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like that.

E I G H T
    I never ate meat in my life before I was Cassiel Roadnight. Not once.
    According to Grandad, being a vegetarian wasn’t just about health or cruelty or money or flavor; it was also about manners. He said that stealing milk and eggs and honey was enough of a liberty without hacking off someone’s leg and then drowning it in gravy. He had a point.
    He taught me how to cook. He trusted me with all the sharp knives and all the boiling water I could get my hands on. We ate rice and beans and vegetables. We ate a lot of curry. We ate like kings.
    That’s what Grandad used to say.
    After the accident, when I wasn’t allowed to see Grandad anymore, they tried to make me eat meat. They put withered, puckered, stinking things on my plate and told me if I didn’t eat them there’d be trouble. They said they were good for me.
    They didn’t know the first thing about what was good for me.
    I told them that. I screamed it in their faces. I said I didn’t eat meat. I said I wanted my Grandad. I threw the food at them. I threw it at the walls and the windows and their faces. I threw it anywhere it wanted to land. I didn’t eat their meat. I didn’t do it.
    I’d rather have starved.
    Cassiel’s favorite food was meatballs. Helen put a plateful down in front of me, and it was clear from the look on her face that meatballs were something I was supposed to get all excited and nostalgic about.
    “Meatballs,” I said. “Thanks.”
    Edie said, “How many times have we talked about this, Mum? Cass sitting here having supper, just like this.”
    Helen shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “Hundreds.”
    I cut a piece off a meatball dripping in sauce. I tried to make my face right. I tried to smile and not grimace, tried to close my eyes in delight, not panic; tried to swallow, not gag. They watched me like hawks.
    “Delicious,” I said, still chewing. They tasted like salt and shit and gristle.
    “As good as you remember?”
    “Better.”
    I got through two. I drank a lot of water. I broke them down into fractions of themselves, sixteen more to go, fourteen more, eight, one. In my head I said sorry to Grandad, and to the lamb or the pig or the mixture of creatures I was eating. I put my knife and fork together with four of them still swimming on my plate.
    “What’s wrong?” said Helen.
    “That’s not like you,” said Edie.
    I said, “I haven’t eaten like this in a while. My stomach isn’t quite up to it.”
    I allowed Cassiel, wherever he was, to chalk up a point against me. I told myself it didn’t matter. I reminded myself I didn’t have a choice.
    So I wasn’t a vegetarian anymore. I wasn’t me anymore either.
    When you’re running, when you’re moving from place to place, day after day, it’s hard to watch yourself eat. You steal. You pick through the bins and try not to realize it’s you. You try not to think about what you’re doing. You learn where the shops dump their rubbish, what night’s the best night. You rely on what other people waste.
    Finish your food? No, don’t, because somebody watching from outside might want it.
    After meatballs there was ice cream. I let it melt in my mouth, and it slipped, rich and oversweet, down my throat. I did it without thinking.
    “Why d’you always eat it like that?” Edie said. “It’s gross.”
    Funny to have such a thing in common with Cassiel—the way we ate ice cream.
    “Have you been in London? Or Bristol? Or Manchester? Or where?” Edie said.
    “He’s tired,” Helen said, putting her cool hand on my forehead.
    “Have you been living rough?” Edie said. “On the streets?”
    What would the answer to that be? It was pretty likely. If you run away from home when you’re fourteen, you don’t usually end up in the penthouse suite.
    “Now and then,” I said.
    Helen shook her head. “And being on the streets was better than being here?” She looked at Edie and then at me. “I don’t understand.”
    “Nor