The Art of Starving by Miller Sam J

Author:Miller, Sam J. [Miller, Sam J.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-07-10T16:00:00+00:00

RULE #28

The heart and mind are such fickle creatures. Strong new emotions for one person can make you forget your feelings for someone else.

DAY: 22

TOTAL CALORIES, APPROX.: 2700

It’s shocking, really, how much less horrific high school becomes when you can walk down the halls and the song your heart is singing isn’t “Please God Don’t Let Me Get Jumped Today” or “I Wish All These People Were Dead.” How much better when the song shifts from a minor to a major key, when the lyrics you’re silently lip-synching are instead to a heretofore undiscovered track called “A Beautiful Boy Is in Love with Me”?

I didn’t see Tariq all day, but he was with me. Every time I blinked, I saw his afterimage, a ghost-outline burned into my retina, and when I licked my lips I could still taste his. Every time my mind wandered away from whatever unspeakably boring nuance of precalculus or the Civil War was being droned at me, I smelled the musk of his sweater. Every time someone muttered something in my general direction, his hot sweet breath was in my ear whispering, Forget them. They have no power over us.

Eighth period he texted me, Ride home from school? Meet me in the parking lot at 3

Yes! I texted back.

And yet: fear was what I felt when I slammed shut the door of his truck and buckled my seat belt and heard him say, “Hey,” and felt myself quiver.

“I want to kiss you so bad.”

His hand found mine, gripped it hard. “Not where people might see us.”

I nodded, even though my lips burned with frustration.

“Shall I take you home?” His thumb pressed into my palm, triggering a secret button that turned me into a drooling fool. “Or shall we . . . not?”

“Not,” I whispered.

“I’m hungry,” he said. “You?”

And when he asked, I was shocked to see that I was, that I wanted food, and that I wanted to eat food with him. Food is love, I had learned, kneeling before our fridge, looking at all the dishes brought by worried neighbors and friends who loved my mother and my sister.

“McDonald’s,” I said. “Take me to McDonald’s.”

“Yes, sir,” he said.

“My mother never let us get food from here,” I said ten minutes later when we were parked at the back of the Fairview Plaza strip mall lot with our laps full of drive-thru food. “Said she didn’t trust meat killed so far away.”

“Your mom’s a smart lady,” he said, scooping fries into his mouth. “This stuff is terrible for you.”

“But so, so good.”

I ate. I loved eating, and I loved watching Tariq eat. He bit down on three fries so they protruded from his mouth, then leaned across the cab of his truck to stick them in my face.

“You’re gross,” I said, then bit down on the offered fry stubs. Our teeth clinked together. We chewed, swallowed, laughed, kissed. I touched his face and his stubble tingled, electrified my fingers. He reached out his arm, draped it over my shoulders, pulled me in tighter.

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