Page 11 of The Love Haters

It was such an odd idea, when you think about it: that I could hurt the world back by hurting myself.

But it was the best I could come up with at the time.

I’ll fast-forward and tell you that Ididmake it to a size zero—almost—and Ididstop my thighs from touching—and all it required was obsessive dedication and singular focus to the exclusion of all else.

I never wore a printed fabric again, either. From that awards show on, I wore black jeans and a black T-shirt every damn day without fail.

Black socks and underwear, too.

And that was that. I lived that way for a full year: cranky, hungry, obsessed with all the food I wasn’t eating, and hiding in plain sight.

I used to daydream—frequently—multiple times a day—about shoving my face into a rotisserie chicken and eating my way back out.

The journals I’d kept my whole life had always been full of poemsand drawings and thoughts on the books I was reading and leisurely reminiscences of the people and places who had meant things to me. But during that year? They were nothing but lists of calories. A typical entry:

2

black coffee

10

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