I hear my therapist’s voice in my head telling me to be vulnerable and open up to my new friends in ways I’m too afraid to about my eating disorder, but I’m high, so that voice is drowned out by: Get a giant-ass cookie. Which I do. Birthday cake dough. Rainbow sprinkles. White chocolate chips. Pink candy glitter. It’s so gay, I have to pose with it as they take turns snapping pictures.

Then it comes time to actually eat it, and all I can think is I’m wrestling with the urge to shovel it all in my mouth, which will most certainly lead to me running to the bathroom to purge, or to not even touch it at all.

“You look green,” Sofía says. “What’s wrong? Is it undercooked?”

“Nah, he doesn’t eat,” Chloe says. “Ever notice how he just pushes food around?”

I don’t say anything. My jaw goes slack. It takes me gnawing on my nails before their faces soften, and each of them reaches out a hand.

“What’s wrong?” Chloe says. “Talk to us.”

I take a deep breath. This is the part where I have to get a bit vulnerable. “I have a fucked-up relationship with food.” I don’t look at either of them as I tell them about my eating disorder and body dysmorphia and how much I’ve struggled over the past month. Neither of them takes their hands away until I’m done, but they only do so to move in closer and wrap me in a three-way hug.

Chloe is the first to pull away. “I’m sorry for what I said.”

“You didn’t know,” I say, picking at my cuticles. “It’s totally fine.”

For a while, neither of them says anything. Probably from weed inertia or a warm-cookie–induced coma.

Chloe squints her eyes. “I don’t know if this is a horrible thing to say, but for what it’s worth, I never got the sense you had body issues.”

Sofía smacks her arm. “Chlo!”

“I don’t mean it in a bad way,” Chloe says quickly. “But, like, take the Knight character in your short. We never mentioned it because we figured it was intentional, but his face looks just like yours. And he’s got this hot dad-bod, but you always animate him with such”—she gestures with her hands like Benny when he tries to act super Italian/masculine—“confidence.”

Sofía’s lips thin into a thoughtful grin. “She’s right. Take Disney movies. Usually, the heroes are slim and cut and muscular. Totally disproportionate to real bodies. And it’s the villains who are on the bigger side.”

“Fat,” I say. “You can say it. Fat is almost always an ‘evil’ characteristic.”