Anorexia, you starve yourself. Bulimia, you binge and purge. You

Host: The city was wrapped in winter’s quiet cruelty. A thin fog crept over the river, swallowing the dim lights that trembled on the water’s surface. Inside a small, nearly empty café, two figures sat near the window, their reflections trembling in the glass like ghosts trying to return to flesh.

The clock ticked in slow, heavy beats. The smell of burnt espresso and cold metal filled the air.

Jack sat with his coat still on, a cigarette burning slowly between his fingers. His face was sharp, pale in the fluorescent glow. Across from him, Jeeny cradled a cup she wasn’t drinking, her eyes distant, her voice barely a whisper when it came.

Jeeny: “Tracey Gold once said, ‘Anorexia, you starve yourself. Bulimia, you binge and purge… It’s about control.’”

Host: The words lingered, fragile and terrifying, like glass about to crack. Jack looked at her, his brow furrowing—not from confusion, but recognition.

Jack: “Control… yeah. I get that.”
Jeeny: “Do you? It’s not really about food, Jack. It never is.”
Jack: “No. It’s about surviving chaos by creating your own order. Even if that order destroys you.”

Host: A draft crept through the door, brushing past Jeeny’s hair, carrying a faint smell of snow. Her hands trembled as she placed the cup down. The sound—a small porcelain click—was louder than it should’ve been.

Jeeny: “It’s strange, isn’t it? How pain disguises itself as control. You tell yourself, ‘If I can just master this one thing—my body, my appetite, my reflection—then the world can’t touch me.’”
Jack: “You make it sound poetic. But it’s not. It’s war. And sometimes control is the only weapon left.”
Jeeny: “A weapon that turns inward. Always inward.”
Jack: “Better inward than nowhere. Better pain you choose than pain handed to you.”

Host: Jack’s voice was steady, but his eyes flickered—like a man standing on the edge of an unspoken confession. Jeeny leaned forward, her gaze fixed, unflinching.

Jeeny: “So you believe control keeps you alive?”
Jack: “It gives you shape. Without it, you dissolve.”
Jeeny: “No, Jack. You disappear because of it. It’s not shape you gain—it’s shadow.”
Jack: “You’re wrong. Control is the last form of freedom. When everything else falls apart, you can still decide what not to eat, what not to feel, what not to need.”
Jeeny: “But at what cost? When you deny yourself enough times, you stop knowing what it is you’re denying. You lose the language of hunger itself.”

Host: The café grew quieter. A few raindrops hit the window, tracing long, trembling lines down the glass. The sound of the refrigerator hummed like a distant, broken heart.

Jack: “You talk like hunger is sacred.”
Jeeny: “It is. It’s the body’s way of saying it still wants to live. Starving it, purging it, punishing it—that’s not control. That’s despair dressed as discipline.”
Jack: “Maybe despair needs discipline. Maybe without it, it just floods everything.”
Jeeny: “That’s not discipline, Jack. That’s drowning with your eyes open.”

Host: Her voice cracked softly at the end, and for the first time, Jack noticed the faint tremor in her hands. The lamplight caught the glint of moisture in her eyes, but she didn’t look away.

Jack: “You’ve seen it, haven’t you? Someone going through it.”
Jeeny: nodding slowly “My sister. She used to hide crackers in her pockets, count calories like sins. I’d hear her in the bathroom at night, whispering apologies to the mirror.”
Jack: “And you couldn’t stop her.”
Jeeny: “No one could. Because it wasn’t about food—it was about guilt. About control over a world that never listened.”
Jack: “Yeah. The world listens to numbers, not cries.”
Jeeny: “Exactly. And she thought if she could control the numbers—the scale, the calories—she could control the silence too.”

Host: The rain began to fall harder, hitting the window in steady rhythms. The café lights dimmed slightly, their flicker mirroring the tremor in Jeeny’s voice.

Jack: “I knew a guy once. In the military. Used to run until he’d collapse. Said the pain made him feel pure. Like the world owed him nothing. I think it’s the same disease, just dressed in different clothes.”
Jeeny: “Because it is. Anorexia, bulimia, overtraining, obsession—it’s all the same hunger for control. The same fear of being devoured by what you can’t name.”
Jack: “Fear of losing shape.”
Jeeny: “Fear of being seen.”

Host: Jack looked away, his reflection caught in the window—a faint outline fading into the storm. The ash from his cigarette dropped onto the table, scattering like dust on memory.

Jack: “Maybe control is the only way some people know they exist. The less they need, the more they believe they matter.”
Jeeny: “But control without compassion is self-erasure. You end up proving your existence by slowly removing it.”
Jack: “Then what’s the alternative? Chaos? Feeling everything?”
Jeeny: “Feeling enough to remember you’re alive. That’s not chaos—it’s courage.”

Host: The rain softened again, turning into a slow, delicate drizzle. The light from the street cast long, tired shadows across their faces.

Jeeny: “You know, Tracey Gold wasn’t wrong—it is about control. But maybe the real question is: control of what? The body? Or the pain underneath it?”
Jack: “You can’t control pain. You can only contain it.”
Jeeny: “And containment becomes a cage.”
Jack: “So what—you just let it spill everywhere? Let the hunger devour you?”
Jeeny: “No. You learn to feed it without letting it eat you.”

Host: Silence fell again. A deep, aching silence. The kind that sits heavy, not empty. Jeeny’s eyes softened; Jack’s shoulders sagged.

Jack: “You think anyone ever really heals from that kind of control?”
Jeeny: “I think healing isn’t the absence of control—it’s the transformation of it. Choosing to nurture instead of deny. To forgive instead of punish.”
Jack: “Forgive the self?”
Jeeny: “Especially the self.”

Host: A light flickered outside—the streetlamp sputtering before it steadied. The storm had passed, leaving behind only the faint sound of dripping water, like the café itself was slowly exhaling.

Jack: “You know, I used to think control was power. Now it just feels like armor I can’t take off.”
Jeeny: “Then maybe tonight, you loosen it a little. Just enough to breathe.”
Jack: “And if I fall apart?”
Jeeny: “Then at least you’ll know you’re human.”

Host: Jack finally stubbed out his cigarette, the smoke curling into the cold air and vanishing. For a moment, his face looked softer—no less haunted, but somehow freer.

Jeeny reached across the table, her fingers brushing against his—just barely.

Jeeny: “Control doesn’t heal, Jack. Connection does.”
Jack: “Then maybe that’s what all this starving’s been about—starving for connection.”
Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host: The rain had stopped. Outside, the streetlights shimmered on the wet pavement, each puddle catching a piece of the broken sky. Inside, the two figures sat quietly, breathing in the fragile stillness.

And between them, in that trembling space between hunger and forgiveness, the first taste of something new began to form—
not control, not denial—
but the slow, trembling beginning of acceptance.