"Are you feeling okay Joey?" Mom asked me at the breakfast table.

I didn't eat any toast that was sitting on a plate in front of me.

I didn't eat any of the eggs nor bacon either.

Dad had been talking about something he'd seen on the news. Mom, Aaron, and I had been listening patiently and quietly. He didn't stop talking until Mom interrupted him by asking me, "Are you feeling okay Joey?"

Before I could answer, Dad was already saying, "Yeah, Rena, he's fine."

Mom looked at Dad with incredulousness. She touched her mouth. "But he isn't eating anything. He's barely touched the eggs on his plate."

"Drop it Rena," Dad said with little patience. "The boy is fine."

Mom didn't say any more, but she kept looking at me with concern. Aaron on the other hand was still a little apprehensive. He studied me, and then took one look at my plate. "Bro, you know it's bad to waste food don't ya?"

I glared at him. "Yeah, I do." Stabbing my eggs with the fork and taking it to my mouth, I then said, "I'm just not that hungry."

I set the fork back down.

Mom looked at Aaron, then at me. She looked at me a little longer.

Dad started clearing his throat abruptly, and went back to talking about the news.

I still didn't touch anything on my plate.

♢

I smoked the cigarette, and man, did it feel good. I inhaled and exhaled slowly, already feeling less stressed than I had.

"You smoke?"

I focused on the girl who stood in front of me, with her hands in her coat pockets. She furrowed her eyebrows at me, tapping her foot softly against the pavement.

"Yeah," I replied. "I smoke sometimes."

She nodded. "Where do you get your cigarettes?"

"I steal them from my brother Aaron. He keeps on trying to quit. But I know that'll never happen."

"You were in wrestling, right?" She asked. "You were the star wrestler."

I shrugged, and took another smoke. "Yeah, I was. Then I quit."

She raised her eyebrow. "But I thought you loved the sport?"

"My old man loved the sport," I muttered bitterly. "He loved the sport so freakin' much, he wouldn't care if it killed me...even though it nearly did." I whispered that last part, and didn't look at Aisling.

That last bit of information I just said hadn't meant to come out, but I felt, for some reason, compelled to tell her.

She didn't look fazed, but she did for the first time, sit down on the bench next to me. She looked at me with a genuine smile. "Joey, I'm not going to judge you. I mean, my dad is neglectful."

I chuckled a little bit. At the very end of my cigarette, I said, "I bet he didn't beat on you."

She nodded. "Yeah, he didn't beat on me. You're absolutely right. But he doesn't acknowledge my presence. Him and my step mom could be in the living room watching a movie, or discussing things like what they would like to get each other for Christmas, or what they'd like to do on vacation, and well, they never think of me."

"Where's your Mom?"

She looked away and took a deep breath. She put her hands together and brought them to her nose. "Well, I don't know where she is."

I didn't have any response to that. For awhile we sat in silence.

I studied the cement the park bench sat on, and wondered what the hell I was going to do when I would come home to confrontation by Mom and Aaron.

"When you say 'he wouldn't care if it killed me...even though it nearly did', what's that supposed to mean?" She was looking at me again.

I reached into my jacket pocket, hoping to find another cigarette.

There was no luck.

This time I was the one to take a deep breath. I looked down at my lap. "I uh, I used to be anorexic."

  ♢ 

A lot of will power.

That's what it took.

It also took starving.

I was hungry for praise.

I was hungry for approval.

I was hungry for winning.

I put the capsule in my mouth and swallowed it dry.

I didn't think of the danger.

My mind was on losing weight.

My clothes fit a little looser--but not dramatically so. I could still put on my letterman jacket with ease.

I didn't say anything to Mom, Dad, nor Aaron.

Freddy Appleton, a senior wrestler, had honked the horn in the front of the house. Like always, I skipped the most important meal in the day.

When I got inside his truck, Mike punched me in the arm playfully, and pointed at my house. "Did you manage to nag a couple pieces of bacon for me?"

I shrugged and smirked. "Dude, be happy with your granola bar," I replied. Looking at the driver's seat, I waved at Freddy in the rearview mirror.

He nodded his chin up. "Hey, you owe me twenty bucks for gas," he said.

"Yeah." I took a twenty out of jacket pocket and threw it on the console.

I lied to Mom that I needed the twenty bucks for lunch.

♢

Aisling didn't appear too fazed.

She just stared at me blankly, and I stared back.

With a small smile, she rolled down the sleeve to her coat. And what I saw startled me.

Out of shock I took ahold of her arm.

I looked at the zigzag lines on her arm arm, that were very close to her wrist.

She yanked her arm out of my grasp.

"Yeah, you see now Joey. I'm a cutter. Or at least I was." She didn't look at me this time. "I don't do it anymore...I can't."

I just looked at her again. And at that moment I'd realized I'd been doing a lot of staring.

A pink tint came on her cheeks, but she didn't look away. Instead she smiled and murmured, "Joey, we just aren't perfect, are we?"

I hugged her.

It wasn't a tight hug, and I wasn't squeezing her to death. The hug was a simple hug; a hug that meant thank you.

Aisling tensed for a minute, eventually, she slowly started patting me on the back.

—

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