In time, I learned how to cheat my body’s system, depriving it of food and exhausting it with exercise. I started to walk with my thighs spread apart from each other, keeping my hips locked and my gait wide. My hips tried to relax, begging me to stop putting them in the middle of my mind’s complex-driven conquest. But I was too terrified to hear them plead, terrified of being hated by the cruel boys in my class who wanted someone emptier than I was.