The Passed Note Issue 9 February 2019 | Page 37

far away from the bathroom as I can so I don’t get sick. I stay in the car and take out the food and empty the chips on the wrapper with the sandwich to avoid looking at the nutrition label on the chip bag. I bite into the sandwich. It’s not bad. The cheese is warm and the veggies have a lot of flavor. I want to pick at the soft wheat bread, but I know if Jana were here she’d tell me not to. All summer long she told me not to. They all did—the dietician, the nurse, the psychiatrist.

Good lord, I’m so messed up. Why would Parker be interested in me?

Because—because this isn’t really me. It’s part of an illness that’s taken over. I take another bite and eat a chip. I remember how Parker wasn’t surprised when I told him I needed help last summer. He’d seen it. Lauren had seen it. Everyone had. It was easier when I looked sick. I didn’t have to explain myself.

“You can do this,” he’d told me. And he’d come and visited me every week. It didn’t matter how much they made me eat. How many shakes they made me drink. He always came.

I stop mid-chew.

I stare at the rest of the sandwich for a minute. I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.

I finish every bite of the lunch, but my stomach feels empty. Lately, it seems no matter how much I eat, I can’t get full. I used to be able to go days with