The Year I Didn't Eat

by Pollen

  I feel weird. Not hungry exactly, but like my body has just realized whatever I drank two pints of wasn’t food and is about to launch a rebellion. A deep, sick feeling fills my stomach. My brother’s now talking about films we could watch, but I’m finding it hard to concentrate on what he’s saying. His voice seems far away, like an announcement on a train you can’t quite hear.

  “How about Die Hard?” he says.

  I turn to look at him, maybe respond, but it’s cloudy. There’s this sharp feeling building in my left shoulder, a pulsing pain that seems to come from nowhere.

  And then everything goes black.

  February 4

  Dear Ana,

  I’m an idiot. I’m a complete, total, 100 percent idiot. The biggest idiot in the entire world.

  I didn’t eat any food all day, then drank two pints of water, then went for a walk.

  What exactly did I expect would happen?

  I had to tell Robin. It was the only way I could stop him from taking me to the hospital. He was convinced I was about to keel over and die, right in front of him.

  So I spilled the beans. Sort of. I explained that I fainted because I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. I didn’t tell him about the water thing. Even so, he was pretty mad.

  Robin: “Jesus Christ, Max. This isn’t a game.”

  Me: “I’m sorry.”

  “You could have split your head open.”

  “I know.”

  “You could have died.”

  I didn’t know how to respond to that. He was right: I could have died. It’s not like you have any control over which way you fall when you faint. You just drop and smash into whatever’s near you. The curb. The road. A glass window.

  We sat there on the pavement for ages, saying nothing. Robin hugged Sultan, to keep him from coming over and licking my face, but after a while, Sultan gave up. He lay down on the pavement, looking glum. Good work, Max, you somehow managed to ruin your dog’s day, as well as your brother’s.

  Once my head cleared, I got up, and we started walking back.

  I tried to make a joke to break the mood. I was like, “I think my body’s telling me to say no to Die Hard.” Robin hates any kind of tension or conflict. Even when he was a teenager, if he flew off the handle about something, he came around in about five minutes. I figured that as soon as I tried to make up for stuff he would forgive me.

  Nope. Instead he turned around and repeated the last four words he’d said to me, which felt about thirty times as brutal because of the fact he was repeating them like that.

  You could have died.

  8

  My sessions with Lindsay always come around quicker than I’m expecting. Right after each one, I feel this huge sense of relief because I’ve got two clear weeks. That lasts about three days. Then I’m starting to think that it’s only a few days till the halfway point. And suddenly, my next appointment is closer than my last one. It’s like I’m standing on the track as the train hurtles closer and closer, and all I know how to do is count how long I have left.

  Because I always have to be counting something.

  We start with my weigh-in. I step-touch the scales with my foot, wait for the display to flash, then step on. I sort of push down onto the scales, tensing my legs, because I want the number to be as big as possible.

  The bigger that number is, the less I have to eat.

  It thinks for a moment, then spits out a result. A pound and a half more than I was expecting.

  I weighed myself this morning, right before I drank two pints of water. I haven’t been to the loo since, and I’m wearing exactly the same clothes. So I had a number in my head: the exact weight I knew I’d be. Two pounds heavier than I was when I got up this morning.

  But this number—the number I’m now staring at—is higher. Bigger. Fatter.

  For a moment, I’m happy, because if Lindsay thinks I’m putting on weight, she won’t put as much pressure on me. But then I think, how come they’re different? What’s going on? Maybe these scales are wrong. But the ones in a hospital are going to be pretty accurate, right?

  Which means my scales at home are wrong. I’m heavier than I think.

  Are you eating doughnuts in your sleep or something?

  “Everything all right, Max?” Lindsay says.

  I don’t respond.

  Since the Incident, I’ve felt pretty awful about myself. Like, even more so than usual. You know when you buy a tub of raspberries, and they look healthy enough, but the next day, every single one is covered in mold? It’s kind of like that. When I blacked out, it flipped some kind of switch, and since then I’ve felt guilty about everything, all the time.

  About making Robin cover for me.

  About being a dick to Ram.

  About lying to Lindsay.

  This last one has actually led to some progress: I’ve started eating chocolate bars. Kind of. On Saturday, we went to this National Trust estate for a walk, and I surprised everyone by having a Twister from the van. Yesterday, I had two fingers of a Kit Kat. I nearly had a Creme Egg this morning, too (yep, it’s February 8, and they are already in the shops), but I chickened out at the last minute, because I was worried about what Lindsay might add to my diet plan today.

  I was really happy about all of this until fifteen seconds ago.

  Do you reckon your mum and dad got special scales to trick you into eating more?

  Shut up shut up SHUT UP.

  I want to throw up. I want to get everything I’ve eaten over the past two weeks out of my body.

  “You’ve lost a bit of weight since last time,” Lindsay is saying.

  It takes me a moment to process it. I feel like a blue whale. I feel like, in the past few days, I’ve eaten more food than I have in my entire life up to that point. Mentally, I’m laying out all my meals on a table, like in those shows where they show a family how disgustingly unhealthy their diet is by piling table after table with all the chips and cookies and frozen meals they’ve eaten in a month.

  And she’s telling me I’ve lost weight.

  “So we need to talk about that,” she carries on. “And adjust our plan a little.”

  Coming in today, I figured there were two possible outcomes:

  I’ve put on weight. In which case I’d be upset, but Lindsay would be happy. Maybe she’d leave me alone for a bit.

  I’ve lost weight. In which case I’d be thrilled, but Lindsay would probably be mad at me and make me do things I really, really don’t want to do.

  Now I’m realizing there’s a third way: I can lose weight and still feel terrible. Great.

  “Okay,” I mumble, even though it feels like the least-okay thing in the world.

  “Don’t worry about that for now,” Lindsay says. I guess she can tell how nervous I am. She gestures for me to sit down. “We’ll talk about it later. Tell me how things have been since our last session.”

  I always thought psychologists made you lie on couches, but Lindsay has these molded plastic chairs. They’re pretty uncomfortable—or at least, they are for me. At home, I pretty much always sit on a cushion these days because my bony ass doesn’t really provide much cushioning of its own.

  I wriggle around to find a good position. Maybe this is part of the treatment: They make you sit on the world’s least comfortable chair to show you you’re skinny.

  Lindsay always starts by asking how things have been and what I’ve been up to. I never have a good answer. It’s not that I’m trying to come up with a lie or anything. It’s just that when you’re anorexic, you don’t do very much. Well, Lindsay, I mainly read books and slept and studied for exams, because my life is tragic and lonely. How about you?

  The only new things I’ve done in the past two weeks are a) try (and mostly fail) to eat chocolate bars; b) drink too much water, faint, and nearly kill myself; and c) wander around looking for geocaches or checking my own. I don’t want to tell her about any of these things. But I’ve got to say something, and the last one seems li
ke the safest option.

  “I’ve been … orienteering.”

  “O-kay,” says Lindsay cautiously.

  I look up at her. Normally, Lindsay is ridiculously enthusiastic about pretty much anything I say to her, and especially anything about my hobbies. Before Christmas, I told her about when Dad took me to Brockholes and we saw a bittern. We ran fifteen minutes over the end of our session because she asked so many questions.

  There’s a long pause. “Max,” she says eventually. “We talked about running.”

  Of course, she thinks I’ve just found a workaround. I guess orienteering wasn’t the best way to describe it. “It’s not that kind of orienteering,” I explain. “I don’t run.”

  I’m worried she won’t believe me. I wouldn’t. But she looks relieved and sits back in her chair. “All right,” she says. “So, what do you do?”

  It’s at this point I realize, there’s no way of explaining geocaching to someone who’s never heard of it that doesn’t make it sound crazy. Um, strangers leave boxes hidden in the woods, and I find them and see what they’ve put in them. Or: I crawl around under park benches and shove my hand into storm drains looking for bits of paper. See what I mean?

  So I keep it vague. “You have a map and a few clues, but it’s not a race. It’s more like a puzzle. I go with Robin sometimes.”

  That last part seems to reassure her. She smiles. I guess my parents have told her that my brother is a responsible adult (which is true as long as he’s not on a mountain bike).

  We talk about geocaching some more. Things are going well. I’m not even too worried about the scales—after all, I’ve still lost weight. But then Lindsay drops a total bombshell.

  “Max, your parents are going to join us in a moment, if that’s all right.”

  “Why?” I hear myself saying—shouting—as soon as the words hit me, like a tennis player hitting a volley right back over the net.

  “I’m really happy the effort you’ve been putting in. But to be honest, we haven’t made enough progress with your weight. Your BMI is currently …”

  She looks down at her notes. But before she can read the number, I tell her, “—.”

  Then I realize what I’ve just said. My BMI is —.

  Lindsay looks up at me. I look down at my lap. I’m trying to process the two bits of news I’ve got in the last thirty seconds.

  Mum and Dad are coming to my session for some reason.

  My BMI has hit —.

  Let me ask you a question: What’s the most important number in your life? I watched a film once, a romantic comedy, about a mathematician who falls in love with the police officer who pulls him over for speeding. While they’re talking at the side of the road, the mathematician says, “Pi is the most important number in the universe.” The officer responds, “I don’t think that’s going to hold up in court.” Okay, so it was a super-cheesy movie. But I thought that line was pretty funny.

  Anyway, for me, my BMI—which stands for body mass index—is the most important number in the universe. It’s actually a pretty simple equation: Your BMI is your weight in kilograms, divided by the square of your height in meters. Doctors use it to figure out whether you’re under- or overweight.

  I’m four feet eleven. One and a half meters. Square that, and you get about 2.28. How many times does 2.28 go into —? The numbers are hard, but I don’t need to work them out, because I’ve got the whole table memorized.

  My magic number is now —, which means, for the first time ever, I’m clinically underweight. Lindsay says BMIs are only a rough measure, and that for my body shape I’ve actually been underweight for a while. But now it’s official.

  “That’s right,” says Lindsay, after a long, horrible pause. “And that’s not where we need it to be, Max.” She leans toward me, smiling. “That’s why I want to talk to you and your parents today. I want us all to come up with a plan together.”

  I don’t say anything.

  She asks me about how games have been, now that I’m not playing rugby. But all I can think about is what’s going to happen when Mum and Dad get here.

  Eventually, her phone rings. “Hello? Perfect. I’ll be out in a minute.” She turns to me. “They’re here, Max. Will you be okay for a sec if I go and fetch them?”

  She says it like I’m a five-year-old or some psycho on a ward. Does she think I’m going to jump out of the window or something?

  “Whatever,” I say.

  When Mum comes in, she beams at me and says, “Hi, love!” in this super-happy, really fake-sounding voice. Dad smiles and nods, but doesn’t say anything. He looks kind of sheepish.

  Because he’s kind of guilty. They both are.

  They sit down, and we talk bullshit for a while. How’s everything, any plans for the summer holidays, et cetera. I’m trying to act cool, like I don’t even care they’re here. But quietly, I’m freaking out. Is Lindsay going to confront me about the chocolate bars in front of Mum and Dad? Did Max mention this to you at all, by the way? Maybe all this time, they’ve been sending her daily updates, so Lindsay can see if my diary checks out.

  They’re conspiring to make you fat.

  Dad’s rabbiting on about how we’re going camping again this year. He has this whole speech about the social benefits of camping and why the Howarths love to camp. (He’s never actually asked me or Robin for confirmation of this.)

  “You know, it gives the kids real respect for the planet they live on. And a real appreciation for any food that doesn’t come from a tin, ha-ha. But seriously, you know how much Max loves birds. And his brother is training to be a furniture maker. He’s very into conservation. Have you ever heard the saying: Take nothing but photographs, leave nothing but footprints? That’s the mentality camping gives you …”

  I look across at Mum, who seems like she’s not even listening. She usually groans at this speech and says things like, Joe, why don’t you go ahead and give them a pamphlet? all the way through, even if she laughs at all of Dad’s jokes. But today, she’s sitting there in silence, with her hands in her lap. She’s been doing that a lot lately.

  Even Lindsay looks like she doesn’t really want to be listening to Dad’s speech. She has the face of someone who’s waiting for a polite moment to interrupt. Unfortunately for Lindsay, it’s at least ten minutes before one arrives.

  “Have you ever tried camping, Dr. Hughes?” Dad finally asks.

  “I’m afraid not,” replies Lindsay. And then, before Dad can move on to his Camping for Beginners spiel, she adds: “And I’d love to talk about that after our session, Mr. Howarth. For now, I think we need to move on.”

  “Yes, of course,” says Dad. He looks only a little disappointed.

  “As you know, I’ve been working with Max for nearly four months now. And I think we’ve really got to know each other, which is great.” She smiles at each of us in turn, ending with me. “I’m really happy about how engaged you are with your treatment, Max, and I think now is a good time to reflect on what we’ve achieved so far and what we still need to crack. Does that make sense?”

  I nod. This is, like, the most patronizing Lindsay’s ever been. Normally, it’s Mum and Dad doing the whole talk-to-Max-really-slowly-and-gently routine. Like as well as being an anorexic, I’ve also turned into a simpleton. Sure, Lindsay’s always ultra-nice, but she talks to me like a normal human being.

  Or at least, she used to.

  “It makes total sense,” Dad confirms.

  I nod. Mum doesn’t react.

  “Max, you’ve been keeping a diary of the things you eat for me,” she says.

  And you’ve been making half of it up, I add in my head.

  You don’t have a choice. If they got their way, you’d be obese.

  “We started on December first, so that makes four months now. And you were keeping your own records before then too, weren’t you?”

  “Yes,” I say. What am I supposed to say? She knows I was.

  “That’s been really helpful
for me because I’ve built up a picture of your eating patterns. But I’m worried it’s started to control”—there’s that word again—“the way you eat. So, I’d like to try pausing your diary for a couple of weeks.”

  You. Are. Capital. S. Screwed. If you don’t keep a record of everything, you’ll go psycho in about two minutes.

  Helpful, Ana. Thanks.

  I go to say something, but I stop myself at the last minute and end up opening and closing my mouth like a goldfish.

  “Yes, Max?” Lindsay says. She always catches when you’re on the verge of saying something.

  What I was about to say was, That’s the point. Controlling the way I eat is the whole point. If I don’t keep track of everything, I panic. That’s why I started doing it before I’d even met Lindsay. Because if I panic, it’s much worse. For everyone.

  How can she not see that?

  If she stops me from using my diary, I’ll have to keep track of everything in my head. Tomorrow morning I’ll eat my slice of toast and think of the number of calories, and then I’ll hold that number in my head all morning, reciting it, bouncing it around like a rubber ball. At lunchtime, I’ll add more numbers: a ham sandwich, an apple. The sums are easy to start with. But you know when you’re doing, say, laps in a swimming pool, and you’re trying to remember how many laps you’ve done? As soon as you start thinking too much about it, you get confused. Am I on lap fourteen or was I just thinking about lap fourteen? As soon as you start thinking forward or back, your mind starts swimming, too. When I’m sitting in geography, stomach growling, I’ll start thinking about the bag of chips I probably won’t eat when I get home. I’ll picture myself laying out the chips, pouring away the crumbs so I know I’m under, then calculating the calories in each one. I’ll count up, imagining myself biting into each one, feeling the salt and fat burst in my mouth … and then Stu will say something to me, or Mr. French will ask us to turn to page 344 in our textbook, and I’ll forget what number I’m actually on. I’ll panic and start counting again from the beginning of the day. And I know it’ll happen over and over: all day, every day, like that game where you’re packing a suitcase and you have to recite everything people have said before you and then add another thing of your own. Meanwhile, Ana’s bombarding me with questions: