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wasn’t a line, so after forcing my way through some awkward small talk— Hey, long time no see, how’s it been? —she seated us at a table in the back corner.
    Andy pulled my chair out for me—always the gentleman—before seating himself.
    “Can I get you a drink?” Hailey asked, handing us our menus. I put mine down on the table without looking at it.
    “I’ll have a Coke,” Andy said. “Scarlett, what do you want?”
    To be at home, tucked into my room for the night , I thought. “Do you have herbal tea?” I asked.
    “I think so,” Hailey said. “I’ll check.”
    She came back a few minutes later with Andy’s icy Coke and a pot of lukewarm water that had a tea bag floating morosely in it.
    “You really should eat something, Scarlett,” Andy urged. “You look a little … I don’t know, weak.”
    Another Henderson girl, Jill, one year above me and Andy in school, came over to take our order.
    “Hey, Andy,” she said. “Hi, Scarlett.”
    Andy made small talk, but all I could hear was the drumming of my blood in my ears. I closed my eyes and felt the room spin.
    “… and you’ll have …”
    My eyes opened. Andy and Jill were both staring at me.
    “Umm …,” I said.
    “Bring her a burger too, will you, with fries,” Andy ordered.
    “Sure.” Jill jotted it down on her pad. “Are you okay, Scarlett?”
    I nodded carefully, not wanting to move my head too much. I heard her footsteps as she carried our order back to the kitchen.
    “… don’t look so hot, Scar.”
    I forced myself to look at Andy. “I guess I forgot to eat lunch.”
    Andy shook his head. “Well, no wonder,” he said. “I can’t go twenty minutes without eating something, or I’m practically crazy with hunger.” He went on to break down his diet into minute detail, rattling off fat percentages and calorie counts, grams of protein in his favorite muscle-builder shake, how many ounces of water he drank each day.
    I nodded and asked a vague question every minute or two about fat conversion. Andy was thrilled to have an audience, I could tell, and after a while he shifted from diet to nutritional supplements.
    “My dad has me taking all these omega-3s,” he said. “And I just started popping these acai berry supplements.”
    I wasn’t sure what the right response would be to this, but fortunately Jill arrived with our burgers.
    As she set the plate down in front of me, my belly grumbled urgently, and I felt my mouth watering.
    Andy was still talking, but it was as if his voice were coming through a tunnel from somewhere very far away. I watched my hands reach out and embrace the burger. The bun was warm, and as I raised it to my lips, droplets of meaty juice rained down on the fries. I closed my eyes as I took a bite.
    I chewed, I swallowed, I chewed, I swallowed. My tea went from lukewarm to room temperature as I ate and ate and ate. My burger disappeared and I felt my stomach stretching, distending, and I knew I should stop, but my hands kept bringing salty, oily fries from my plate to my lips until they were all gone. When my plate was empty, I sat for a moment with my eyes closed, remembering the taste of it all.
    Across from me, Andy’s plate was cleared too, and he was saying something about baseball—his own team or a professional team, I couldn’t discern, but I couldn’t care less. My mouth felt greasy and my lips tasted like salt.
    Jill walked by and I flagged her down. “Can I have a glass of water?”
    As I drank the water, I felt my head clearing and my heartbeat returning to a more civilized pace. I wasn’t dizzy anymore, and the restaurant seemed somehow brighter, more sharply in focus.
    I watched Andy’s lips move as he talked, and I forced myself to listen to what he was saying.
    “So Jenna dumped Brandon that weekend, and by the next Thursday, Connell and I found her and Kevin making out during their lunch break over at the tourism office. I mean, they were broken up already, so whatever,