Sometimes it’s as if I can shrink away to nothing. Sometimes I feel as pure and perfect as a ghost. The hunger, the headaches, the dizziness—these are the only things that are real.
Being good at not eating is the proof I’m still powerful. Sometimes I’m not so good and gobble a whole loaf of bread or a tub of coleslaw, but then I force my fingers down my throat and bring it up again. I can start over. Wipe the calorie slate clean.
I’m not sleeping. The same thing happened last time my eating disorder was bad. But this is worse. I wake abruptly in the night, convinced the house lights have flicked on and off or that I’ve heard someone moving about. After that, getting back to sleep is impossible.
I go to Carol and tell her that Edward is a vicious, bullying egomaniac. I tell her that he brutalizes me, that he’s controlling and obsessive and that’s why I’ve left him. But although I want to believe what I’m telling her, longing for him permeates every cell of my body.
When I come back from seeing her, I notice something in the garden, what looks like a rag or a discarded toy. It takes my brain several moments to work out what it is and then I’m outside, hurrying across the pristine gravel.
Slob. At the front he’s on his feet, but the back half is lying sideways. He’s dead. His left side has been stoved in, a mess of bloodied fur. He looks as if he’s dragged himself here, away from the house, before collapsing. I look around. There’s nothing to explain how he died. Hit by a car? Stamped on and then thrown over the fence? Or even trapped against the house and battered with a brick?
You poor thing, I say aloud, crouching down to stroke the side that isn’t damaged. My tears fall onto his silky fur, so still and unresponsive now. You poor, poor thing. I say it to him but really I mean me.
And then it hits me that this, just as much as the paint flung against the wall, is a message. You’re next. Whoever is doing this wants me frightened as well as dead. And now I’m all alone, with no way of stopping them.
Except for Simon. I can still try Simon. There’s nobody else left.