If you missed any previous installments, go back to Words From the Sowul and read from Part 1.

8:32. Kristy drove to the supermarket in a high haze of brain fog, nearly missing the turn and cutting off a woman in a black Jaguar as a result. The woman took it out on her car horn. Kristy managed to park without incident and took a moment to savor the clean, empty feeling in her body. Then she pulled up hard on the emergency brake, snatched her keys from the ignition, and went inside.

Excitement built inside her as she entered the lobby and detached a shopping cart from its long, neat line. There were giant displays of seasonal corn and blueberries set up right inside the doors to tempt the customers, but that wasn’t what Kristy was here for. She took two plastic bags and stuffed a few plums in one, a large cucumber in the other. Warm-up foods, look-good foods. Then she breezed past the fruits and vegetables, heading for the ten long aisles in the middle of the store. She’d read once that if you wanted to eat healthy, you should stick to the perimeter of the store; the middle was where all the fat, calories and preservatives were. Well, she knew that all too well, didn’t she?

This time she started with the breakfast aisle. Coco Puffs, her childhood favorite, and Golden Grahams, her dad’s favorite, both went into the cart. Then the snack aisle. Honey roasted nuts, which her parents always used to put in a crystal candy dish to snack on while opening Christmas presents. Sour cream and onion Pringles, the same ones she and her dad packed every summer for the beach and ended up finishing in the car on the way there. Kristy’s steps became hurried, urgent, as she went down the soda aisle and threw in a six-pack of Coke (summer nights on the porch) and over to the refrigerated section, where she pulled out cookie dough (movie night) and Yoplait with Reece’s pieces (lunch, junior year of high school). The big finale was the freezer aisle. A family-size pizza (traditional Friday dinner) and a jumbo Boston Market chicken pot pie (when her mom didn’t feel like cooking). And then, remembering Marly and Bob’s food-naming game, she threw in a pint of Ben and Jerry’s and a box of chocolate-cake donuts, just for the hell of it.

Hands trembling with anticipation, Kristy wheeled the cart to the self-checkout counter and whipped through the items faster than the teenaged grocery store employee servicing the line next to her. She swiped her debit card, grabbed her bags and almost sprinted out of the store, feeling the relief of not getting spotted by any of her clients, and the buzzing in her ears in anticipation of feeling satisfied, full, after nearly a day of deprivation.

She broke open the Pringles and one of the Coke cans before she even left the parking lot. The pop of the chip can and sizzle of the Coke made her moan with euphoria. Driving as fast as she could with one hand, she kept the other dipping in and out of the chips until her fingers were coated with grease and salt, and her stomach started to feel pleasantly warm. She was elbow-deep in the can when she pulled onto her street, and after she parked in the driveway of her apartment house, she grabbed the can and shook all the remaining crumbs into her mouth.

Kristy stuck the rest of her groceries into her gym bag (the pizza was a bit of a stretch) and hoisted it onto her shoulder. She walked up the path to the front hall, which was lit from inside. She opened the front door quietly, hoping she’d be able to sneak upstairs without interruption, but-

“Kristy, there you are!” Her landlord, Mr. Grayson, opened the door to his downstairs apartment just as Kristy’s foot hit the first stair. “We’ve been wondering when you’d be home.”

“Hi Mr. Grayson,” she said with a wavering smile. The Graysons’ six-pound Pomeranian skidded around Mr. Grayson’s legs and greeted Kristy with a series of happy barks. “Hi, Peanut,” she said, reaching down to pet the wiry fur. Her gym bag slipped off her shoulder and landed with a clunk on the floor. Mr. Grayson frowned.

“What have you got in there? Did you bring weights home from the gym?”

“Uh, yes!” she said, fumbling with the bag, attempting to shield its uneven, clunky shape from Mr. Grayson. “Yes, I have to work on a routine for a new client, and I thought it would help to have the weights with me.”

“Well, just don’t be dropping them on the floor, okay?” Mr. Grayson reminded her. “Mrs. Grayson goes to bed at ten.”

“Yes, I know,” Kristy said, and started up the stairs. “Have a good night!” she called over her shoulder.

She opened the door to her apartment and flipped on the light. It was exactly the way she’d left it that morning- clean dishes in the dish rack, pillows straightened on the saggy couch. She’d gotten the apartment fully furnished from the Graysons the previous fall. It had come complete with an electric-blue shag carpet, a gray microfiber couch, a surprisingly comfortable full-size bed, and a full set of stainless steel kitchen appliances that Kristy never used.

Kristy threw her keys in the small china dish on the entertainment unit and went into the kitchen, which was open to the living room. She put the gym bag on the island and started to unpack it. Now that she had a little food in her stomach, she could afford to take her time, be ceremonial. She pulled out an assortment of bowls and plates from the cabinets- plastic, polished wood, even some of her grandmother’s crystal. She poured the honey roasted nuts into a goblet, opened the cookie dough and arranged it in slices around a plate. She poured a bowlful of each cereal and stuck a spoon into the Yoplait after emptying the Reeces into it. She stuck the pizza in the microwave and the pot pie in the toaster oven. She took a crisp bite out of the cucumber and laid it on a separate plate with the plums, away from the rest. She let the Ben and Jerry’s defrost on the counter. She decided to leave the donuts for now.

Two and three at a time, she brought everything into the living room and turned on the television. She clicked around until she settled on a marathon of House, M.D. on USA. She needed something dark, dramatic, absorbing.

And then Kristy began to eat.

Her eating was slow and methodical, until it was hurried and haphazard, and then it became ponderous. She thought of her bites like musical tempos: andante, allegro, vivace, moderato. Her eating was sad, and then it was joyful. It was a full stomach, and then a sickened stomach, and then blessed numbness. It was feeling out of control, and then in control, because she was doing exactly what she wanted to be doing. It was terrifying and exhilarating together, like being on a roller coaster. As on a roller coaster, she didn’t look down. She didn’t see her food. She kept her eyes on the television, and felt only with her hands, her lips, her tongue. After awhile, she lost the feeling in her tongue. She lost the feeling in her throat and her stomach and everything except her hand, picking up a handful of sugar-gritted nuts, making contact with a cold spoon, a hot crust, an aluminum pie plate.

She took breaks. She didn’t want to, but she had to. She had to let each batch of food settle. So she lay down on the couch, trying to focus on the television show, fighting to keep the sadness and darkness at bay, the tears and the ache and the holes that were always there but could be controlled by pushing down, pushing out, forcing her body to do what she wanted it to. When she felt her control slip, when she felt the feelings rise, she sat up and started eating again.

Sometimes she heaved, groaned, moaned and rocked her stomach. Her belly was starting to push out, distended like those starving kids in Africa on the Christian Children’s Fund commercials. It was a strange fact of life, Kristy sometimes thought, that being full and being empty could look the same on the outside.

Kristy finished with the Ben and Jerry’s around 12:30AM. She meant to get up and get the donuts from the kitchen, but she couldn’t move. She was feeling tired now, her limbs aching from the day’s exercise, her stomach aching from the night’s eating. Exercise and eating both took work, created the same aches and pains, even as they worked their opposing forces on her body. “No pain, no gain,” Kristy whispered to herself as she dropped into sleep, an afghan half draped over her legs, the light from the television flickering over her face. Her last thought was to wonder why her feet felt so tingly.

Tune in tomorrow for the FINAL installment!