Hard to say which shame burned hotter: eating half a dozen apples after dinner or that the villain of my food diary was the innocuous darling of the produce section. I’d sat in hundreds of 12-step meetings listening to people report bizarre and appalling things they did with cherry cheesecake, black licorice, scalloped potatoes. And there was me with a bag of apples on my lap.
The previous night’s binge had been routine. I ate one apple right after dinner and swore I was done eating for the day. But there was a stirring in my belly: Was I still hungry? Was it a somatic signal that I needed more calories? I had no idea. A woman I knew from recovery always said that if you craved food after dinner, you should sit on your bed until it passed. I tried it—sitting cross-legged atop my comforter listening to sounds on the street below—but the craving for apples drew me off the bed and into the kitchen, where I grabbed another one from the fridge drawer. I ate another apple, fast, like maybe it wouldn’t count if I ate it in under sixty seconds. Then the shame—the buzzword I’d learned in group—of speed-eating an apple alone in my apartment crested, so I ate two more. My belly was tender to the touch. What the fuck was I doing? I didn’t know, but I ate two more Red Delicious. When I finally crawled under the covers to sleep, the sharp edges of the apple bits I’d failed to chew properly poked the edges of my stomach. Acid burned my throat.
How in the world could I call myself “in recovery” around food when I did this to myself every night? How would anyone love someone who ate like me? I’d been doing this for years. How would it ever stop?
Dr. Rosen asked if I wanted help. I nodded slowly, terrified he would suggest I eat bison burgers and artichoke pizza or a pint of Ben & Jerry’s every night like a normal lonely person. Or worse, that I stopped eating apples.
“Call Rory every night and tell her what you ate.”
Rory met my eyes with a smile so kind I had to look away or I would cry—like Dr. Rosen’s mazel tov for my class rank. Head-on kindness warmed my solar plexus like a heat lamp and made me tear up.
Having my ritual revealed at last, in detail, was like having a layer of skin removed. The defining feature of my eating was secrecy. In kindergarten, I snuck cookies from the snack bin. Thanksgiving weekend of junior year in high school, I snuck-ate the top layer off a pecan pie. I stole food from every roommate I’d ever had. Even in recovery, I let go of the vomiting, but I kept the secrecy. And some version of the bingeing.
“I’m not trying to keep you from eating apples,” Dr. Rosen said. “Eat as many as you want. The apples aren’t killing you; the secrecy is. And the point is”—he leaned close and lowered his voice—“if you can let this group into your relationship with food, you will be closer to intimate relationships. You’ll start with Rory.”
I looked at Rory and imagined telling her about every morsel I put in my mouth. My whole body clenched, mostly with fear, but there was also hope. Here was a chance to be known inside the messiness of my eating, something I’d never truly let myself have before.
It wasn’t a total surprise that my food stuff and relationship stuff sprouted from the same broken parts of me. What surprised me was that Dr. Rosen understood that. Paula D. hadn’t seen it, and I was actively vomiting back then.
“Will calling Rory cure my apple binges?”
“You don’t need a cure. You need a witness.”
I wanted a cure. Apples were expensive.
Sophomore year in college I fell for the soulful Colombian with dimples deep as watering holes. He would drunk-dial me after the bars closed, and we would make out behind the Kappa Kappa Gamma house. He was the guy who taught me everything a kiss could be. Before him, I couldn’t grasp the big deal about touching my lips to someone else’s, but when his soft tongue met mine, I understood in an instant. A good kiss can reach every organ, every cell. It can steal your breath and make a cathedral of your mouth. Those kisses woke me up.
And then they fucked me up. The Colombian was a double whammy—an alcoholic with a serious girlfriend. The one time I slept over at his apartment, he was so drunk that he pissed in his closet because he thought it was the bathroom. Where was I when he relieved himself four feet from the bed at two A.M.? In his kitchen, shoving leftover birthday cake into my mouth. When I headed out for my walk of shame a few hours later, I ignored the amphitheater of black cake crumbs and the smear of frosting on the linoleum floor.
I was his secret side dish when his real girlfriend, the willowy Chi Omega with the straight blond hair, visited her parents in San Antonio.
The weekend of the Colombian’s fraternity spring formal in Galveston, Texas, I ran by his apartment. Like a creepy stalker I watched him and the Chi Omega load up his Ford Bronco with cases of Shiner Bock. He patted her ass; she threw back her hair.
Devastated, I ran back to my dorm and consumed every calorie in our tiny cinder-block room: Teddy Grahams, pretzels, popcorn, Pop-Tarts, and leftover Halloween candy my roommate kept in
