Chapter 1

Just because I ate one single cookie over the weekend, my mom cut off my entire monthly allowance on the spot.

She claimed it was to teach me a lesson. At five-foot-five and a hundred and twenty pounds, she considered me obese.

And fat girls don't marry rich.

She forced me to snap photos of every single meal to log on an app, strictly tracking calories. If anything went over three hundred, I was subjected to an hour-long screaming voicemail tirade.

Whenever I earned money from part-time jobs, she instantly snatched my debit card away under the guise of maternal love: "Mom's just keeping it safe so you don't blow it on junk food."

I went on a hunger strike out of pure rage. Instead of worrying, she clapped her hands in delight. "Wonderful! You're finally seeing the light! You finally understand the beauty of self-control."

Starving until my vision blurred, my cousin secretly slipped me a pastry.

The second I took my first bite, my mom seemed to materialize straight out of my shadow. She ripped the food from my hands, snapped a photo, and blasted it into the massive family group chat.

"Look at this! She's lying to me again! What a deceitful little sneak!"

That night, she forced me to stay up and draft a "100-Day Extreme Weight-Loss Plan" targeting a goal of eighty-five pounds.

I finally reached my breaking point and decided to run. But the moment I set foot on the train out of town, a message from her popped up on SnapChat:

"Sweetheart, Mommy quit her job! I can spend twenty-four hours a day helping you slim down now. Aren't you thrilled?"

"Chloe, how many times do I have to tell you? Carbs are a woman's greatest enemy, and sugar combined with fat is an express train straight to hell. You weigh a hundred and twenty pounds. What right do you have to touch a cookie?"

"Mom, it was just one... and it was a holiday..." My defense came out smaller than a mosquito's hum.

"Just one?" She sneered. "One is all it takes to ruin everything. Do you know any high-society wife who stays over ninety-five pounds? At your weight, you wouldn't even make it past their front gates. And you still want to eat?"

My entire life was an endless panopticon.

She made me photograph every meal and send it directly to our private chat, calculating the exact calories using a food app. If a single meal exceeded three hundred calories, what awaited me was an hour-long, unhinged audio rant that barely left her room to breathe.

"Are you a pig? Three hundred and twenty calories for that tiny plate—who do you think you are?"

"Look in the mirror! Your face looks like a swollen balloon, and you're still shoving food down your throat?"

"How did I birth such a weak-willed piece of garbage!"

Whenever I walked through the front door, she was like a trained drug-sniffing hound, smelling me from head to toe.

The scent of takeout, burgers, or even a faint trace of iced mocha syrup never escaped her nose. Any scent inevitably triggered an absolute hurricane.

She conducted random raids on my bedroom, tearing through my backpack and flipping through every page of my textbooks, terrified that I might be stashing snacks.

Once, she found a crumpled candy wrapper in my jacket pocket. It had been left there the week before when I ran an errand for a classmate.

She held that wrapper and waved it in my face for three straight days, demanding relentlessly, "Did you sneak food again? You lying little sneak!"

The delivery apps on my phone were cleaner than my face. She checked my phone daily, and any suspicious charge would act as a detonator for her rage.

I worked grueling weekend tutoring sessions and managed to scrape together a hundred and twenty dollars. The second the direct deposit hit, she seized my debit card. A sweet, motherly smile was plastered across her face. "Sweetheart, Mommy will manage this for you so you don't blow it on junk food. It's all for your own good."

Trembling with rage, I used the only form of protest I had left—a hunger strike.

I thought she would soften. I thought she would worry.

Instead, she clapped her hands in pure, fanatical adoration. "Wonderful! Chloe's finally seeing the light! You finally understand the beauty of discipline, the purifying power of hunger!"

The very next day, she went to the campus housing office and canceled my meal plan.

I starved until stars danced in my vision. In class, watching the professors speak, all my mind could conjure were roasted chickens and glazed steaks pirouetting across the board.

After class, I collapsed face-down on my desk, my stomach cramping as if a fist were tearing through my insides.

When my cousin Maya found me, I didn't even have the strength to lift my head.

She slipped a warm, fresh pastry into my palm and whispered, "Eat it fast. I'll watch the door."