Not in Love by Ali Hazelwood

Eli briefly cupped my cheek, then immediately let go, as if aware that I couldn’t have borne a prolonged touch. His eyes, his tone, everything about him felt distant and enigmatic. “Go ahead,” he said, and I was thankful for it.

I started before I could change my mind. “My dad left when I was six. Vince was a little more than three. I don’t remember life before, so I assume things were mostly fine. After he was gone, though, we were poor. Not always. It depended on a lot of things. Whether Mom had a job. What kind of job. Whether something broke in the house and we needed to replace it. Healthcare expenses. That kind of stuff. When I was thirteen, for instance, our landlord decided that she was going to sell our apartment, and between moving to a new place and the increase in rent . . . it wasn’t a good time.”

I felt naked in an uncomfortable, intolerable way. I spotted one of the oversized T-shirts I slept in, quickly pulled it over my head, and then sat up, cross-legged, to continue. “My mom—she had her own issues. Mental health, I’m sure. Some addiction. As I understand it, her parents were part of one of those ultraconservative churches, and when she decided she didn’t want to stick around, they withdrew any sort of financial and emotional support. She had us when she was very young, and . . . What I’m trying to say is, she’s not the villain of this story. Or maybe she is, but she was a victim first.

“We didn’t have lots of material shit growing up, and that wasn’t fun. But the worst part was, by far, being hungry.” I glanced down at my hands and took a moment to collect myself before resuming. I’m saying it. I’m doing it. It’s out there. “A lot of people think that food insecurity means constant, systematic starvation, and sometimes it plays out like that, but for me . . . I wasn’t hungry all the time. I wasn’t always malnourished. I wasn’t deprived of food for days on end. But sometimes, when I was hungry, there just wouldn’t be anything to eat in the house, or money to buy it. Sometimes that would go on for two, three days in a row. Sometimes it was more than that. Holidays were the worst. In the summer I couldn’t get free lunches at school, which meant no guaranteed meals, and that sucked. I remember my stomach cramping so hard I thought I would die, and . . .” I covered my mouth with the back of my hand. Exhaled slowly. “I say ‘I,’ but it was the two of us—me and Vince. Whatever hunger I felt, he did, too. And Mom . . . I’m not sure how to explain this, but she completely checked out. I don’t think she realized, or even cared that there was no food in the house. By the time I was ten, I’d learned that I shouldn’t go to her when I was hungry, because she’d just smile and lie to me that she’d go shopping soon. And by the time Vince was seven, he’d learned that if he was hungry, I was his best bet.”

Eli’s eyes shone with understanding, but I wasn’t done. For someone who never, ever talked about this, it was disconcerting how many words I had.

“Again, this wasn’t all the time. We’d go entire weeks with casseroles for dinner and milk in the fridge and cereal in the cupboard. But then Mom would quit, or lose her job, or break up with a boyfriend, and there would be stretches of nothing, where Vince and I had to ration stale crackers. And because it was all so fucking unpredictable, it was hard to enjoy the good times. They could end any second, so we were constantly on the edges of our seats.

“I developed certain . . . strategies. I’d steal a few dollars as an emergency fund. Sometimes from Mom’s purse. Other times from other places. I was a very opportunistic thief.” I let out a laugh. “Vince and I got into the habit of eating as quickly as possible. We were afraid to be discovered, or that Mom would come and ask where we’d gotten the food from, or that she’d take it from us. Eating at home was a constant source of anxiety. And naturally, everything we ate was very cheap and poor quality. We didn’t have fresh vegetables at our disposal. The little money we had, we’d use to buy stuff that would keep. I’d go to Tisha’s house and there were these big bowls overflowing with fruit, and it seemed like being in a Disney movie. Princess stuff, you know? The apotheosis of luxury.”

There, I’d learned that food was more than just calories and nutrition. Food was what brought the Fuli family together every night, what the parents of figure skaters made for their kids after a hard practice, what people talked about when they came back from weekends spent in quaint coastal bed-and-breakfasts. Food was collagen, the connective tissue of our society, and if I hadn’t grown up with enough of it, well. Clearly, it had to mean that I wasn’t tethered enough to anyone, and never could be.

“You said that you left for college and never came back, and, Eli, I did the same. Alec and the figure skating program—I owe him everything. Thanks to him I got my tuition waived. I jumped on a plane, left for the dorms on the earliest possible move-in date, and didn’t come back for two years. I just couldn’t. I was on the college meal plan, which meant I could eat plenty, but I still had so much anxiety around food. It was triggered by the weirdest shit—having to eat in a rush, small portions, the cafeterias being closed for Thanksgiving. It was irrational, but—”

“It wasn’t,” he interrupted gently.

I glanced away. “Either way, I wasn’t functioning. So I looked around. A campus therapist helped me find coping strategies, but . . . I was healing, and I just couldn’t force myself to go back home.” I swallowed. “You went back for Maya, Eli. But I . . . I was eighteen, and Vince was fifteen, and I left him. I left him alone with Mom for years.” The burning pressure behind my eyes threatened to overflow, and I had no wish to fight it. Instead, I remembered a summer night, when I was thirteen. A sleepover at Tisha’s. The following day Mrs. Fuli had sent me home with leftovers—pasta with chicken, a side of grilled zucchini, and a fruit salad, all fresh and delicious. When I’d returned home, Mom was gone and Vince was sitting on the couch, listening to the news on a TV that had only three channels. His eyes had widened in sheer joy at the sight of the Tupperware containers in my hands, and watching his delight as he worked his way through the food had made me happier than I’d been in a long, long time.