Chapter 2: The Empty Plate
The kitchen hummed, a low, electrical drone from the single bulb over the sink. It cast a sterile, flat light that killed shadows instead of creating them, bleaching the color from everything. The apple in the fruit bowl was a waxy, unnatural red. Next to it, an orange had a small patch of white fuzz, like a mold island. The air smelled of stale coffee grounds and something else, something faintly metallic that coated the back of Louise’s throat.
Her hand hovered. The hunger was no longer a pang or a grind; it was a living, vibrating thing in her gut, a second frantic heartbeat. It had claws. They scraped at her insides. The apple promised cool, sweet crispness. It promised silence.
Her fingers touched the slick skin.
“What are you doing?”
His voice was soft, directly behind her. She hadn’t heard him come in. She never did. He moved like a depth charge through water—silent until the pressure wave hit.
She didn’t pull her hand back. That would look guilty. She let it rest on the apple, a statue caught mid-thought. “I was just… looking at it. It’s going bad.”
Marcus’s large hand closed around her wrist. Not roughly. Not yet. It was a warm, firm cage. He guided her hand away from the bowl, finger by finger, as if disarming a delicate mechanism. He turned her palm over, studied her lifeline as if reading something there.
“You’re shaking,” he observed.
She was. A fine tremor ran through her fingers. She hadn’t noticed.
“Low blood sugar,” he said, as if diagnosing a common cold. He brought her wrist to his lips and kissed the pale, blue-veined inside. His mouth was warm. “It’s a sign your body is digging into the reserves. Burning the excess.”
He let her hand go and reached past her, picking up the apple himself. He turned it over, his thumb rubbing at the flawless, waxy skin. Then, with a casual strength that made the tendons in his forearm flex, he tossed it into the trash can across the room. It landed with a conclusive, plastic thud. The orange followed.
“Out of sight, out of mind, right?” He smiled, a quick flash of white. He placed his hands on her shoulders, his thumbs kneading the tight knots at the base of her neck. “You were so good today. I saw you running. My fierce little thing. You think a bite of that is going to help? It’s just sugar. It’ll go straight to that soft spot we talked about. You’ll undo all that work.”
His hands slid down her arms, then around to her front, spanning her ribcage, settling low on her abdomen, just above her hips. He pulled her back against him, her head fitting under his chin. He splayed his fingers wide, pressing in.
“We’re so close, Lou. I can feel the difference already. It’s firmer. But it’s not gone.” His voice dropped to a whisper, hot in her ear. “Let’s make it gone. Then you can have something. Something clean. You want to be perfect, don’t you?”
The word was a hook in her sternum. Perfect. It was the opposite of the soft, shameful lump his hands were defining. She leaned into him, her energy bleeding out. The fight, if there had ever been one, was gone. His certainty was a rock in a rushing river. All she had to do was hold on.
“Yes,” she breathed.
“Good girl.” He released her, turning her to face him. He cupped her face, his palms so large they covered from her temples to her jaw. “I’m protecting you. You know that, right? From yourself. From all the noise out there telling you to be less than you are.”
She nodded, her skin moving within his hold. He was the only clear thing. The hunger, the dizziness, the cold that lived in her bones now—that was just static. He was the signal.
He made her tea that night. Decaf. He sat across from her at the small table, watching as she sipped the hot, flavorless liquid. His own plate held a sizable piece of baked fish, broccoli, quinoa. He ate with methodical pleasure. The sounds of his cutlery on the ceramic were loud in the quiet room. The smell of the food was a physical presence, a thick, savory fog that made her saliva pool uselessly. She focused on the warm mug in her hands. This was her dinner. This was his care.
“We should go out Saturday,” he said between bites. “To that little French bistro you used to like. The one with the tiny chairs.”
A jolt of pure, undiluted panic shot through her. A restaurant. Menus. Calories listed in secret codes. The judgment of servers. The smell of other people’s food.
“I… I don’t know if I’m ready,” she whispered.
“Sure you are.” He speared a flake of fish. “You’ll order the green salad. Dressing on the side. You’ll have a few bites. It’ll be a test. A celebration of your discipline.” He looked at her, his eyes calm. “You need to learn to be in the world and still be pure. I’ll be right there with you.”
The plan was a cage, but he made it sound like a gift. A test. She was good at tests. She nodded again, the motion becoming her primary language.
Later, in bed, the room was dark. His arm was a heavy weight across her, his hand resting possessively on the jut of her hip bone. She was on the edge of sleep, a floaty, disembodied state where the hunger receded into a faint, ringing echo.
His hand moved. It drifted up her side, his fingers walking the ladder of her ribs once, twice. Then down, over the plane of her stomach, to settle once more on that cursed spot above her hip. He pressed. He measured. In the dark, his touch was everything.
“So close,” he murmured into her hair, his voice thick with sleep and something else—a dense, covetous satisfaction. “My perfect little bird. Almost ready to fly.”
But she knew she would never fly. His hand was there to make sure of it. Its weight was the only thing that felt real, the only thing that felt like home. The hunger sang its sharp song, a lullaby of emptiness. She listened, and she obeyed, and in the silent, metallic dark, she dreamed of disappearing completely.