The air in the room thinned. She took my temperature. I closed my eyes and imagined I was a firefly, flying and blinking in the darkness of the night. Normal, she said, after a minute, reading the side. So-you’re sure you don’t think you’re fat?

No, I said.

They’re getting younger and younger, she said, as if reminding me.

But I’m eating, I said.

She wrote that on her clipboard too. Says she’s eating. Good, she said. Here.

She handed over a little paper cup of water. The water was supposedly from a mountain spring, but it had resided in plastic for many weeks and so it was like drinking liquid Lucite with a whisper of a mountain somewhere inside it.

There, honey, she said.

I nodded. I still wanted, very much, to be agreeable.

Now, wasn’t that good? she said, wiping down the thermometer with an alcohol-dipped tissue.

Water is important, I said, gripping the cup. We have to drink it or we die.

Just like food, she said.

I like food, I said, louder.

Three meals a day?

Yes.

And do you ever make yourself throw up?

No.

Or are you taking any pills to make yourself go to the bathroom? she asked, eyebrows raised.

I shook my head. The vent whirred, and the air conditioner kicked up a notch. I could feel the tears beginning to collect in my throat again, but I pushed them apart, away from each other. Tears are only a threat in groups.

Well, she sighed. Then just give it a couple of days, she said. She put her clipboard to the side.

That’s it?

That’s it, she said, smiling.

No medicine?

Nah, she said. You seem fine.

But what is it? I asked.

She fixed her watch on her wrist, lifted her shoulders. I don’t know, she said. Maybe an allergy?

To food?

Or, she said, maybe an active imagination?

I picked up the hall pass. The rest of the day stretched long before me.