Read Zoe Letting Go for Free Online

plate back down on the side table with a decisive clang, then returned to my table with as much indignation as possible. My act of rebellion, I could tell, sent a ripple through the room.
    Privately, my disobedience had plunged me into nauseated unease. A gulp of ice water didn’t help to soothe my stomach, so I poured myself a third glass. The three girls at the other table had returned to their seats, where they sat motionlessly in front of their food. Nobody ate.
    When Devon returned to my table a moment later, she carried two plates: her own, topped with a mountain of food, and mine, topped with a mountain of equal altitude. She set one of the plates down in front of me as though nothing had happened. The smell of nutmeg wafted up from our table.
    “House rules,” she said. “Everything on your plate.”
    Once again I looked at the others, desperately seeking an understanding of some kind. Devon was clearly the enemy, but Victoria, with her small gesture of alliance—the eye roll—seemed like a potential friend. She didn’t notice my glance, however, and I watched helplessly as she compressed a piece of bread into the smallest ball possible, squeezing until it was perfectly spherical. She then put the ball into her mouth and swallowed it down with water, like a boa constrictor.
    Devon spoke again. “You can take as long as you like,” she said. “But you need to eat everything.” I watched as she speared a golden raisin from the pilaf, dipped it in squash, and conveyed the massive bite into her mouth. She chewed with relish, her ponytail bobbing.
    “It’s not negotiable,” she added, her mouth full.
    “I don’t mean to be rude,” I said, “but—”
    “It has nothing to do with rudeness,” Devon interjected. She swallowd her bite. “Rules are rules.”
    Was I being force-fed?
    Gazing around the room, I took stock of the ways in which the other girls were dealing with the menace of dinner. Caroline had not touched her food, but the scene unfolding next to her was a different picture entirely: Brooke, sitting a foot or so to Caroline’s right, was shoveling food into her mouth as quickly as possible. On Caroline’s other side was pale, bird-like Jane, who bent over her meal like a test-taker shielding answers from a nearby cheater. It dawned on me slowly that of all the sentient beings in the room, Devon was the only one who consumed her food in away that most humans would recognize as normal. Zesty “mmms” and “yummys” escaped from her lips as she forked fluffy bites of pilaf and slices of tofu into her mouth. She swiped a piece of bread over her plate, catching every drop of olive oil, and closed her eyes with relish as she chewed it up.
    With its cargo of miserable diners, the dining room had transformed itself from a decadent stage set to a tomblike enclosure. Candlelight, which is ordinarily so reliable at casting a flattering light, instead deepened Victoria’s gaunt cheeks and turned Brooke’s under-eye circles from beige to lilac-blue. In the low light, the Oriental rug underfoot looked like an ocean of spilled spaghetti sauce. Indeed, with its shadows and the stillness of its surroundings, the dining room at Twin Birch was imbued with a silence more complete than anything I’ve ever experienced. It was possible to hear every sniffle, swallow, and bite. Every tearing of bread and clinking of ice. Every moan of discomfort.
    Perhaps this was intentional,
I thought. Perhaps we’re supposed to focus on the act of eating, with everything else blocked out. It’s impossible to know. I can discern almost nothing about the rules of Twin Birch except that they are detailed and strict, and I would not be surprised to learn that every element of this place has been researched and engineered with a hidden purpose in mind. But what purpose, I had no idea.
    Having no choice, I ate my food. But it is hard to eat when you’re nearly choking with anger. I’m of the mind that no one should be forced