I Sat on the Closed Toilet and Ate a Granola Bar

Dear Delyara, I was in the bathroom because it was the only room with a lock, and I was hungry in that shaky, low-blood-sugar way that makes kindness harder. So I tore open a granola bar and ate it sitting on the closed toilet seat while the fan ran overhead and somebody downstairs yelled, “Mom?” I didn’t answer the first time. I know how pathetic that sounds. It felt private, not pathetic. It felt like stealing back one ounce of myself before I had to go downstairs and become useful again. When I came out, I said I was just washing my hands. That was a lie. I was trying not to disappear.