Your mom asks what you would like for breakfast but you don’t feel like you can eat. Still she makes you drink a Carnation Instant milk and the monster quits scratching, just long enough for you to grab your bag and head to the bus.
You sit by yourself, lean against the cool glass of the window, and put your earbuds in. You check your phone and there’s a text from Jae:
See you at lunch?
Okay
?
It’s enough to give you a little bit of the courage that you need. Then a text from Ben comes in.
Hey
Instantly, you feel better. Like the monster might lie down and at least sleep for a while.
Hey back
Thinking of you
Me too. I’m on the bus
Sounds fun
Not
Text you when I can today
Ok
XO
He’s never XO’ed you before and this makes you extremely happy. This might get you through the day. But still, you’re worried about things. Ben doesn’t know how hard school is going to be for you. You haven’t told him about Alex and the breakup last year, and the not eating and the fainting and the hospital trip. And the rumors.
Ben knows about the food stuff now—the ARFID—but not the stuff that scares you. Your list of fears. The monster. You’re so afraid to tell him everything because you don’t want to lose him. Your biggest fear. You don’t want to tell Ben because you’re falling too in love with him and if he discovers this about you—all this stuff you’re scared of, the monster that holes up inside you, controls you—well then, maybe Ben won’t feel the same way about you as he does now.
So you’ve kept quiet about the things that terrify you. You think that through therapy, and by trying to be brave, you can kick this on your own, and maybe you won’t have to tell him. You’re desperately trying to kill the monster on your own, not knowing that you’ll need an army.
25
School is slow agony.
The teachers drone on and on about curriculum and go over the syllabi and class requirements. You listen half to them and half to the monster telling you that you can’t do this, you can’t make it through the day. You’re anxious, unsure of yourself, and you don’t feel a connection with any of your teachers.
And you’re hungry.
It’s been a long morning and you haven’t eaten anything. During the summer, food was always available when you needed to eat—you could stop by the pantry and get a couple of crackers to quiet the monster. Or grab a handful of potato chips. To shut the bastard up. Now you can’t eat anytime you want because you’re in classes all morning, and the monster is angry-growling.
You’re very cranky.
Right before lunch you walk into your English class and there he is, Alex. You knew you’d see him eventually, but you had no idea he would end up in one of your classes.
You freeze at the doorway; it’s the fight-or-flight feeling, and your adrenaline flows through your veins, ice-cold. You want to flee so badly, but you can’t. He’s sitting on top of one of the desks, talking to a popular girl, the one who has two-hundred-thousand-plus Instagram followers. But. When he sees you in the doorway, he stops talking and stares at you. He’s just looking at you. And you do not move.
Until someone shoves past you and knocks into your shoulder and then you move through the doorway to find a seat in the middle-back of the room.
Alex.
He watches you. Eyes on you the whole time.
You hate him. He must know you hate him. Yet he was staring at you.
Why was he staring at you?
He takes a seat two rows behind the Instagrammer girl, which is one row behind where you are sitting, and two seats over. He’s got a perfect view of you.
He’s looking at you, still staring, you can feel it. You take your notebook, grab a pen, uncap it, and start writing.
Fuck you, Alex is what comes out of your pen and onto the paper.
*
At lunch, you meet up with Jae, who has her friend Mandi with her, and the three of you find a place to eat in the cafeteria. Your mom packed a lunch she knew you could eat: a mini-bagel with peanut butter, pretzels, a few carrots, and a small baggie of popcorn. Jae and Mandi have bagged lunches too, and they unpack their food. As you’re all eating, you discuss how your morning classes went. When you tell Jae you have a class with Alex she says she has one with him too.
“He asked about you,” she adds.
“What?”
“Yep, he asked if you were dating anyone.”
You shake your head in disbelief.
Mandi chimes in, “He did. I’m in Chemistry with them too.”
“Are you freaking kidding me? After last year? What did you tell him?”
“I said he’d have to ask you.”
“Why’d you tell him that? I don’t want to talk to him!” you say.
“Whatever,” Jae says, and takes a bite of her sandwich. “You’ll probably have to talk to him if you have class with him.”
“I’m never going to talk to him.” You have finished your bagel and are halfway through your popcorn.
“Well, good luck with that,” Mandi says.
You hate the fact that Alex is asking about you. You hated that he stared at you in English class. You don’t want to see him every day. You don’t want to think about him. Ever. But now you’ll have to. You don’t want him around, but when you go to your last period, Alex is there too, in your Spanish class.
This time he takes a seat right next to you. You do your best to ignore him but since this is Spanish II, your teacher suggests you turn to the person next to you and introduce yourself. In Spanish.
Alex turns to you and tells you his name in Spanish. You stare at him. The monster is fired up.
“Aren’t you going to talk to me?” he asks.
“Not really.”
“You have to.”
“You were pretty shitty to me last year. Like real shitty.”
“I know,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s way too late for that.”
“I was hoping we could talk.”
The teacher sees you two are talking, and that it’s not in Spanish.
“Se?or! Se?orita! Problemas?”
“No hay problema. Lo siento,” you say. You put your head on your desk.
You knew today was going to be bad but you didn’t think it was going to be horrible.
You sense the monster growing.
26
Ben has to watch his little sisters while his parents go to a wedding and he invites you to hang out with them. He picks you up and takes you over to his house, where you greet Earl in the hallway. Ben’s parents are on their way out and Dan laughs when he sees you.
“So Ben can’t handle the girls on his own?” Dan asks.
“Dad!” Ben says. “You know they’re little devils. I needed some backup!”
“Not a problem,” Dan says.
Mrs. Hansworth says, “We left money on the counter so you can get ice cream later.”
“Thanks. Is that what they’re eating for dinner?” Ben asks.
His mom rolls her eyes. “Frozen pizza’s fine,” she says. “Figure it out, you’re seventeen.”
“Okay, well you better get out of here then, you don’t want to miss those wedding vows!” Ben says.
“Ben can drive you home when we get back. I know the girls were looking forward to you coming,” Mrs. Hansworth says to you. “You have fun, and make sure the girls behave!”
“They will,” Ben says as his parents leave.