Two months later, Clare left home to attend university. If she was anxious about moving away from her family to a new town, making new friends and experiencing new things, she reassured herself she was strong and in control. After all, if she was able to reduce her intake to less than eight hundred calories (which generally meant below six hundred) and run up to ten kilometres a day, she could handle anything, couldn’t she? It wasn’t as if, at that point, managing her eating and exercise was easy. It required vigilance. She thought about food constantly, working out what she could and couldn’t eat, and writing down everything in a tiny notebook. She bought a Guide to Calories from a second-hand book shop, but it didn’t take long to memorise the nutritional value of the few things she ate.

At first, she ran in the morning before breakfast. Once at university, she added an evening run to her schedule, too. When one of her friends commented on her twice-a-day habit, she decided to wake up earlier and run before it was light. After a while, her evening runs grew so long that it was dark by the time she returned.

It wasn’t that Clare was never hungry. Initially, she was always hungry. She pictured the roast dinners followed by dessert that Michelle prepared, and remembered how the family would groan happily after over-indulging. But the thrill of denying her hunger and not responding to it was more satisfying than giving in. After a while, she became so accustomed to hunger she stopped noticing it, with the exception of during her runs, when being hungry added to the euphoria. In fact, the combination of hunger and exercise provided such positive feelings of self-control that, between runs, she grew impatient to experience them again. Was running addictive? If it was, was that a bad thing?

She settled in at university quickly. The town was smaller than she was accustomed to but, given that most of the students came from other parts of the country, friendships formed quickly. Within a few weeks, Clare was dating kind and funny Will, who was a member of a large circle of friends that formed during the students’ first week on campus.

Life was good. She loved the place and the people. Lectures were interesting, as was her social life. She continued to run and was selected for the university hockey team. It was after a match when she first realised others had noticed.

“Clare? A minute?”

Coach Gordan had just finished debriefing the team after an exciting two-one win against one of the university’s chief rivals. Clare stood while the others headed for the changeroom. She and the coach exchanged smiles.

“Nice game, Clare. But I noticed you ran out of steam in the second half. Everything okay?”

Clare swallowed. It was true. Her stamina hadn’t held out, despite her pushing herself as hard as she could.