Emmett called Dr. Saito on Monday and let her know that he was in. She seemed satisfied to be able to
cross it off her list, as if having never doubted he would break. According to her, there was no time to
waste; the announcement had been scheduled for January 2, about six weeks out, to capitalize on the
postholiday weight loss fervor.
Once a week, Emmett snuck away at lunch for an hourlong Zoom with the Monstera team, who, despite
previously saying they wanted his input, seemed happy for him to nod in agreement at whatever they put
in front of him. Mostly he was fine with the direction but pushed back where he felt the message clashed
with his personal brand—insisting, for example, that this wasn’t a story about “losing weight,” but of
total transformation, inside and out.
“Like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis,” Rachael said. “Right, exactly. Becoming the version of
yourself that you were born to be.” “Becoming, I think that’s such a powerful word for this. Maybe that
anchors our campaign slogan. ‘Becoming you.’ ”
“ ‘Becoming the true you,’ ” Emmett said. “Love!” A photo shoot was scheduled for the second week of
December to allow him to lose as much weight as possible. Monstera k ept dropping hints that they’d like
him to be back down around 165 pounds for the shoot.
Truthfully, he was more worried about ke eping himself out of jail long enough to see it happen. Not long
after Justin Matthews’s body was found, it was r eported that forensic investigators had recovered from
his apartment “fingerprints and DNA thought to belong to the assailant.” Emmett had
thought then that his days were numbered, but although the police had his DNA, they still hadn’t shown
up at his door. “I don’t get it. Why haven’t they figured out it’s me yet?” “Haven’t you ever seen
Forensic Files?” Lizette said.
“You know I don’t have the stomach for that murder stuff.” She shot him a look and he said, “You know
what I mean.” “You could probably watch anything now. I bet The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes is like your
Master Chef.”
“All right.” She explained that because Emmett had never been arrested before, his DNA and fingerprints
weren’t in the state or county databases, which was probably why the police couldn’t find a match. “As
long as you don’t get arrested for eating anyone else, you should be fine.”
The day of the photo shoot drew near, but though he was losing weight again, it wasn’t coming off as
quickly as it had been when he was bigger. He was averaging less than half a pound per day. He called in
sick to Thanksgiving dinner at Chris and Jayla’s to avoid temptation, ignored texts from a “worried”
Abby, and then managed to overdo it on the leftovers Lizette brought home from her parents’. Between
that and his birthday a couple of weeks later, when one slice inevitably became a whole cake, he lost
almost a week of progress.
The day before the photo shoot, he was still seven pounds over target and getting desperate. Even more
than he feared Monstera’s wrath, he stressed knowing the photos would r epresent him in a national
campaign.
He recalled losing six and a half pounds overnight by tripling up on Ema C-8. Even four or five pounds
would be great. He’d just had his six-week check-in with Dr. Halleck, who’d been happy enough with his
progress to give him his next cache of doses.
Equally, he recalled the consequences: the terrifying (though temporary) ballooning of his fat, then
waking the next morning with a hunger that food couldn’t sate. He’d done so well since then. He couldn’t
risk another backslide, a sloppy murder that put him into the firing line of the police. As long as you
don’t get arrested for eating anyone else, Lizette had said.
Three doses were too many. But two... two was doable. He took them and was pleased when his body
barely reacted. No sudden weight fluctuations, no popped buttons, just a light fluttering of his heart.
Overdoing it before seemed to have upped his body’s tolerance. But what mattered was the number on
the scale. He struggled to sle ep, finally sinking into a nightmare of being arrested while flayed open on
the operating table. Organs tumbled out of him as the police dragged him away, his feet tripping over a
spill of intestine.
The second his eyes snapped open the next morning, he could feel the serum had done its work. The scale
confirmed: four pounds down. Good enough. His hunger was savage, but Pamela and Rachael were
beside themselves when he arrived on set. “Emmett, you look incredible!” they said.
“One sixty-eight,” he said apologetically. “Don’t worry about it,” she insisted. “We were planning to
help you out anyway.” “Help me out?” “In post. Good retouching can take off ten or fifteen pounds at
least!”
Emmett hadn’t needed those extra doses at all.