His father laughed. “Well, if ever you are in such a situation, do not do this. It reflects poorly on the people who raised you.”
Tariq’s mother intervened, her voice bright and incisive, asking what my favorite subject was—English—what my favorite book we read this year—Macbeth—and why—because I liked Lady Macbeth—and had I ever seen a movie of it—I hadn’t. Her favorite was the one with Patrick Stewart, though the Roman Polanski one was also good. I got the impression that she spent a lot of time diverting attention and defusing conflict between her husband and her son.
And then something very strange happened. I realized I was having a great time. I was laughing and sitting next to my boyfriend, out with his parents, like grown-ups, and instead of the lonely-sad feeling I always got on Christmas, knowing that everyone else was celebrating something without me, I had found people like me, even if they were also nothing like me.
And then the food came. Pork lo mein, my childhood favorite. And I didn’t even remember ordering, that’s how pleasant the conversation had been. I didn’t look at the menu or stress out about how to order something that would be easy to fake eating.
There it was, in front of me, a steaming heap of delicious-smelling fat and starch and salt.
A nest of noodles. Impossible to shred into a pile of “maybe half eaten, but really all there.”
I stared at it for a good long while before picking up my chopsticks and poking at it. Conversation subsided as everyone dove into their food, and I prayed for it to start again, for distractions, for time to think about what to do. I could spread my napkin on my lap, plop clods of food into it when no one was looking, fold the napkin up and leave it under my seat . . . but Tariq was sitting too close, he’d see, he’d—
“You’re not hungry?” Tariq said, and his eyes were shrewd and narrow.
I panicked. “Sorry,” I said, chopsticking a loop of noodles into my mouth.
They tasted so good it hurt. I chewed twice, swallowed, speared another chunk of food.
My body laughed at me. You thought you could deny me indefinitely? I will always be here. You are weak. You can’t fight me forever.
Damn you, I thought, drowning in the taste of delicious pork fat. My body began to shut down, slow the rush of adrenaline, draw back its overextended senses. Before I knew it, I was done. My plate was empty. The battle was lost.
I sat back in a haze of despair, watching the scene I was no longer a part of. The happy conversation. The people eating carelessly, thoughtlessly, enjoying food for what it was, living in balance with their bodies, a balance I lacked. The koi in the tank, blowing mocking kisses at me.
And Tariq. So trim and full of energy. And his father. Fat and sluggish and exhausted. Like Tariq would be one day. Like I would be. My mom, small and happy on our fridge, large and sad at the kitchen table.
Why bother? Why keep breathing when every breath only brings us closer to pain, suffering, old age, sickness, loneliness, death?
“I’ll be right back,” I said. “I need to call my mom. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be silly,” Mrs. Murat said. “Go! Tell your mother you’re in good hands.”
Hardly anyone was out in the parking lot. The highway beyond was bare. Everyone was at home, celebrating, enjoying the warmth and safety of their beautiful balanced lives. The night was well below freezing, and I had left my jacket inside. I wasn’t thinking straight, could barely think at all. Couldn’t argue with myself, couldn’t explain how This Was a Line I Swore I Would Never Cross, when I staggered out to the middle of the lot and squatted beside a lamppost and spun my head around six times clockwise and then six times counter-clockwise and then stuck my finger down my throat, just like I’d done all those times in junior high gym class so I could get a pass to the nurse’s office and escape my bullies for one glorious hour.
It all came up instantly, effortlessly. My shrunken stomach had already been uncomfortable with the heavy load I’d dumped on it. Within seconds my belly was empty and a hot puddle-pile of slimy partially digested pork lo mein lay steaming in the freezing air. I sat there, looking down at it, smelling bile and stomach acid, seeing bean sprouts and chewed water chestnut chunks, feeling the tears come flowing down my face.
So it’s true.
You are sick.
You are broken.
Now you know.
I heard the door open, saw Tariq scan the lot and come in my direction, wanted to get up and meet him halfway and hide the evidence of my crime, but I couldn’t move.
“Oh, my God,” he said, and dropped to his knees beside me. “Matt. Is everything—are you crying?” He leaned forward, embraced me—then saw the puddle of puke and drew back. “Is that—did you . . .”
I nodded.
“Are you sick?”
I nodded.
“What’s the matter?” he said.
I shook my head.
“Tell me what hurts.”
“I . . .”
I felt it coming. I could have stopped it. I didn’t. In that moment, I knew what Tariq felt about coming out—the wanting more than anything to utter one secret forbidden sentence but being more terrified of that sentence than any other, and I knew, in my pain, in my sickness, in my wishing I could snap my fingers and cease to be alive, that I had to say my sentence to keep myself from dying.
“I . . .”
Tariq’s eyes were black topaz galaxies, swirling supernovas of love and kindness, boring into me, seeing me, all of me.
“I haven’t eaten that much food in weeks,” I said.
“Why n—” He stopped. “Oh.”
I nodded.
“Do you . . . Are you . . . anorexic?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I . . . I’m something.” I took a breath, a deep deep breath, the deepest breath I’d ever taken. “I— I have an eating disorder.”
“Oh, baby,” he said, and kissed my forehead. He hugged me again, and I realized I had never heard that tenderness in his voice before. I began to sob, and I hugged him back, and we sat on the bitter-cold ground of a mostly empty parking lot, while the whole world celebrated a holiday without us.
“Your parents,” I whispered into his ear when the sobbing calmed somewhat. “They could come out.”
“Fuck them,” he said. “I don’t care about that right now.”
Eventually the position got uncomfortable for him, and he sat back so his knees were touching mine.
“Come inside,” he said. “You’re shivering.”
I nodded. I was.
RULE #42
The body’s truth is beyond beauty, beyond desire. It is magnificent in ways that have nothing to do with appearances or any of the other impermanent, shifting things society values. The body’s truth is the truth of the soul shining inside of it.
DAY: 33, CONTINUED . . .