Hunger (18 page)

Midnight nickered in approval.

"Come on," Death said. "Let's get you inside."

He touched Lisa's shoulder. Coldness seeped into her, a bone-deep chill that made her teeth chatter and her breath frost. When he removed his hand, warmth flooded into her. And they were standing in her bedroom.

"Neat," she said, rubbing her arms. "If you can travel like that, why do you need a horse?"

"Company perk."

"Ah." She nibbled her lip, unsure of what to say. Her bedroom felt very small now that she had seen different parts of the world, not to mention having Death standing there like that, looking bemused. "Uh, do I have to hand in a resignation letter?"

"You have to sign your name in blood, bequeathing your firstborn son to me."

"I ... what?"

"Kidding." Death chuckled. "Like I want to change diapers. Even one such as I has limits."

Lisa blinked. "You have a very odd sense of humor."

"Gallows humor," he said, winking. "All you have to do is return to me that which you took."

Her brow crinkled. "You mean the Scales?"

Death tapped his nose and pointed at her. "Got it in one."

Lisa's eyes widened, and her stomach dropped down to her toes. "Oh, crap! I left them back ... back ... back wherever it was we came from!"

"No, you didn't."

"I did, I dropped them and—"

"No," Death said, "you didn't. Well, yes, you did. But that doesn't matter, now, does it?" He made a waggling motion with his fingers.

She bit her lip, feeling incredibly stupid.
Duh.
Maybe she was quitting, but for now she was still Famine. And that meant the Scales would come when summoned. Remembering how the Scales felt in her hand, she reached out and thought,
Come to me.

With a small pop of displaced air, the metallic balance appeared, hovering for a moment before it dropped into her outstretched palm.

Part of her wanted to close her fingers around it and go back outside to Midnight, climb on her steed's back to travel to exotic lands she'd never seen before nor even dreamed of, and taste the foods of the world. But that was only a small part of her.

And besides, Lisa was used to denying herself what she really wanted.

Swallowing the lump in her throat, she offered the Scales to Death.

He said, "Would you mind putting the Scales back in their box?"

And there on her bed was the same plain package she'd accepted from Death just the other night—a lifetime ago. "Did you wear a robe when you first came here?" she asked, carefully placing the Scales into the box.

"People see me in different ways. Sometimes I have a robe and sickle. Sometimes I'm wearing a delivery uniform. And sometimes," he said, "I can pass as a deceased rock legend."

As she tucked the lid closed, she asked, "What do you really look like, when there's no one watching?"

"If no one's watching, who's to say I have a form at all?"

Lisa smiled. If Pestilence was the philanthropist of the Horsemen, Death was the philosopher.

Once the Scales were wrapped in the package, Lisa once again offered Famine's symbol of office to Death. "I have to admit," she said, "this didn't turn out as I'd expected."

"Things rarely do," Death replied. "That's the fun thing about life. It's full of surprises. Doth thou forsake the touch of the Black Horseman?"

"Uh." The switch to Ye Olde Speake momentarily threw her, but Lisa recovered quickly. "Yes. Yes, I do."

Death took the box from her. As it left her fingers, her outfit shifted into her familiar baggy sweater and jeans. Boots misted into thick white socks. The hat disappeared, leaving her hair sloppy and windblown.

"It is done," Death said. He tucked the package into the crook of his elbow. "Thou art Famine no longer, yo. Rock on."

Lisa felt oddly hollow, as if she'd just lost a piece of herself.

"Get some rest," Death suggested. "It's been a long night. I'll see you another time."

"Oh?" She couldn't quite hide the fear in her voice.

He favored her with another of those warm smiles. "No worries," Death said, his eyes twinkling. "Unless you do something rash, it won't be for a while. Go thee out unto the world, Lisabeth Lewis. Live your life."

And then Death walked out into the moonless night.

***

Once she was in her pajamas, Lisa just wanted to go to bed. She was physically exhausted and emotionally drained, and the idea of sleeping for a long, long time was incredibly appealing. But as she thought about nestling under her blanket, she ran her tongue over her teeth and was dismayed to feel a fuzzy film.

She walked into the bathroom, intending to do a quick tooth brushing. But after her teeth were polished and flossed and her breath was fresh, she had to relieve herself. She lowered her pajama bottoms and her panties, and she squatted over the toilet lid. She did her business, blotted, and flushed.

And then she took off her pajama bottoms and her panties. She took off her pajama top. Naked, she stood before the full-length mirror on the bathroom door.

And as she saw how fat she was, she started to cry.

What did you think?
the Thin voice asked.
That it would all just go away? That you'd suddenly not be fat anymore?

Yes. That was exactly what she'd thought.

That's something out of a fairy tale
, the Thin voice whispered.
No matter what your father thinks, you're no princess. You're just a pathetic little girl who's wretchedly fat. And no matter what you do, you always will be fat.

Sobbing, she positioned the bathroom scale just so, and then she stepped on it for judgment.

And she was found guilty.

Numb, she put on her panties and her pajama top and her pajama bottom. She returned the scale to its proper resting place. She turned off the bathroom light and walked back to her bedroom.

The glass of water was still on her nightstand, resting on its coaster.

The pills were still in her drawer.

You don't have the guts
, the Thin voice scoffed.

Through her tears, she scooped the antidepressants she'd stolen from her mother's pill case onto the nightstand. She sat on her bed. She put one pill on her tongue and took a sip of tepid water. She took a second pill, put it on her tongue, and took a second sip of water. She took a third pill, took another sip.

And she paused.

I told you
, the Thin voice sneered.
You're too weak.

But beyond the Thin voice, she heard a small, still voice tell her this:
Find the balance.

Biting her lip, she set the glass down with a trembling hand.

The Thin voice screamed at her as she walked down the hall to her parents' bedroom. She knocked on the door.

From inside, she heard her father's voice. "Whuzzat ... Lisa?"

"Daddy?" she called out softly. "Daddy, can I come in?"

A light peeked beneath the door. "Yes, of course..."

She entered, a little wobbly, her tongue too thick. Her father was sitting up in bed. Her mother's side was empty—she was away, of course, at some charity thing or another. A mostly empty glass rested on his nightstand.

"Princess," he said, alarmed, "what's wrong?"

She wanted to have him hold her and tell her all the demons were pretend, that there was no monster in her closet, that everything would be okay. But that was a lie. The demon was in her head, telling her she was too fat. She had to get the demon out. But she couldn't do it by herself.

"Daddy," Lisa whispered, "I need help."

When Lisa opened the door to her house forty-six days later, James and Suzanne nearly bowled her over as they shouted, "Welcome home!" Lisa, standing in the doorway, looked at them both and started to laugh and cry all at the same time and then said, "I'm home again."

"We are, too, Princess," her father said with a laugh, "and we're carrying your bags, so could you please let us in?"

"Whoops." Lisa slipped to the side. Her father toted in two suitcases and her mother brought in two large boxes. One of them contained Lisa's artwork and writing journals from her time at the eating disorders facility. When Lisa had mentioned them hesitantly on the seven-hour drive home, her mom had stunned her by not only expressing interest but by asking detailed questions about what Lisa liked to write about, and did she do any poetry, and would it be okay if Lisa showed them her work once she was settled back home.

Lisa, humbled and thrilled, had said sure, she'd really like that.

Then James was scooping her off her feet, hugging her and spinning her around the room, and Lisa stopped thinking about her mother's interest in her writing. And now James was kissing her—wow, she had seriously missed his kisses—and he would've done more than that, except her folks were right there.

Ah, right.

She untangled her lips from his but kept hugging him and hugging him. He was going easy on her until she whispered in his ear, "I won't break." Then he was squeezing her for all he was worth, saying, "I missed you so much" and "I'm so glad you're back" and "Lisa" and "Lisa" and "Oh, Lisa."

She loved how her name sounded coming from his mouth.

Then Suzanne pried her out of James's embrace and hugged her just as tightly (albeit without the tongue-teasing kiss), telling her, "Leese, it's so good to see you!"

The five of them sat in the Lewis living room, Lisa on the sofa with James and Suzanne, and her parents on the love seat. They told her the same things: she looked healthy; she looked happy; and they were so thrilled she was home again. And she told them about some of the things she had learned about herself, and about the horseback riding she did at the facility, and about how wonderful the staff and the other girls in the program were.

Suzanne and James told her all about the school stuff she'd missed, the work (groan) and the gossip (whoa). Her parents told her about her great-aunt Lois's latest surgery (hip replacement) and her cousin Andy's wedding reception (a band, not a DJ).

And then the truly hard part began: they sat down at the table for dinner. Lisa was in her usual seat, with her dad at the head and her mom opposite her. James was next to her and Suzanne was across from him.

Lisa didn't realize she was sweating until James leaned over to ask if she was all right.

"Nervous," she admitted, laughing a little and feeling as if she were going to throw up.

"We're here for you," her mom said, reaching over to pat her hand. "No matter what."

"Amen," Suzanne said.

They all lifted their water glasses and toasted to Lisa's continued health and to her being home again. Clink clink, drink drink. Water wasn't a problem; there were no calories in water.

Lisa blew out a breath. No, she wasn't going to think about calories. She wasn't.

"It's okay," her dad said, smiling as he passed around the salad bowl.

Lisa took a small serving of mixed greens and passed the bowl to James. She eyed the low-fat ranch dressing and before she could overthink it, she took the bottle and squeezed a dollop onto her plate; a token amount, really, but the action mattered. She forked a bite and lifted it to her mouth.

And she paused, staring at the lettuce dipped in dressing. She tried not to think about fat and calories and how long she'd have to be on the exercise bike to work it off.

"You can do it," James said, squeezing her hand.

"I can," she said, wanting desperately to believe.

She could.

Lisabeth Lewis, seventeen and no longer Famine, took the first bite of the rest of her life.

There really was a Lisa. Different name, though. Different everything, really.

For a short time, Lisa and I had been very good friends. She was like a sister to me. She was funny and charming and smart. And one summer, she told me about her eating disorder. Lisa was bulimic. And soon, I was too.

For me, bulimia was short lived. It was the better part of one year. All the while I was binging and purging (self-induced vomiting for me; I never did laxatives or overexercised), I knew what I was doing was bad for me, but I did it anyway. I even saw a therapist. I didn't tell her I was bulimic; I told her other things, though. And at the end of the session, she said to me, "I really don't know why you're here." I never went back; I figured that if she couldn't see there was something wrong with me, she wasn't worth my time.

I don't remember when I decided my relationship with bulimia had to stop—maybe it was when my dad almost caught me vomiting upstairs. But the day came when I approached my folks and told them flat out that I was bulimic, and I knew it was bad, and I was stopping. I told them all my tricks so they'd know if I was going back to bad habits. I got lucky. I was able to stop.

Since then, the only time I've purged was when a boyfriend broke up with me a few years later. I ate a carton of ice cream, then made myself puke. (The boyfriend is just a memory now, as is the bulimia.)

Lisa and I got into a huge fight. We stopped being friends.

She's dead now. I found out about her death many years later, and it felt as if I'd been kicked in the gut.

I regret a lot of things. I regret how I didn't give Lisa a second chance when she reached out to me, years after our huge fight, asking if we could be friends again. I regret falling into dangerous habits with her in the first place. I regret the damage I did to myself, physically and emotionally.

But I don't regret our friendship.

The Lisabeth in
Hunger
isn't the Lisa from my life. But I'd like to think that Lisa's spirit would be tickled over having a book in which she—however loosely—is the heroine.

I miss you, Lisa. And I'm sorry.

***

There have been other stories in which an anorexic person became Famine. One of them I wrote years ago—a short story, also called "Hunger," published by the online magazine
Byzarium.
(It was a very different story than this book, but it certainly hit on some similar themes.) Another was from Marvel Comics. (Yes, I am a comic-book geek. Excelsior!) In
X-Factor
, an anorexic girl named Autumn—a mutant with the power to destroy food—was tapped by a bad guy to become Famine (not
the
Famine—no black horse for her). She and three other horsemen rode their mechanical steeds and wore bright costumes and wreaked havoc. Kapow! The good guys stopped them, of course.