envied Hank’s spaghetti and meatballs, my salad was enough, and there was plenty still waiting for me upstairs. “Can I be excused?” I said, eager to get back. A flicker of surprise behind his eyes. Perhaps he thought the diet was starting to grow on me. “Sure, sport. Rinse your bowl in the sink before you go, huh?”
I sl ept in until past ten the next morning. It was a little strange that Hank had let me. In his house oversle eping, even on weekends, was frowned upon. When I came down, there was a bowl and a box of cereal on the kitchen table. “You’ve been doing so well on your diet,” Hank said behind me, “I thought I’d cut you a little break.” Now I was regretting eating half a package of Chips Ahoy! before coming down. I approached the table and shook some Honey Bunches of Oats into the bowl. “Not too much,” he said. “A cup is a serving.” I poured some back into the box. “Say, sport, after breakfast maybe you oughta get out of the house for a bit, get some exercise. Maybe go down to Target and get yourself some of those Pokémon cards you like.” He pulled some money out of his pocket, raised it, and left it on the counter with a wink. Once he left, I saw it was a twenty. Something didn’t feel right. He was being too nice: letting me eat, giving me money. He never gave me money. Still, a new pack of Pokémon cards was hard to turn down. After breakfast, I got ready and set out. It was a two-and-a-half-mile walk, about an hour’s journey, but not as bad as running laps. It was less strenuous, and I didn’t stick out as much at this pace. Between the nice weather and my music, it was almost a pleasure. Maybe I could do this more often. The Pokémon cards were a bust. All duplicates exc ept for a Torchic. Oh well. After a short break with a cup of water from the café, I returned to Whispering Tree Lane. There were no vehicles in the drive when I got home. Hank must’ve gone out. I left his change on the counter and went upstairs, tired and ready to eat. Crouching in front of the bed, I bent down. My breath hitched. The snacks were gone. Hank had found my stash. That must’ve been why he sent me out: he’d suspected something was up and wanted to have a look. The garage door rumbled beneath me. I parted the mini blinds and saw his Toyota Highlander pulling into the drive. I yanked the bedroom door shut and locked it. I paced around, waiting. Though I heard him downstairs, he didn’t come up. He seemed to make a couple of trips between the house and the car—ferrying groceries? It was unlike him not to make me help. I remained in my room for hours, scared even to use the bathroom. I was on my bed playing Game Boy at the lowest volume when finally there came a knock at the door. I tossed the game, scrambling back against the headboard. “Hey, sport,” Hank said, “you in there?” I hesitated. “Y-yes.” “Dinner’s just about ready. I think you’re gonna like it.” His voice was upbeat, unthreatening. Somehow it was worse than if he’d yelled. “Okay,” I said. I washed up, dragging it out. My hands red and raw by the time I finished drying them. Still, part of me was ready for dinner, even a salad. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. After all that exercise, I was starved.
My mouth fell open as I entered the kitchen. The table was laid as if for a king. Every dish Hank had previously flaunted was present and then some: cheeseburgers, French fries, spaghetti and meatballs, garlic bread, pizza, burritos, fried chicken, macaroni and cheese. All my favorite foods in the world. He was taunting me. He would make me watch him eat all this, as punishment for sneaking food. But in front of my seat, instead of the expected bowl of salad, was an empty plate. The glass didn’t even have water in it. “Hope you’re hungry,” Hank said, approaching the table with mashed potatoes and gravy. “What is all this?” “Dinner. Just thought with all that walking, you might’ve worked up an appetite.” He sat, scooted his seat up to the table. “Don’t tell me you already ate?” I didn’t speak. He served himself from a bowl of salad, the lone spot of green. His lips were stretched into a smile, but his blue-green eyes shone dull as sea glass. “Sit.” I was too nervous to move. “Sit down!” he roared, pounding the table. I sank hurriedly into my seat. “Serve yourself. Eat.” No longer yelling, but the pretense of a happy family meal was gone. I filled my plate, taking a burger and a box of fries, two pieces of fried chicken, a slice of pizza. I ate them down quickly. “Good job, sport,” Hank said, returning to his good-st epdad voice, reaching over to clap me approvingly on the shoulder. “I knew you had some room left in the tank.” My skin crawled at the place where he touched me. He seemed to know it, letting his hand linger. At last he pulled it back and picked up his fork. “Why don’t you have some more.” I filled my plate again, ate. Halfway through third helpings, my gut’s soothing fullness turned sharp and uncomfortable. I slowed but didn’t stop, finishing what was in front of me, as I was programmed to do. “More,” Hank said. “I’m getting full—” “More.” Another slam. The dishes leapt. Head bowed, I took some salad, hoping that would go down more lightly. It hurt. “More.” Genuinely sick now, I stared at the food, then took the smallest scoop of mac. “Here, let me help you with that,” Hank said, taking the spoon from me and scooping a gigantic portion on my plate. Another burger, more chicken. “I can’t—” “You’re gonna eat it,” he cut across me, burying the plate under a mountain of food. “That’s what happens when you don’t know when to stop. You eat and eat until you die.” Fear clenched my heart like cold latex hands. I was certain now he was going to kill me. 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 st ep, 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 bowl forward 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 es caped 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!” A full, wet warmth gushed into my throat. I shut my eyes and choked, spraying the vomit back up into the air. It continued to chug down me, hot and half-solid. I had no choice but to swallow. I gagged, re volted, but managed to suck a breath through my nose. It was the only way. Another reluctant swallow, another quick ragged breath. “That’s what happens when you don’t listen, sport,” Hank said, almost kindly. “I only wanted what was best for you. For your health.” A sudden, earth-shattering noise; light streamed into the room. The garage door was opening. Hank dropped the funnel and the bowl, vomit splattering across the floor as Mom’s Volvo pulled into the drive. Things get a little blurry after that. The last thing I remember is screaming—mine, calling out for my mom; hers as she ran into the garage and saw me tied up, my face slicked with tears and vomit; Hank’s as she lugged a dumbbell off his weight rack and swung. Then the satisfying crunch of his skull, like the first potato chip fresh from the bag. Hank was fine. Of course he was. That’s how these things always go, isn’t it? A few days in the hospital, a bandage on his head, and a furtive agreement that neither he nor Mom would press charges. She filed for divorce the following week. Not long after that, she and I moved into a one-bedroom apartment near my school. If she’d fought harder, she told me later, we probably could have stayed in the house, but she thought it was more important to get me away from him as fast as possible. Better late than never, I guess. “If only I’d known,” she went on to say. “If I’d known what a monster he was, I never would have...” What? Fallen in love with him? Married him? Forced me to live with him for six years? Left me alone with him? Hesitated to come straight home when I begged her? What she “never would have” done, I don’t know. She tended not to finish that sentence. She still doesn’t. But at least it was over now. Although the apartment was cramped and money was tight, life there was easy, the cabinets fully stocked. When I got home from school, I had the place to myself for a good hour. I could do, and eat, whatever I wanted, as much as I wanted—as much as it took to dampen the feelings of shame and self-loathing I took away from that place like a chronic illness. Mom continued to apologize, and I tried not to blame her too much. She was a good mom and had always tried to do what was best for me, even if she got it wrong more often than not. That Christmas, she upgraded my Game Boy Advance to a Nintendo Wii and my old Pokémon Sapphire to Pokémon Battle Re volution. I played through it, but it wasn’t quite the same as the RPGs. I tired of it, fighting battle after
battle. If you’re wondering what happened to Hank, your guess is as good as mine. All I know is he sold the house and moved to Irvine. Mom doesn’t talk about him, and I haven’t seen him since the final days of the divorce, when we returned to the house to grab the last of our stuff. I still remember how he gawped at me when he saw me. Years later, I still wonder what it was that disturbed him so much. I’d like to think it was my bravery in facing him: that after everything he’d put me through, I was stronger than he ever imagined. Honestly, I hope I never find out.