That morning, I hadn’t expected Mel to spend the night again, but I just assumed she was going to. We were in my bed, and she was wrapped in my arms with sleepy eyes. It must have been the junk food.

I kissed her forehead, and I could see her crack a smile. “Adrian, it’s okay to treat yourself once in a while. We can’t always hold our urges in forever.”

“You’re right,” I said.

She was right. But it didn’t make me feel any better about it. Before long, the sun went down, and it didn’t take long for her to fall asleep in my arms. Shortly after she did, I put her gently aside on the pillow and went into the bathroom. I stripped down to my boxers and stepped on the scale. I waited for the three zeros on the scale to change. I closed my eyes as usual, and when I opened them, my heart skipped a beat. Not in a good way — anger rushed through me. The scale read 231.9. I woke up that morning being 226. I had gained five pounds that day. I yelled at myself, but not loud enough to wake anyone up. I stomped my feet on the ground and kicked the scale to the side of the sink. I was so pissed off at myself. Why did I decide to eat that much? Why didn’t I tell Mel I didn’t want to do it? Why did Mel want to have a cheat day? Those thoughts were running through my head as I slumped on the ground. I didn’t know what to do. I did the calculations, and even if I went to sleep with this much water weight, I’d probably wake up being at least 228 pounds. That was still a setback. I wasn’t okay with that. I knew I had to do something drastic. I looked over at the toilet while I sat across from it. I ate a lot that day, and I knew it was going to hurt. A lot. I also knew that reaching my goal wouldn’t be painless, so I had to. I got closer to the toilet and put my head over it. I put my index and middle finger in my mouth and reached as far back as I could until I felt a gag. My gag reflex was terrible, but I knew I had to fight through it and make it happen. I stuck my fingers deeper and deeper. I could feel the contents of my stomach rising up as I was gagging. It hurt, it hurt so badly. But I couldn’t stop. I went deeper and deeper until it all came up into the toilet. I yelled after I did it. It wasn’t as much vomit as I thought it would be. I knew I had a lot more food inside of me that I had to get out, so I dug deep again.