The monster’s been quiet, but he’s there, lurking still. Lately though, he’s been hiding in a dark corner, and you know it’s because things have been pretty great with Ben. Actually if you were to describe what’s happening with Ben, it would be way more than “pretty great.” You’ve never felt this way about anyone.
Alex had been your first boyfriend, and now that you have Ben, you know that Alex meant nothing and only caused you pain. You don’t want to give Alex the credit of calling him your first real boyfriend because with Ben you’re discovering what a real boyfriend is. It’s true, Alex was the first boy who paid attention to you, the first boy who wanted to kiss you, but he knew nothing about kissing. He was the first boy who held your hand in public, the first boy who declared your relationship a “relationship” back when Facebook was something. He was the first boy who met you at the movies, who kissed you in the back row in the theater, who made you think you had butterflies in your stomach.
Those weren’t butterflies.
With Ben, you have butterflies. A flurry of them.
Now that you are experiencing what it’s like to spend time with a boy who really gets you, who wants to be with you for you, you realize that Alex was nothing. And the difference between the way your mind and body worked then and now is worlds apart.
And the fact remains that Alex was also the boy who didn’t understand that your mind worked differently when it came to eating, and thinking about food, and being around food. And while you can’t completely fault him for that—because you weren’t capable of explaining yourself or your problems to a fifteen-year-old boy—he made a pretty big mess of your life in the aftermath.
And while the monster’s quiet now, you know he’s there still, gnawing. Maybe he’s sitting in the corner of your mind, rocking in a tiny chair, whittling away at you, like you’re a piece of wood he’s been carving at, trying to create something new, something that he wants to own. Yet somehow you’re fighting it. Because if you’re not fighting it, he would have won by now, right?
The gnawing: you try to ignore it. You’re trying really hard. You’re embracing what you’re learning at Healthy Foundations. You’re trying coping skills. Using them at home. With your parents, with Todd. Even though Todd treats you like you don’t exist. You’re hoping that one-on-one therapy with Shayna and group therapy will be the monster’s demise.
You eat salad at another family dinner. Your mom glows and encourages you.
“Honey, that’s wonderful. I’m so proud of you!” she says when you place a piece of lettuce in your mouth. You chew it and imagine you’re chewing grass. Then you stab a crouton and eat that.
“Look, Mom,” Todd says, “I took a bite of my lettuce too!”
You glare at him.
Your dad pierces his ham, rubs it into the potatoes, and shoves it into his mouth. Then he corrals some peas and wrangles those into his mouth too. You imagine all of that in his gut soon, churning away, mixing together, and the image is too much for you to take. Thinking about the colors and the textures of the food, and the smell of it all. But you push the gnawing monster back into the corner and you take a long sip of your ice water.
Cope.
Cope.
Cope.
Shayna is teaching you at therapy.
And even though you’ve only had group twice, you feel there was a crack in the surface with the girls last week, and they may be able to help you. Their eating disorders are different from yours, but the ways to cope are the same. They’ve all been in therapy longer than you have and you can learn from them if you give them a chance.
You smile at your mom. You really want to please her. She does mean the world to you. You know she’s trying to help you.
Your dad finishes swallowing the chum in his mouth, and he speaks about something other than football for once.
“You kids ready for school to start?”
Not what you wanted him to talk about. But you guess it’s a small attempt at something other than football.
“I can’t believe I have a junior and a senior in high school.” Your mom is too wistful.
Todd actually looks at you and rolls his eyes. You smile at him. It is a bonding moment the two of you haven’t had in years. You are encouraged to take another bite of your salad. You chew. You stab a raw baby carrot and put that in your mouth. You’ve never been afraid of raw carrots. You’re not sure why. Maybe it’s the crunch they make when you put one between your teeth, or maybe it’s the sweet tang of orange crisp you taste when you bite into one. But you’ve never feared carrots. Carrots are safe.
Your mom sips her wine. Your dad plows through some more ham chum. Todd starts talking about a hot chick he thinks he might want to “hook up” with this year.
“Todd!” your mother says, glaring at him. “Don’t talk like that!”
Todd puts one earbud in his left ear, and you’re pretty sure he’s listening to some new rap artist. Your mom gets up and pours another glass of wine and your dad asks for more potatoes. This is the most normal family dinner you’ve experienced in like forever, and you don’t know what’s happening here, but it’s really weird.
You might kind of like it.
Is this what it’s like to cope?
Is this how to kill the monster?
“Does anyone want to go get froyo after dinner?” your dad asks.
19
When Alex broke up with you, the monster made you stop eating. It was spring of sophomore year and you thought your world was over. Alex didn’t understand how you couldn’t eat in front of other people and you couldn’t explain it to him. He wanted to go out with friends, you didn’t want to be with other people. He got tired of you, of how you were. He didn’t get it.
In the beginning with Alex, you thought everything was perfect. You held hands and kissed. You hung out at your locker. You texted all the time. You went to basketball games and movies—perfectly fine things to do that didn’t involve unsafe foods. Normal stuff you’re supposed to do when you get your first boyfriend.
Then the monster interrupted. He made you turn quiet. You couldn’t explain to Alex why being at social events with food made you anxious. How you couldn’t really eat much of anything, and how thinking about food made you sick sometimes, and how even, if you were in the wrong frame of mind, watching other people eat a hamburger could make your own stomach churn. Those kinds of things couldn’t be explained, especially to a teenage boy whose second favorite thing to do was eat.