The Year I Didn't Eat Read online

  * CONTENT WARNING *

  This is a book about eating disorders.

  Please read and share carefully.

  This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  An imprint of Bonnier Publishing USA

  251 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10010

  Copyright © 2019 by Samuel Pollen

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  Yellow Jacket is an imprint of Bonnier Publishing USA, and associated colophon is a trademark of Bonnier Publishing USA.

  Interior design by Eileen Savage.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 978-1-4998-0808-7

  yellowjacketreads.com

  bonnierpublishingusa.com

  For Mum and Dad,

  who put up with a lot

  CONTENTS

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  Resources

  December 24

  Dear Ana,

  I’m kind of new to this, so I don’t really know what to write. I guess I should start at the beginning. I’m Max. I turn fifteen next August. And right now, you’re pretty much the only person I can actually talk to.

  Mum and Dad say they want to help. But I know that if I told them how I was really feeling, they’d pack me straight off to the loony bin.

  Same with Lindsay, my psychologist. Whenever I tell her stuff, it ends up coming back to bite me, because she makes me do stuff I really don’t want to do. The other day, we were talking about exercise, and she suddenly told me I’m not allowed to run anymore. Like, at all. Who knows what rule she’s going to make up next.

  I have two friends at school, Ram and Stu, and I have no idea why they put up with me. I hardly ever hang out with them now. When I do, I snap at them all the time. I don’t want to tell them about what’s happening, because they’ll either run a mile or start treating me like some special case. I’m not sure which would be worse.

  Oh, and there’s Robin. Don’t tell him I said this, but my brother’s actually pretty cool. Sometimes. He doesn’t treat me like a special case, like Mum and Dad and Lindsay do, even though he knows all about you. He just gets on with it. He pretends you’re not even there.

  I wish I could do that.

  Even so, there’s loads of things I can’t really talk to him about. Because, uh, he’s my brother. “Hey, Robin, is it true that chili speeds up your metabolism? And will any girls ever want to go near a freak like me?” There’s no way I’m going to ask him any of that stuff.

  I look it up online sometimes. Okay, a lot of the time. All the time. But I pretty much always regret it. There’s loads of people out there talking about you, Ana. And for some reason, most of them think you’re the best thing since sliced bread. Bad choice of phrase. But you know what I mean.

  If we ignore the internet weirdos, there are six people in my life: Mum, Dad, Lindsay, Ram, Stu, and Robin. That’s everyone I’ve got. Who would you talk to?

  That’s why you’re winning. That’s why I’m writing this. Because there’s no one else left. There are eight billion people on this planet, and somehow, the only person I can actually talk to is you.

  It’s 12:32 a.m now. So, um, Happy Christmas!

  Tomorrow’s going to be super-hard. Like, the hardest day of my life so far. Breakfast will be okay, because it’ll just be me, Robin, Mum, and Dad, and they already know what I’m like. They won’t mind when I say no to coffee and croissants and the juice with bits in it they’ve bought specially. They won’t mind when I only eat one slice of toast, with the thinnest smear of low-fat spread.

  Well, they will mind. But they won’t say anything.

  But then, everyone else will arrive. Auntie Jess, Uncle Rich, James, Louise, and Gran. And they’ve not seen me like this.

  They don’t know what I’m like now.

  1

  I stay under the covers as long as I can. Last year, I raced down the stairs, hunting for my stocking, yelling at Mum and Dad to get up. Like any normal kid.

  There’s a soft knock on my door. “WHAT?” I shout, and then immediately feel bad. Getting angry over nothing is my specialty these days.

  My mum opens it a crack. “Happy Christmas, love,” she says. “Do you want to come down?”

  “In a bit,” I tell her.

  “It’s eight o’clock,” she says.

  “I know.” I point at my wrist. My watch is on the smallest hole now, and still hangs loose. It looks weird, like one of those tags they put on birds’ legs to study their migration patterns. I’m proud and ashamed of it at the same time.

  Mum comes into the room properly and sits down on my desk chair. She perches on the edge of it and sits really upright, like she wants to make the smallest possible impression on the room. I hate the way my parents are around me now. Like they’re on eggshells. Like they’re waiting for me to snap.

  “Are you feeling all right about today, sweetheart? You talked it through with Lindsay?”

  It’s tiring. I’m tired all the time. Some days, I go to bed at 7:00 p.m. “It’ll be fine,” I tell her, turning over in bed so I’m facing the wall. “I’ll be fine.”

  “I’ll drag your brother out of bed soon. Or I’ll try at least. Your father’s picking Gran up right before lunch. I’m not sure about your auntie. She said she’d call before they left.”

  “Okay,” I say to the wall.

  I hear her get up, but she doesn’t leave the room. I can feel her eyes on me. I pull the cover right up around my neck because I hate the thought of anyone looking at my body. Even my mum.

  “Listen, love,” she says. “If it’s too much, just tell me, and we’ll sort it out. Okay?”

  I don’t say anything.

  “Come down when you’re ready. I love you.”

  I wait for the door to click shut before getting up.

  Even though I’m not exactly looking forward to today, I’m still excited for my presents. Well, some of them. I’ve asked Mum and Dad for some new binoculars and a book on the birds of Borneo and the new Zelda. Auntie Jess has probably got me some clothes that won’t fit. And Gran always gets me, Robin, and Dad the same thing: one each of those little round cheeses in a wax shell. I’ll give mine to Dad this year, I guess.

  But it’s Robin’s present I’m really excited about. Robin is super into woodworking, and he always makes my present himself. Last year, he made me the nest box that now hangs from the apple tree at the end of our garden. It’s still empty, but I’m hoping a nuthatch or something will use it next spring. The year before, Robin made me a whistle that sounds just like a little owl. He told me he thought I’d have a hoot with it. My brother makes a lot of terrible jokes.

  I look out across the garden. The squirrel’s at the feeder, which
is definitely supposed to be squirrel-proof, and I can hear some wood pigeons in the trees at the back. I like this time of day. It’s quiet, and I haven’t had to think about food yet. Usually, this is when I take Sultan, our red setter, for a walk. But not today.

  I pull on some clothes and head downstairs.

  “Happy Christmas, Max,” my dad says, without looking up from his crossword, as I walk into the living room. He’s sitting in his armchair, under a mound of newspapers. The tree blinks behind him.

  “Happy Christmas,” I say, heading straight past him toward the kitchen.

  I help Mum lay the table. It probably sounds weird, given everything, but I like helping with meals. It makes me feel like I’m in control.

  Once the plates and cutlery are sorted, I make toast. We always have Hovis Soft White Medium, so I know exactly how many calories are in a slice. I put one slice in the toaster; everyone else is having croissants. The smell of them kills me.

  Robin comes down a few minutes later and punches me on the arm. “Hey, Happy Christmas,” he says, tearing a strip off one of the croissants Mum’s just taken out of the oven. “Mmm.”

  “At the table, please,” Mum says, whisking the tray away.

  Breakfast is fine, I guess. There are no major incidents. I have my toast with a smear of spread and some water. No one tries to offer me anything else. Robin, on the other hand, demolishes a bowl of Cheerios and four croissants. We all wait politely for him to finish.

  “We’re going to feed you at lunchtime, too, you know,” says Dad.

  “Turkey takes ages,” Robin explains. “And Mum’s only just put it in.”

  “Do you not want to open your presents?” Mum asks.

  “Of course,” says Robin. “Presents are very important. But if I’m hungry, I won’t be able to give them my full attention.”

  In Christmas movies, kids tear the wrapping paper off the presents, scrunch it up, and toss it on the floor. Not so in the Howarth household. Dad insists on us reusing wrapping paper. So when we open presents, we carefully peel off the tape, then fold up each sheet. Dad’s like this with everything. We have a huge rain barrel in the garden and solar panels on the roof. We haven’t bought a shopping bag in my lifetime. We are the only family I know that puts pieces of aluminum foil through the dishwasher.

  Seriously.

  My presents are exactly what I asked for: Zelda; The Birds of Borneo (14th edition); and a pair of Nikon 8x42s, to replace my Helios 10x32s, which have started to go misty. I jump up and go to the patio window to try the binoculars out. I watch the squirrel burying the nuts he’s nabbed from the feeder.

  “Thanks, Mum,” I say, leaning in for a hug.

  I feel Mum flinch. Hugs have gotten more awkward lately. My parents don’t like feeling my ribs through two layers of clothes.

  Robin’s presents are mainly tools. I have no idea what most of them are; one looks like a mini–cheese grater. He seems happy enough.

  I thought a lot about what to get my parents. I’ve put them through crazy amounts of stuff this year, so I wanted whatever it was to be special. But there’s no gift that says, Sorry I had a screaming fit when I found out you’d bought semi-skimmed milk by accident. Or, if there is, I couldn’t find it. In the end, I settled on pretty normal stuff: some new gardening gloves for Dad and a leather-bound copy of Vanity Fair, Mum’s favorite book. It turns out they were good choices: After she opens hers, Mum won’t stop going on about how thoughtful I am.

  Robin, as usual, has outdone me. He’s made a vertical planter for the front garden out of reclaimed scaffolding and bought a load of herbs to go in it, thus making Mum, Dad, Planet Earth, and himself happy in one go. God, he’s annoying sometimes.

  Even so, I decide to give him his present. Robin’s other hobby, when he’s not making things out of wood, is mountain biking. He goes out to the Forest of Dean or the Peaks most weekends. So I’ve got him a pair of cycling gloves.

  “Thanks, bro,” he says. “Although I’m disappointed you didn’t get gloves for Mum, too.” It hadn’t occurred to me that I’d bought gloves for two-thirds of my family. He picks up Vanity Fair. “Maybe she can make some out of the cover?”

  I punch him on the arm.

  He laughs, then says, “Your turn.” He reaches way under the tree and pulls out a rectangular present, eight inches long, six wide, four deep, wrapped in colorful paper. When I look closer, I realize the paper’s a world map: The top side is mostly the Democratic Republic of Congo. A year or two ago, I was really, really into maps. There are still tons of them up in my bedroom.

  I carefully detach the tape and peel back the paper. Inside is a smooth wooden box. At first, I think it’s another nest box. But there’s no hole. I turn it over. It looks exactly the same on the other side.

  “Thanks, Robin,” I say. “Um, what is it?”

  He winks. “I’ll show you after dinner.” I go to ask him something else, but he raises a finger to his lips. “Trust me, little bro.”

  I hate it when he calls me that.

  The first thing my auntie says to me when she walks through the door is, “You’re looking skinny, Max!”

  Skinny. When you’re like me, you kind of want to hear that word, and you kind of don’t. On the one hand, your whole life revolves around getting thinner, and while you can interpret almost any other description (happy, tired, hungry) as code for fat, skinny is pretty unambiguous. On the other, the fact that someone’s noticed you’re skinny means they’re looking at you. At your body. Out of the eight billion bodies they could be looking at, they’ve chosen yours.

  Which is the worst feeling.

  And it’s not like it means much coming from Auntie Jess, either. My auntie is the kind of person who tells forty-year-old men that they’re growing lads. I’m not trying to be mean, but she and Uncle Rich both have the body shape of a Christmas pudding.

  So I just nod.

  She looks me up and down. Uncle Rich and James and Louise come through the door behind her and stand next to her, to join the judging panel. I want to die. But then Robin comes and saves me.

  “And look, it’s our very own Joseph of Nazareth!” Auntie squeals.

  I’ve been standing there like a lemon for thirty seconds, but when Robin barrels into the hallway, he immediately goes in for a hug. I’m sure he used to be super-awkward, too. But to see him now, you’d never believe it. He shakes Uncle Rich’s hand and then crouches down and hugs my cousins. If he wasn’t wearing pajamas, you’d probably think he was a politician or something.

  Auntie Jess is my mum’s sister, but they couldn’t be less alike. Mum is tall and thin and elegant; Auntie Jess looks like a hobbit, hairy feet included. I’m fourteen, and I’m already taller than her. Mum has straight, dark hair, whereas Auntie Jess has these amazing mouse-brown curls that stick out in every direction. Mum’s laugh is a sort of quiet wheeze. Auntie Jess sounds like a kookaburra.

  One thing they have in common is that they’re both competing for the title of World’s Nicest Person. Right now, it’s a toss-up to see who’ll win. Mum’s on the school management committee, and the treasurer of a charity that looks after old racehorses. Auntie Jess works at a soup kitchen every Friday night. Mum puts up with me, but Auntie Jess puts up with Uncle Rich. Competition continues.

  No one likes my uncle. Like, at all. He’s one of those people who, if you weren’t around when they became part of your family, you can’t understand how people let it happen. He always talks over Auntie Jess, even though he has absolutely nothing to say. He smells really bad. And his only hobby seems to be sitting in front of the TV in his boxers.

  My cousins are pretty normal, considering. James is nine and likes dolls much more than he likes the remote control cars Uncle Rich keeps buying him. Louise just turned seven. She’s totally obsessed with painting. Still lifes, animals, portraits—she’ll paint just about anything, all day long. She asks us to model for her all the time, but you’ve got to have a lot of patience: She expects you to si
t there for hours. She takes a serious, Elizabethan approach to portraiture.

  Robin’s now dangling Louise upside down by her ankles, while James tickles her stomach. She’s screaming her head off. My auntie and uncle are arguing about something they’ve left in the car, or possibly at home. Sultan shuffles into the hall and barks disapprovingly. Sultan is the same age as me—fourteen—and generally doesn’t get up anymore unless he’s definitely going to get a walk or some food out of it. There’s too much going on, and I can feel my heart racing. I slink off to my bedroom.

  December 25

  Dear Ana,

  Lindsay gave me two bits of advice for getting through today:

  Make a food plan, and stick to it.

  Whenever things get too much, take a break.

  Apparently, if I follow these two simple steps, I can keep you in your box. She said the big mistake people make is thinking they can take a day off. They kid themselves that they can ignore you for a day and it will all be fine. That’s when things go wrong.

  (My opinion? No one like me has ever thought this. It’s family and friends who think stupid stuff like this. I know I’m stuck with you, 24/7, whether I like it or not.)

  Me and Lindsay wrote the plan out together, a month ago. Then we had a special meeting with Mum and Dad to take them through it. Mum had to leave work early to come. That’s right: I literally dragged my mum out of work to discuss how many roast potatoes she should serve me on Christmas Day.

  The answer is three, by the way. AKA, the bare minimum that looks normal. Christmas dinner is just a normal dinner. Today is just a normal day. No big deal.

  Why do I get the feeling you don’t see it like that?

  I’m currently following Lindsay’s second piece of advice, i.e., avoiding my family. They’re downstairs right now, sitting around eating a box of chocolates, because apparently on Christmas Day you have to graze continuously like a cow. A cow who likes chocolate. Did I mention we’re eating Christmas dinner in an hour?

  In brighter news, Robin’s got me a good present. At least, I think it’s a good present. I haven’t exactly worked out what it is yet. It kind of looks like the box Uncle Rich keeps his cigars in. But that makes zero sense.