There are two kinds of fat people. There are fat people that were born to be fat, and then there are fat people that were once thin but they became fat, so when you look at them you can sorta see that thin person inside.

Last summer, at twenty-one, he worked his first summer job.

An ice cream parlor called Ice Cream Face.

He ate fried ice cream for the first time.

Tasted delicious, pathetic.

Afterwards, he gained weight, and it was noticeable.

Very, very noticeable.

Whole new parts of him had seemingly grown overnight.

People were talking behind his back.

He stuck around and eavesdropped.

He heard the things people say when you’ve gained ten, fifteen, twenty, or twenty-five pounds.

Everyone recognized him, but that was the worst part.

His parents noticed.

His friends noticed.

His girlfriend noticed.

She didn’t comment, and that was the worst part.

Soon, to her, his kisses became the opposite of kisses.

She was pretty much disgusted.

In a flash, she cheated on him.

In a flash, she broke up with him.

And, he was devastated.

When she broke the news, her voice was so low, so tight, he couldn't decide if he’d heard her.

He also learned about the body mass index.

He was shocked, horrified, to discover what the body mass index meant about him.

One day, he began an eating disorder like it was nobody's business.

Promptly, no surrender, without any hesitation whatsoever.

After his shifts, he became a master of his disease.

At her dark apartment, the retching was particularly invisible, and his mother didn’t hear him.

You know, it was all that trouble.

It was his finger.

It was beyond the end of his mouth.

It was more deliberate than deliberation.

He was pulling the trigger.

He was reading Anorexia Dreaming by Dr. Philipp Anderegg.

An interesting read, sure, but he was suffering from bulimia, technically speaking.

He was certainly embarrassed.

This was a big secret nobody knew.

He was a young man, but he felt like a minority, and he was certainly hooked now.