“Right here is fine,” I said, desperate to get out. He pulled over and I paid and I slammed the door harder than I meant to and I walked into the Chinese food place and ordered General Tso’s chicken and rice and brought it upstairs and sat in the dark staring at the plastic bag, heat wafting out of its crevices.

I hated that I was doing this again. I hadn’t binged like this since I left Covenant, since it was the only way to calm the anxiety of not having a best friend anymore. I didn’t need to do this. I could get myself out of the blurriness with breathing and thinking. With focusing on the five-year plan. The plan that would officially bring me out of the life I’d been trying so hard to never think about again. I’d never have to go back there—to the farm, to the school, in life or in memories—if I could make this thing with Graham work. I could finally forget everything.

I didn’t need to do this. I took another deep breath, my diaphragm heaving forward and back, desperate to fill every inch of my lungs with the stuffy air.

I could see the bag, the light coming in from the window, the closet door. I could hear the people on the street talking about the sky, the door across the hall struggling to close, the movements of animals in my walls. I could feel my eyelids getting heavy, the sweat dripping under my breasts, my shoulders relaxing.

This is all part of the plan, I told myself. Everything’s going exactly to plan.

Before I let myself think too much, I took the bag of Chinese food and threw it, full and unopened, into the garbage under the sink, stuffing it as deep as my arm could go. I didn’t need to do this.

As I closed the cabinet—if I took some melatonin and fell asleep, the need to binge would go away, it had to—my phone lit up on the counter in front of me.

Graham. This is the Vermont house I was telling you about. Maybe fourth-date material?

The house was exactly as I pictured it—dauntingly expansive, claustrophobically large.

I could see my phone on the counter, I could see the counter, I could see—

I pulled the food out of the garbage and clawed at the plastic bag and then the paper bag and then the black container until I was bringing pieces of chicken to my mouth with my fingers.

Can’t wait, I responded, sauce staining my phone screen as I ate.