A man sprawls over the kerb near the café entrance, a cardboard sign reading ‘Need money for food’ folded limply over one combat boot. He blinks from under his hat at Valerie, who returns his stare, feeling in her pocket for coins. Only a paper receipt and a rumpled box of Werther’s Originals. She shakes her head at him, shrugging.
Besides, the door is in front of her now, and from it issues a buzz that becomes a cacophony as she drives it open with her shoulder. Through the haze, she can make out the back of Harvey’s head. Valerie pauses. Cold trickle behind one ear. Plunges in.
The words in her head are tumbling like a washing machine. Harvey offers polite things he thinks she wants to hear. Tink, tink, tink, says her glass to her forefinger.

Her mother’s voice says,
You have to tell him.
Her father’s voice says,
Some things are better left.

She’s hungry. Oh, the hunger. It’s like a cat kneading her belly from the inside, claws out. Pepsi Max, carrots, and coffee help – consumed slowly, but eventually, eventually, she always caves. Stuffs down cereal and ice cream. Shameful slink to the bathroom, raking of bare fingers on oesophagus, food glaring back up at her. Resting her forehead on the porcelain edge. Flush it away.

Harvey is asking what she wants to order. She reads quickly, skipping each second and third word. Hyperlexia, WebMD has told her; an ability to read at astonishing speeds. If only the calories were listed.

Not today, she thinks. Today is different. For my baby. What are you hungry for, baby?

She had planted tomato seeds the Tuesday before she found out, sowing them in damp circular furrows in terracotta pots she found strewn about the courtyard. Valerie had found comfort in covering the tiny kernels with earth, wishing she could curl up with them. Escape the shame, the imprint of a stranger’s touch she hadn’t consented to, barely remembered. The dim room she had opened her eyes to, her body clammy and strange. The emaciated cat that looked up from the tuna can it was licking when Valerie crept out of the front door.

“Eggs,” she says firmly, tapping the menu with her forefinger. “With smoked salmon. Shit, no, I’m not eating that right now.”
She bites her lip. Bacon is so high in fat.
 “With bacon,” out loud.
Harvey smiles, pleased. Valerie likes the way his mouth stretches across his cheeks, likes the way his eyes squint at her.
I have to tell him.

There had been no question for Valerie as to the fate of the embryo she hadn’t planned or wanted.  The faint second line under the dim light of the Kathleen Syme library bathrooms whispering to her, Here I am. The result was a heady sense of newness, a bubble of joy, bursting in her heart.
“This is happening,” she murmured, shaking the test, pulling up her underwear, reaching to steady herself on the toilet paper dispenser. A voice in the next stall asked if she was all right.
“I will be,” she said.
She went back to her books in a reverie, putting away the returns in wrong places. Valerie feels like a chaplain when she works in the library. The visitors talk in whispers. She loves the neatness of it all. One can’t argue with the Dewey Decimal system. It satisfies her to tuck a book into its slot on the shelf.

“Val?” Harvey and the waitress are looking expectantly at her.
“Oh, gosh, sorry. Yes, I’m done.” She slides her cup to the edge of the table. Harvey nods a thanks to the girl, who huffs expletives on her way back to the kitchen.
I’m not going to tell him. He’ll never speak to me again.

Last night she dreamed she was in her mother's house, in her old room, sorting through boxes of books with torn dust covers, books about children having adventures and going on seaside picnics. She found trinkets among them: a dollar coin, a bent bottle cap, totems from boys she adored in the past who failed her. Men – insatiable, craving, and taking without asking. Never wanting her, just her poor, scarred body.

She misses his question this time.
“Sorry, Harv, I wasn’t listening. What did you say?” she mumbles. She inspects her nails. Bitten, the skin around them too. Her thumbnail has a small catch on the side.
“I know; your eyes were glazed over. What were you thinking about?”

Harvey has been different from the start. She is his first girlfriend, he tells her. He plays video games, uses Apple hardware exclusively, jogs on weekends. He doesn’t cook. She looked in his refrigerator once. It contained three packaged lasagnes and a bottle of orange juice.

Harvey’s hair grows vertically. He tweezes the middle of his eyebrows. He asks her what music she listens to, where she has travelled, what her life was like in Wellington before she moved. He nodded when she declined food on their first date. It was the first time she had told anyone about her eating disorder. He didn’t probe. He just listened.

The waitress plonks her plate down, smiles without sincerity at Harvey, sweeps back to the counter. Valerie watches with envy. Measures with her eyes the small of the girl’s apron-cinched waist. She cuts a piece of toast and crunches it slowly. Butter trickling from the bread. The egg yolk is firm on the outside, soft in the middle, golden, perfect.
Valerie puts her fork down, folds her hands together to disguise their trembling. She scans the room for the bathroom, marking it for later. Harvey is talking about a new movie they could see at the Carlton cinema. Her ears are pulsing.
Now. It has to be now.
She tells him.

He recoils as though she has offered him a snake. The glow of his cheeks, shaved that morning, has drained, leaving him spectral. I didn’t know people could become so white, she thinks vaguely.
“Harvey…”
He pauses. Looks around before lowering his voice. “What do you mean? How? How long have you known?”
Valerie wilts. “Harv, I think it was at a bar a few months back. Before we met. I didn’t tell you, I was… embarrassed. I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t… I didn’t choose this. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
And she repeats it numbly, nothing more to offer him. You’re fucked, she tells herself. Smiles without meaning to. And he’s angry now.
“Is this a joke, Val? I really liked you. Tell me it’s a joke.”
Still so pale, his lips set in a thin line. She can barely hear him over the noise. She watches his mouth instead. Shakes her head, looks down at the table.
Harvey’s chair legs scrape across the concrete.
“I have to go. I need to go. I’ll… I’ll call you. Tomorrow.”

But he doesn’t call tomorrow. She vacuums the webs from the stairwell, spreads tomato sauce onto microwaved asparagus, hangs work clothes outside, though the sky promises to turn soon. Missed video call from Mum. She rings Simon instead. He tells her that it’s raining back home.

He never calls.
Instead, he materialises at the door. Pushes the door bell. Waits. She sees his shadow against the blind drawn down against the early sun. Her fingers curl around the cool of the handle. The kettle behind her ceases steaming with a snap. She nudges the door forward to create a gap, shoulder wide.
“It’s broken,” she says tartly.
“Hey, Valerie. How are you feeling?” he says apologetically, adjusting the strap of his bag. She can see the outline of his laptop.
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. Why are you here?”
He shakes his head. “Val, I’m sorry. I needed to think. It’s a lot, I just had to go home and think.”
Valerie scrunches the hem of her hoodie into a ball. “Harvey, go away. You don’t want to be mixed up in this. With me. I don’t need you.” 
And she looks at his feet planted in their Vans on the doormat, waiting for them to turn and shuffle away. Instead, they scuff closer.
 “Val, listen. I really like you. I don’t know what it’s going to be like. But I want to see you again. Will you go out with me again?” He takes her hand. The hairs on his catch the light, and she looks at him. His eyes are honest under his frown.
“I want to see you again,” he repeats. “Please. Just have dinner with me.”
Valerie sucks in a breath, drops her eyes again. “I’m cooking this time. The scrambled eggs you made were awful.”
She draws Harvey into a blurry hug, feeling him chuckle against her ear. A citrus whisper of aftershave. The slenderness of his frame gives her a pang.

But her stomach feels warm, she is already planning her shopping list, and the sun is shining on the seeds she planted last Tuesday.