London, Summer 1984

Chapter Four

Present Day

The predawn light seeped in through the curtains, bruised blues and purples, bitter and stark against the heat that lingered beneath the covers. Henry snored softly in his sleep, his breath ruffling against the back of Elizabeth's neck, the rise and fall as smooth and steady as the tide. And each breath that she took swam with the scent of sweat and Henry and sex. The thud of his heart against her back measured out the seconds as the alarm clock ticked over. 4:13. 4:14. 4:15. There's something sexy about a woman who enjoys her food.

***

May 1984

Elizabeth stared down at the mountain of cottage pie. Her stomach clenched, and tears welled in the corners of her eyes. She blinked them back. She wouldn't cry, she wouldn't let them see her cry. But as she raised each forkful to her mouth and choked it down, the dining room around her blurred and a sob escaped her. Then another and another. A dozen pairs of eyes prickled over her, and heat surged through her cheeks. How had she become this? How could a plate of food make her cry?

That evening, Elizabeth lay curled up in a ball on her bed, the thin polyester blanket draped over her. The lights in the room were dimmed, but the glare from the fluorescent strips in the hallway flooded through the open door.

A shadow fell across the room, and a moment later came Alice's voice. "Hey." When Elizabeth didn't reply, she sat on the edge of the bed and the mattress dipped beneath her weight. She laid one hand against Elizabeth's shoulder and held it there even when Elizabeth flinched. "It's never easy, but it does get easier."

Elizabeth snorted. Even that single huff of breath left her feeling drained.

"You know, I cried at every meal to start with," Alice said. "One time, a nurse gave me a double helping of rice by mistake and I just about lost my mind. I've never cried so much in my life. All the tears dried up, and then I was just sobbing."

Elizabeth propped herself up on the bed and then rested her back against the wall, her knees hugged to her chest. She patted the space beside her, and Alice shifted to join her.

"It always bugged me when people told me I just had to make more of an effort," Alice said, "but now I think I see what they mean."

Elizabeth turned her head to face her roommate, and she caught a glimpse of those vivid green eyes that gave the girl an almost witchy presence.

"If you push through, if you stop fighting yourself and instead turn all that anger against the voice, then there comes a point when it feels like a switch has flipped." She tapped the side of her head. "This starts working again, and you feel like you—the real you."

"But if I do that...if I do what they say...I'll lose control..." And that was all she wanted, to have a little control.

"Do you honestly think that you—Elizabeth—are in control now?" Alice's gaze sharpened, like shards of emerald that prodded Elizabeth and scratched away at her skin.

Elizabeth looked down, her gaze falling to her knees and the worn fabric of her jeans. She picked at the see-through patch until the fibres separated and formed a hole. "It feels like I'm in control when I calculate what I've eaten and what I need to burn." But when had food become an equation? And where was the joy that algebra used to bring?

"And you really think that's you doing that? Not the voice telling you to?"

Elizabeth opened her mouth, but then stalled. She pursed her lips and shook her head. She didn't know. With the fog in her mind, she didn't know anything at all.